In the past, sales processes were mostly manual, so the digitization and automation of business processes were not available to companies, and time and effort had to be invested in executing each task, such as loading data manually. It was also common that there was duplication of tasks and that a process took longer than expected. The time that employees could use it in activities of greater strategic value.
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Business process automation is the use of technology to replace human intervention in high-volume, repetitive, and time-consuming tasks. Automating a process involves shifting responsibility for completing activities from people to machines. As a result, manual efforts are kept to a minimum.
This enables business processes to be more cost-effective, error-proof, and functionally consistent in the long run. The goal of this article is to identify the benefits of automating business processes, but also to help you discern when it is not convenient to automate to prevent technology from working against you.
Among the advantages that stand out from automating business processes in your company, we can mention the following.
Time savings is the main benefit of automating business processes. A study revealed that office workers spend 2 to 12 hours a day on administrative tasks, such as searching for information, approving paperwork, and processing documents.
Business process automation solutions can complete these tasks much faster and without errors. Ultimately, process automation means employees can better spend their working time.
Along with the cost of labor is the cost of lost profits. Organizations lose 20-30% of revenue each year due to inefficient processes. Shifting from manual to automated business processes helps minimize risks and errors. This way there is no need to waste time and money on troubleshooting.
The reduction in operating costs is demonstrated by the fact that companies that decided to automate their processes reduced their overall costs by 10% and increased overall profits by 8%.
When heavy and monotonous tasks are delegated to a digital solution, multiple processes can be handled simultaneously. This leads to higher productivity.
On top of that, business process automation also improves the employee experience by allowing your staff to focus on more important tasks, such as revenue-generating activities.
A process is efficient when the best result is achieved with the least possible effort. When a series of predefined steps, or what we commonly know as formalized processes, are performed consistently, there is no room for deviation. In addition, automation translates into better quality and communication, greater visibility, and more efficient task management.
Notes, calls, and emails to convey information can be replaced with more modern solutions, usually included in business process automation software. When the team has a dashboard to check task progress, it's easier to manage deadlines and streamline collaboration. Also, no detail can be lost in translation.
It is not about how skillful your employees are. To err is human; mistakes happen. Manual errors, points of inefficiency, and delays are inevitable. Eliminating the risk of errors makes the process feel smoother and helps avoid redundant operations. In this sense, the probability of errors decreases drastically when processes are automated.
Each phase of an automated process is always logged in an audit flag. That makes it possible to trace the documents involved, plot their course, see who did what, and check when each action occurred. Such control not only improves accuracy and reliability but also provides the organization with auditable records of each specific business workflow.
These records are easily retrievable should the need arise, for example when it comes to responding to customer inquiries or demonstrating regulatory compliance.
Convenience and quick access to a service are key features customers look for when comparing different providers. Automation enables faster, more accurate, and better quality services for customers. Plus, it's easier to help them when information can be easily retrieved rather than wasting hours searching through the paperwork. Meeting the promised standard of operational excellence generates greater satisfaction, which in turn increases trust, loyalty, and competitive advantage.
As the customer base expands and the number of employees increases, the scope of work also intensifies. Issuing 20 invoices manually is not the same as issuing 2,000. Nor is sending 10 emails the same as sending 15,000. The same goes for every other business process, from hiring new team members to onboarding new customers and more.
Changing business needs and changing regulatory requirements can be addressed effortlessly with automation. As a result, automation in business processes helps improve scalability performance.
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Process automation should not always be used. Instead, it can be used as long as we have defined the processes, what the tasks of the process are, the inputs, and outputs, and how many people are responsible for the process. Now, if we want to automate a process, and we don't have it properly formalized, we can arrive at the reasoning that automation turns against us.
Let's suppose that in your sales area you want to hire a CRM but you don't have a specific idea of the processes that you should automate. The CRM will allow us to store a large volume of information, but if after a while the process was not ready to be automated, the data will not be loaded properly, the information will be lost and more time will end up being wasted.
Consequently, automating business processes without defined processes and clear tasks would not do us any good. It will become a waste of time and resources when the previous step of formalization is missing.
To automate, it is key to understand where to automate, because if you do not identify the improvement that is intended to be automated, you will be working in vain and the solution will become a problem. Ultimately, although automation offers several advantages, not everything is automatable and it is by no means the answer when processes are not standardized.
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To conclude, the automation of business processes offers very diverse and broad advantages, such as cost reduction, increased productivity, scalability, the recording of indicators, and time savings for employees. However, let's not forget that automating a process just to follow the trend of the moment is not the best decision when you don't have the processes defined or formalized beforehand.
It is like building a house without a foundation, and no one can live in a house without a foundation, since sooner or later the walls will crumble. The same goes for automation without formalized processes.