Maximizing Efficiency – Automating Your Processes
Automation does not need to be our enemy. - John F. Kennedy
We live in a world where doing more in less time is the new “normal”. Speed sits at the forefront of every business strategy. This can be attributed to how the tools we use have changed significantly from those of a decade ago to alter our processes.
Companies and their internal processes are more than just mere documentation. An efficient process can be the primary driver of a business’s success.
With increasing time constraints, it only makes sense to find ways that best maximize your business’ time and efficiency. An effective way to go about achieving that is by automating your company’s common and day-to-day operations.
Let’s have a look at what it really means to have process efficiency, and how automation can take our processes to the next level to provide long-term benefits.
What is Process Efficiency?
Process efficiency is a measure of how smoothly a process is executed in a certain timeframe given the necessary resources. It serves as one of the deciding factors that determine the profitability of a business.
Why Maximizing Efficiency of Your Processes is Important
Maximizing process efficiency can have a big impact on a company’s bottom line. It means consuming less time to get things done. Or doing more in the same amount of time.
Here, automation can be of remarkable help because you can get things done without constantly having to worry about remembering to do them.
Automation can have a few big benefits for an organization. Let’s discuss what those are and how they help.
Prompt Responsiveness
During a manual process, you first need to respond to any piece of new communication received. You can then start working on it once it has been reacted to and taken into consideration.
This takes a lot of time.
By automating your process, the work on a task starts happening the second it is received without any time wasted on reaction. The issue gets taken care of by itself without human intervention, giving way for prompt responsiveness.
Essentially, your automation tools will do whatever you want them to in less than half the time than if you were to do it manually.
Reduced Costs
Automation reduces costs since everything needs to be set up only once. Even when errors do occur rarely, they are fixed pretty quickly to get the process up and running again. As a consequence, your company reduces overall operational costs.
Repetitiveness
Tasks that need constant repetition can set your organization back significantly in terms of time and resources if they are not automated. You need to be able to create an automation tool that solves this issue and knows what to do and when.
These automated tools can be spread across all devices so that there is minimal repetition involved across the board.
Minimized Errors and Increased Reliability
Automating your processes can greatly minimize the errors made throughout the journey. You are able to give the software a specified set of conditions, such as time, reaction, result, etc., and let the process do its thing every single time in the manner it has been guided to do so.
Once all the pre-requisites are set, all the automation tool needs to do is respond and repeat that action for any number of tasks in the future. This repetition is used to build a process that everyone can follow and apply to their pipelines.
This helps with increased reliability that makes your business grow much more efficiently and on a consistent basis.
How to Maximize Efficiency by Automating Your Processes
An effective way to boost your business’s efficiency is by automating your company’s day-to-day tasks. This would mostly include things your organization does day in and day out.
Oftentimes, these repetitive tasks can be cumbersome and tiring for the individual as well as the company as a whole. Think of how much you can benefit if you were to automate these daily business processes.
Here are a few ways you can identify where your company can use automation and then implement it for sustainable growth.
Be patient, Start Slow, and Identify Your Weaknesses
Unless your new business is heavily technology-centric, you don’t need to automate your processes as soon as possible. Most new businesses need a human touch more than automation.
As a new business owner, you should be patient and take your time to make sure your company is running smoothly for a consistent period of time at first. Keep on optimizing it by bringing the human or personal touch to it first.
Over time, as you and your business grow, find ways to automate different areas of your processes.
Identify where your weaknesses lie and start slow. Begin to improve your processes in a way that does not alter or affect your customer or end-user service.
Remember to not go off and try to find complex business processes that you can automate at once. Start small and simple.
Visualize and Understand Your Existing Process
It is common for employees to follow a process perfectly in the beginning. But as time goes by, the efficiency drops significantly in most cases. Therefore, collect data on where and how these discrepancies are taking place and try to understand your existing process. Understand how teams have deviated from the original plan with the help of documentation.
Once you know what your weaknesses are and where a “human touch” is causing inconsistencies, you would be able to tell where the automation needs to happen.
Map out the process flow and what it looks like currently. Recognize the tools you would need to automate the existing business process and improve it.
If necessary, talk to your employees and ask them where they think the discrepancies seem to be arising from. Are they struggling at certain parts of the process?
A good way to go about it is to create a visual illustration of your business process that clearly showcases how the existing system works and how it can be improved upon.
Recognize What is Repetitive
Another way to pinpoint and find areas that need automation in your business is to recognize where the repetition lies. A good way to go about this is to gather your teams and discuss what they think is being done repeatedly on a regular basis.
As a next step, look for different ways on how those processes can be automated so that your organization can perform the task better without affecting the customer experience.
This could include routine tasks such as responding to emails, following up on unconverted leads, and much more. These can be easily automated with the help of external tools that don't harm the overall customer service and provide instant responsiveness.
Employ AI and Machine Learning in Your Day-to-Day Tasks
Use tools, such as Microsoft Azure, that provide you with built-in tools to automate your tasks. With the help of these external tools, you can automatically get the latest modifications in the system or even business metrics that can help you optimize your business strategy.
With the right AI and machine learning tools in your automation arsenal, your business can maximize its efficiency and boost profitability.
Make Your Automation Simple
Automation exists to simplify your process. And achieving automation itself should not be any different.
Keep in mind that your automation does not have to be complicated to be deemed worthy of being effective. You should always try and keep your automated processes as simple as you can since complicated systems are hard to maintain and modify, defeating the whole purpose of automation itself.
Streamline Communication Within the Organization
Many companies rely on synchronous communication tools, such as Slack or Discord to ensure that effective communication happens throughout the workforce and nothing slips through the cracks.
With a streamlined communication model in place, see where automation can be applied in terms of communication.
For instance, your company could use an AI-powered virtual assistant - like ScheduleOnce or Calendly– to automate and schedule appointments.
Figure Out Where You Can Automate While Still Providing Value
Any automation strategy you choose to apply in your business should have the customer at its center. Think of it as automating the predictable while personalizing the unpredictable.
What this essentially means is that you should find ways of systemizing your predictable processes in a way that they don’t compromise the customer experience.
Many companies fail to follow a balanced approach. They either keep their services too personalized and feel like they need to be deeply involved with each customer every step of the way. Or there is too much automation going on that the customer feels ignored.
Relying too much on building a human connection can be physically and mentally taxing. Therefore, companies should find a middle ground where they are able to automate processes that doesn't compromise their customer service and still seem personalized in a way.
One example could be email automation where AI tools can send pre-written emails to your clients promptly. It is one of the simplest ways to automate in a way that still feels intimate between you and the customer.
Implement the Improved Process of Automation
To automate your processes and maximize efficiency, you need to gather insights from within your organization about your existing strategies and identify what the ultimate goal is. Once that is done, you need to bridge the gap between the two by designing a new process that uses automation and increases productivity.
Once you have a solid automation process figured out, it is then time to implement the new and improved version of it.
As mentioned earlier in the article, most processes are followed closely by employees early on, and then interest starts to waiver off, making the process ineffective.
Keeping this in mind, don’t just release your new automation documentation to everyone.
To successfully implement automation and make it work, you need to get everyone on board and show them why the process was redesigned, to begin with.
This would also include showing them how the new strategy can help them achieve their goals faster.
Once everyone is on the same page, you should start to implement the process. However, do so in multiple stages. This is because people need time to understand, get used to, and adopt the necessary changes.
This also gives them the time to get familiar with any new skills if there is a need for it.
Giving them the time to learn and adopt helps them stick to the process for longer instead of going for overkill in the first few months and then abandoning everything altogether.
Monitor and Measure the Success of Your Automated Process
An organization’s job does not stop at implementation. You have to go further and monitor how your process is performing. Keep tabs on the different ways it is affecting your business.
Recognize whether the new process is helping you achieve the goals you wanted to achieve. If there is a discrepancy, identify it, realize why it exists, and optimize your approach accordingly.
After a considerable volume of tasks has been completed, analyze your data, and see where improvements should be made to make your automation even better.
Automation can effectively spearhead the change your organization needs for its growth. It is an excellent resource to have in today's competitive world and can greatly maximize your business's efficiency in more ways than one.