More companies than ever before are turning to automation tools and platforms to save money and drive up revenue. And we’re not just talking about major corporate giants: there are automaton solutions on the market to suit even the smallest of startups.
The benefits to a business of automation are endless: using it frees up staff time (boosting morale in the process), eliminates human error, ensures compliance, and enhances the customer experience. Best of all, solutions are out there that can be tailored to the needs of every unique business in whatever sector it operates.
Frees up staff time
Using automation tools is an effective way to free up staff time, relieving employees of monotonous, manual jobs so that they can concentrate on other, more important, interesting, and profitable tasks. What does this look like in practice? It could be using payroll software to take the burden off your HR personnel, so they can get on with the latest recruitment drive. What’s more, many automation solutions also incorporate a collaboration tool or another feature designed to increase your team’s efficiency. As well as boosting productivity, this is a great means of raising staff morale, too.
Reduces errors
Leveraging automation to take care of previously manual tasks also negates the risk of human error, saving your business time and money – not to mention safeguarding its reputational standing. It also removes the need for manual conciliation – a job that can seriously eat into personnel time.
Plus, most automation tools and platforms have validation built into their inherent processes. Which, in layman’s terms, means that the parameters set within the tools themselves mean that invalid data can’t be entered.
Analyzing big data
Automation and AI tools can be used in conjunction to provide advanced forecasting reports and sales predictions, which are invaluable to a business. These predictions make it easier for a business to both set goals and measure its progress toward them, and data can also be interrogated to assess the success of marketing campaigns.
Ensures compliance
Compliance is vital for businesses. Not only does this largely serve to ensure that your business is operating properly, legally, and in an accessible manner, but it also means you don’t run the risk of having an unexpected penalty land in your inbox. One of the advantages of using automation solutions is that they often also ensure compliance, such as in the matters of tax and reporting.
Makes for a smoother workflow
Introducing automation into your business’s processes can boost workflow, helping your enterprise to save money and achieve higher revenue through, for example, slicker sales and marketing systems. Project management software can be deployed to auto-assign tasks to your team members, automate scheduling, proofread documents, and even sort and respond to emails.
Uplevels customer experience
The key to improving your business’s conversion rate and driving up sales is by doing everything possible to optimize the customer experience. Automation can help with this, too, by providing consistency and reducing the risk of the type of errors that can have customers wary of purchasing from you again.
Even better – automation can be used to anticipate customer needs and offer upgrades and additional services automatically. Hotels are already widely using software that analyzes customer preference, enabling messages to be sent to the guest prior to, during, and after their stay and giving the hotel staff the heads up on how to provide the best experience possible.
Examples of how real businesses are using automation tools today
Alibaba is a Chinese retail giant and the world’s largest e-commerce platform. The business uses intelligent automation tools in most of its daily operations, such as shipping, logistics, predictions, and even the creation of product details.
Banking and financial organization HSBC have spent the last few years switching previous manual tasks, especially those around the payroll system, to automated platforms. It’s also introduced data mapping to help its employees access and manage the information they need quickly and easily.
Unilever also deploys automation in many of its operations, with a particular focus on recruitment. By using AI tools, the company was able to save $1 in the course of a year, in connection with their recruitment strategy, and sped up the time to hire by as much as 90%.
The future is automated
For businesses, automation tools and platforms offer an innovative way to save money and boost earnings. Whether a small company chooses a single solution to ease the pressure on personnel and streamline a specific operation or a large enterprise embarks on a mission to integrate automation into its general processes, the opportunities are endless.
