In past articles, we've covered the advantages and disadvantages of business process automation for each niche.
Discussed how optimization can speed up and simplify a company's operations, reduce costs and improve the quality of its products and services.
In this article, we will look at what a company can gain by using business process automation.
What is business process automation?
Automation of business processes - is the use of technology and software to automatically perform tasks related to specific company work. This may include information transfer, data collection, project management, task tracking, etc.
Typically, companies use process optimization to increase efficiency, improve quality, and reduce costs.
After all, by doing so, there is a reduction in the time it takes to complete tasks and a reduction in errors, which in turn leads to improved company performance and competitiveness.
What industries need business process automation?
The main objective of automation is to increase efficiency and optimize the company's operations, as well as reduce the cost of labor-intensive work. Therefore, any industry can benefit from such changes.
It is often integrated by large companies, medium and small enterprises, as well as startups and innovative projects. Depending on the specifics of the business and its needs, companies choose the most appropriate tools and platforms for automation.
Let's take the example of the workings of a lawsuit:
As you know, litigation involves a tremendous amount of red tape, from case processing to sentencing to signing deeds.
But, if a document management system (EDMS) is integrated into this process, it will significantly reduce the time required to prepare documentation.
Since EDMS will help to quickly and easily find the necessary data, as well as quickly and securely exchange them between the participants in the legal process. In addition, it can reduce the likelihood of errors in the course of the case. After all, the necessary templates and formats of documents will be stored in a database, where they can be signed with an EDS and stamped.
And, thus, integration into the litigation process can help reduce time and resources, streamline document sharing between litigants, reduce the cost of paper resources, reduce the likelihood of errors, and improve court efficiency.
Stages of automation
Process optimization consists of five basic steps:
- Analysis and design.
- Software development and customization.
- Testing and Implementation.
- Training and support
- Monitoring and Improvement.
To successfully complete each optimization point, the team can leverage their experience as well as various services like: SAP, 1C, AWS, etc.
In the analysis phase, the team defines the goals and vision of the product, then aggregates the requirements and develops the project architecture. Documentation services such as Docs and Word; and mind maps such as Miro and MindMeister can help with this stage.
And while the product vision is being developed, the hard work of recruiting specialists and integrating the necessary software that the business requires begins.
Once the project has been developed and successfully tested, training and support for staff to work effectively in the new ecosystem begins. This point can be helped by the experts who developed the project or by various sources such as Coursera, SberCloud and BeCloud.
What does automation bring to a business?
Business process optimization can provide the following benefits:
- Increased Productivity.
- Cost Reduction.
- Improving the customer experience.
- Improved analytics.
- Improving accuracy and reliability in the process.
Increased efficiency
One of the main benefits is a significant acceleration of routine tasks and processes such as order processing, inventory management and recording financial transactions, allowing employees to be freed from these tasks and focus their efforts on more important tasks such as developing new products, improving customer experience and increasing sales.
As a result, business productivity increases, which can lead to increased profits and improved competitiveness.
Cost reduction
With optimization, you can significantly reduce the overall budget of the company, for various things like:
- Personnel costs.
Due to the fact that the need for manual work is reduced and the number of employees who are engaged in repetitive tasks (data entry, processing applications, etc.) is reduced, salary costs and the burden on the HR department are significantly reduced. - The need for paperwork.
Automation also helps reduce paperwork (printing documents, faxing, etc.) which in turn helps reduce the cost of consumables, paper, toner, etc. - Reduced maintenance costs.
Also the next step is to reduce the cost of maintenance and repair of equipment, as the system can warn about possible problems in advance and perform regular maintenance in a timely manner. This leads to a reduction in repair and replacement of equipment in the future. - Error Reduction.
Errors associated with manual data entry and other processes that are prone to human error are also reduced.
And consists of minimizing errors and increasing productivity. - Time reduction.
Most importantly, it reduces the time it takes to complete tasks that used to be done manually.
For example, an automated project management system can help speed up the planning and management process, which can lead to shorter turnaround times.
Improving the quality of products and services
In addition to reducing costs and improving productivity, optimization can help businesses speed up order processing and simplify the payment process, which greatly improves the customer experience.
In addition, improve the quality of service by automatically sending notifications about order status or providing personalized recommendations, based on the customer's purchase history. This can lead to an increased level of user satisfaction and increase their loyalty.
Improved management
In addition, automated analytics tools provide the ability to improve management by identifying trends and patterns and providing deeper data analysis.
Which will be extremely useful for businesses that operate in e-commerce or have a large amount of data to process.
Conclusion
It is important to realize that business process automation is not a one-size-fits-all solution for all companies.
Some businesses may have a complex ecosystem that is difficult to optimize.
Therefore, a thorough analysis and evaluation of the efficiency and feasibility of the process should be done before starting automation.
This is an important step for modern businesses looking to improve efficiency and competitiveness.
If you want to automate your business, you can contact us at sailet.kz