Business Automation for Success
Automating critical business processes is not limited to just corporate and big companies; small companies do need automation to run and grow cost-efficiently. To run a business efficiently and effectively, a business owner must adopt all the latest strategies and technologies required to automate the business.
For automation to succeed, you need well-documented business processes. When you have business processes, they streamlining, automating and measuring them for performance. So, business process automation is essential for all type of business as long as it has a business process.
For a small business, it means leveraging the business resources for growth and cost-efficiency. When you automate your business, it releases crucial and expensive resources to work effectively "on the business" rather than "in the business". Automation means increasing service efficiency, reducing operating costs and increasing profits.
Just imagine, that you have all the information in hand to make a better decision, provide a quote to the customer when they ask for it with informed costs and payments for your invoices on time. Would these not increase your revenue? Not having enough money has always been the biggest challenge for a small business or a start-up and second is not having the right resources.
Above mentioned are just a few values you could get by automating your business. Due to this demand, there are many consultancies which provide such service to automate and manage business processes for low cost to businesses. Business automation must be the foremost consideration in your Business Growth Strategy.
7 Tips to start with your business automation
Here are seven tips for automating your business:
1. Make a list of all business functions or processes such as invoicing, payments, allocating work, signing off work completed, expenses submission etc. Then document and measure how many hours in a day, month or year spent on them by resources dedicated or ad-hoc. Start with the simple, straightforward process and automate to achieve quick wins.
2. Try to develop a culture which embraces automation as a part of the business process and where people have no qualms about discarding old non-performing processes. It may sound like a thing to do for a big company but, in reality, it is more suitable for a small business. Employees are often unwilling to embrace a new process because they fear that automation may take away their job. But they don’t realise that automation helps in doing their job easy, effective and efficient. It will empower your employees to perform at a higher level and increase productivity.
3. Pick a function to automate, which gives the most ROI (Return on investment) and easy to implement based on tip one attributes. This strategy will help you to implement that process in the shortest time possible and release time to work on other processes. Once a necessary process is executed and benchmarked, the board and the team will see its benefits and ultimately want to automate more processes.
4. Try Outsourcing. Many business owners don’t consider outsourcing as automation, but it is. If you want a business process done on a daily or weekly basis, you can hire another company to do these jobs, and it automatically becomes a part of the automation process. Outsourcing is one of the best strategies to adapt to expand your business and grow in a short period. The trick is to find the right outsourcing company. To do that, you should document your process and benchmark them.
5. Consider having an automation service team in your company. Once you reach a particular stage in your business, try to set up your own “automation service team”. If you see improved results in your business, then you should think about it. Of course, you will have to pay for the people you will recruit for the automation bureau, but that will be money well spent on the development of the business.
6. If your business is based around sales and e-commerce, then having well-automated sales funnel is a good start. Also, you should have an automated marketing process for stress-free marketing of your business. Business automation helps in reducing your marketing costs.
7. If you decide to automate your business, then find the right consultancy based on their expertise rather than on cost. The consultancy should be a good match for your vision and mission. When automation is adapted poorly without well-documented processes, it will cost the business more frustration, take more time to complete, and you will not be able to scale work.
Most of all, the board and team lose confidence in automation. The experts in the field of automation will not only help you to lead your initiative but also help you achieve cost efficiency. A consultancy who specialises in automation and growth will add tremendous value to your business immediately, and you would see both tangible and non-tangible benefits within short-time.
Work on your business instead of in the business. You will be able to make decisions pragmatically and proactively.