No matter the industry or size, you’ll be hard pressed to
find a business that doesn’t use some sort of technology in their daily
processes.
That’s a fact of life when you live and work in the 21st
century.
What many don’t realize is just how much they can get out of
technology; they stick with the bare minimum, thinking that’s more than enough.
Wrong—why not make the most of what you have?
For example, if you can this and that in half the time that
it normally would, why wouldn’t you?
That’s the basis of what we’re going to be discussing today:
adopting workflow automation tools for your enterprise so your employees can
work smarter, not harder.
Before we get to that, what exactly is workflow automation?
What Is Workflow Automation?
A definition for “workflow” is the sequence of industrial, administrative, or other processes through
which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion.
Specific to the enterprise, a workflow can be seen as a
system—a workflow management system—that exemplifies how tasks, documents or
any other sort of information is passed from person to person, group to group.
In other words, from beginning to end, it’s how things get
done.
Expanding on this, at each stage in the workflow, someone or
something is responsible for specific tasks that, when completed, signal to the
next one(s) in the chain that it’s their turn.
At first glance, this seems normal and efficient, but when
you narrow down on what’s happening, you’ll see that each stage presents an
opportunity for improvement.
That’s workflow automation. It’s when you automate and
streamline existing business activities and processes, thereby reducing human
error so the enterprise can complete tasks more efficiently, accurately and
consistently.
Do I Need to Automate My Workflow?
More often than not, the answer to “do I need to automate my
workflow?” will be a resounding yes.
Even if you’re part of a small operation, chances are very
good that you’ll gain some workflow
automation tool benefits in doing so, such as minimizing inefficiencies
and better managing resources, which both lead to an improved bottom line.
This is because, with an automated workflow in place, you
have a system that automatically handles processes for your employees and,
apart from saving time by doing things automatically as opposed to manually,
essentially allows them to focus on more important tasks.
For instance, if you have any sort of repetitive tasks, you
have an opportunity for automation that will optimize your resources for future
processes, allowing you to meet new demands.
With that in mind, what are other workflow benefits of automation?
What Are the Automation Benefits and Limitations of a Workflow Management System?
Making use of workflow automation tools in your enterprise
comes with a lot of benefits that can all help it grow.
For example, on a smaller scale, if your employees no longer
need to manual notify others when something is complete, downtime between tasks
is essentially eliminated, creating a smoother workflow.
On a larger scale, automating workflows for the entire
enterprise can save time and reduce errors and costs, all of which give it the
competitive edge it needs in our current business landscape that’s saturated by
competitors.
As for limitations, the only real limitation of automating
workflow would be if there is no workflow to automate.
Even if you’re automating the minimum, such as an automated
email reply for orders, you’ll save time each time an email is sent
automatically.
Workflow
Benefit 1: Automation Saves You Time
The very fact that some business processes will be automated
means that you can complete (more) tasks faster, allowing your business to save
time and speed up the workflow as a whole.
This, in turn, will give your employees more time to focus
on other tasks like those that can be categorized as revenue-generating
activities.
For example, think of an inventory management system in a
warehouse.
By tracking inventory on-hand as well as all sales and
transactions, the system not only knows when inventory needs to purchased, but
by tracking past sales and trends, will also know exactly how much will be
needed.
Workflow
Benefit 2: Automation Reduces Errors
A very big part of being human is to err—we just can’t
escape it.
But, in business, a place where a single error can cost
upward of millions of dollars, being human doesn’t seem like a good excuse for
the occasional error.
Thankfully, with an automated system handling your workflow,
errors can be greatly reduced or even completely eliminated as machines take
over what was previously left up to a human to complete.
Additionally, with the right software backing you up, you’ll
be able to ensure quality work at the first go, which saves you the hassle of
going back a second or third time to get things right.
In other words, by eliminating manual and human errors, time
and resources can both be saved and re-integrated into the enterprise.
Workflow Benefit 3: Automation Reduces Costs
Like we just touched on, automated workflows can save time
and reduce errors.
When combined, both of these things lead to reduced costs
for the enterprise because we all know that time is money, and less errors
means less time and money spent correcting them.
That is to say, overall, automation can streamline pretty
much every process it touches so time and resources can be saved and diverted
to where they’re needed most, not where they’re simply needed.
As for the errors, that’s pretty much self-explanatory;
errors take valuable time away from the company because they need to be
corrected if less errors down the line are to be expected.
Final Thoughts
If it can be considered a mandate of owning a business, one
would be to grow.
Thankfully, incorporating automation tools into your
workflow can do just that.
For example, consider Aprimo, a leader in global marketing
operations that offers performance-driven software for workflow automation.
By offering intelligent workflow capabilities that
automatically assign and route tasks, all the manual labor of project
management is eliminated.
And by quickly assigning and managing resources for each
project, you’ll be able to increase your speed to market so you can focus more
on optimizing and tailoring everything to perfection.
Good luck!
