Your employees may be wasting time on unproductive and routine tasks. Inefficient activities, such as paying bills by snail mail, sending social media updates at various times of the day, and writing commonly sent emails from scratch, use up precious hours from your week. Doing routine procedures manually, by memory, and from scratch leaves your projects subject to typographical and omission errors. Your business should look at the ways your staff completes tasks by breaking them down step by step. Consider manual and mental activities, how long each step takes, the frequency of the task, and how it is allocated to other people. Once you break down the task, look for areas your business can automate using the below functions. Each will have an example to kick-start your ideas for automating your processes:
What methods businesses can use to automate their tasks?
Batch processing: Your employees should group similar tasks and complete them at once.
Examples
- Rotate, resize, and compress image files in Photoshop by creating a custom function called an action.
- Save repeated Excel formatting tasks by writing a macro for later use.
Auto responding: Send a response to someone requesting information.
Examples
- A new customer who fills out a form on your website should receive an email stating, “Thank you for your interest in our services. A representative will be in contact with you shortly.”
- Setting up an out-of-office vacation reply for contacts in Outlook.
Self-help: Refer people to a knowledge base instead of answering the same questions over and over.
Examples
- Company Wiki sites with training documents for new employees.
- An FAQ page on your website for customers with commonly asked questions.
Templates: Create a partially completed file you can change to suit your needs.
Examples
- Your accounting department can use a Sage template to report on profit and return on equity.
- Your employees can fill out pre-formatted InfoPath forms to turn in expense reports.
Consolidation: Access data and services in one place.
Examples
- Sales employees can use Salesforce to track progress with leads, send out email campaigns, search for new contacts, post social media updates, access a reporting dashboard, and more.
- Workers can use Microsoft Teams to instant message, make phone calls, and run online meetings.
What are the benefits of business process automation?
- Reduced error from manual input
- Greater efficiency in completing tasks
- Increased output
- Quicker and smarter decision making
- More time for business growth projects
- Increased client satisfaction
If you need assistance with deciding which work procedures to automate, a business technology analyst, such as SwiftTech Solutions, can help. You can call 877-794-3811 or email info@swifttechsolutions.com for a free consultation.
SOURCES
TechRepublic. Gain a competitive edge with process automation. (2013, November 24). Retrieved from: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/tech-decision-maker/gain-a-competitive-edge-with-process-automation/#
LaPonsie, M. 3 Ways to Automate Your Small Business. (2013, March 19). Retrieved from: http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/tipsforsmallbusiness/3-ways-to-automate-your-small-business.html
Hosting Xtreme. How To Automate Your Business Tasks. (2013, July 12). Retrieved from: http://news.hostingxtreme.com/how-to-automate-your-business-tasks/
IBM. Business analytics: Make informed and optimized decisions everywhere, to improve outcomes and manage risk. Retrieved from: http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/en/category/business-analytics
SearchCIO. business process automation (BPA). Retrieved from: http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/business-process-automation
KissFlow. Top 5 Reasons why you should automate your business process. (2013, July 26). Retrieved from: http://kissflow.com/process_playbook/5-reasons-why-you-should-automate-your-business-process/
Porter, J. 7 Ways You’re Wasting Time and Don’t Even Know It. (2012, July 30). Retrieved from: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/224090#