Two things to consider when it comes to automating your business:
first, your competition is doing it, so you don’t want to fall behind;
second, there are opportunities to be had with automation. The time is
now to automate your business process and take your business to that
next level of profits, growth, and efficiency. What does automation
involve? Let’s take a look.
What Business Processes to Automate
First, let’s define Business Automation. Automation is getting
workflows going without human involvement. It essentially means
eliminating a process altogether from a human perspective. Imagine no
more meetings about meetings. Here are a few functional areas of your
business that can potentially be automated:
- Sales: Using a Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) software solution automates your sales process, from initial
contact with prospects to sales meetings to proposal presentation to the
final closed opportunity. All along the way, you’ll be able to access
data, dashboards and reports to help your whole team focus on getting
better results, rather than spending that time entering data into forms
and spreadsheets.
- Marketing: One of the biggest lost opportunities
for any business is untouched leads. A lead can come in through a phone
call, a web form, an online chat, you name it. What happens to that
lead? When you automate your marketing communications, that lead is
nurtured and turned into a genuine Sales Opportunity. Then, it can be
automatically dropped into your CRM!
- Operations & Logistics: Every process in your
operation is a candidate for automation: manufacturing, ordering
materials, shipping, inventory tracking, etc.
- Project Management: This a prime candidate for automation, because Project Management is defined by process flows and reporting.
- Customer Experience: Every point where your
customers interact with your business is a potential for automation, as
long as it creates a better customer experience. Resolve issues,
complaints, and returns faster. Get orders out faster and provide
real-time updates on shipping and order fulfillment.
- Finance and HR: Payroll, taxes, PTO (Personal Time
Off, i.e. Leave) can all be nightmares for both employees and the HR
team. Anything that can be automated here will be a welcome change.
Tie it all together with Communication, often the number one priority
for CEOs and other leaders. Not only will you be eliminating processes,
you’ll be improving communications between departments and internal
teams.
Benefits of Business Automation
Businesses that automate their processes can see real, tangible
benefits by taking the human time out of those processes. The benefits
include:
- Growth: When sales and marketing teams spend time
on activities that directly bring in new business rather than working on
spreadsheets and reports, the company grows.
- Efficiency and Reduced Expenses: Let software do
the processing for you, and you’ll see more productivity, and you’ll
reduce the costs of having humans doing it.
- Business Valuation: If your exit plan includes
selling the business, your business will have more value once its
automated. A new owner will look to see how much of the business runs
itself.
- New Opportunities: New products and services. New
geographies. New sales and distribution channels. All of these present
new opportunities once existing ones are automated.
- Overall Performance: When you can produce repeatable, reliable, consistent results, your operation’s overall performance increases.
- Boost in Morale: Eliminate the dreaded busy work. Show your team you care about their time and efforts
How to Automate Your Business
Let’s identify ways to automate your business. One key question you
might ask is, “When?” That’s easy. Now. The sooner you automate, the
sooner the benefits above start to snowball.
So, how do you find ways to automate your business?
- Start small. Find a simple process to automate.
Document the process. Don’t begin with a complex system with multiple
moving parts and external integrations. Cut your teeth on something
manageable.
- Look for repetition. What forms, processes, reports, orders, etc. are you repeating over and over.
- Find paper trails. Literally. Look for processes
that use paper. Is it order fulfillment, or shipping, or support
tickets? Paper is a sure sign that automation is in order.
- Find processes that can be simplified. Do employees sometimes complain of how involved or complex certain workflows are? That’s a great opportunity to simplify.
- Information Flow. Do all the different pieces of
software integrate? Does your CRM drop information from new sales into
your logistics program? Look for synergies -- connected systems -- among your software solutions. Integrations are a great way to automate.
- Meetings. Can meetings be eliminated by automation?
What is the purpose of your meetings? If you do meetings to update
information, like order status, sales pipelines, and financial reports,
much of that can be automated.
4 Simple Steps to Automating Your Business
You’ve done the planning work above, identifying systems and
processes that can be automated. Now that you know where you want to
start, here are four simple steps to automating your company:
- Set goals for your automation: What is the end goal, or outcome,
desired from the automation. This will define a successful automation.
- Identify or create the automation tools, including custom software, software integrations, and more.
- Create reports and other measurement tools. As part of automating
your processes, include automated reports that tell you whether you’re
moving towards achieving your goals for the project.
- Automate Your Automation: Build an internal process to identify and
automate functional areas of your business. Create an ‘automation’
culture so that your team finds new opportunities to automate and grow.
The Final Step in Automation
Get an advisor. Don’t go this alone. When it comes to automation,
from CRMs to Marketing to connecting systems, we’ve been helping our
clients automate business processes for years. We can help you, too. Contact us today so that we can discuss your situation and identify ways for you to automate with a custom software solution.