In modern conditions of fierce competition, as well as the unpredictable economic situation in general, automation and optimization of business processes are becoming the most important task of business.
Transferring routine, often manual, operations to specialized systems allows companies to save money, reduce errors, and complete tasks faster and with higher quality. Ultimately, all this adds up to a full-fledged competitive advantage.
Today we will talk about what business process automation can look like, what it gives, and consider several practical tools for solving this problem.
What business process automation provides
The main idea of all automation projects is to collect as much relevant data as possible, automate certain actions, reduce the likelihood of errors by eliminating manual labor, and gain the opportunity to save money.
Automation is not an attempt to replace people with soulless machines, in practice, on the contrary, it is a way to give people the opportunity to work more efficiently, faster and focus on interesting creative tasks, bringing more value.
Automation of business processes: examples
Business process automation tools can be quite simple or complex, working with simple or more large-scale tasks. One of the simplest tools is Microsoft Excel and its analogue Google Spreadsheet. Such smart tables allow you to conduct quite complex calculations, build forecasts and models – this may be in demand, for example, in accounting or sales departments.
One cannot help but say something about project management systems. Tools like Trello, Jira, Asana allow you to optimize the work of project managers and communications in software development teams.
Business travel is another business process that can be effectively optimized using software tools. For example, OneTwoTrip for Business allows companies to get instant access to the most comprehensive list of offers for booking air, rail and hotel tickets – all this guarantees a lower price than when working with traditional travel agencies. In addition, automatic generation of closing documents reduces the likelihood of errors associated with manual data entry.
How to implement business process automation
The implementation of automation tools is a separate process that allows you to avoid possible problems. First of all, it is important to pay attention to the planning stage – it is necessary to identify business processes that need to be automated and optimized, and determine the desired result of implementing the appropriate tools.
After the actual implementation stage, it is necessary to analyze its results and understand how well they correspond to expectations – and how correctly these expectations were formulated. In the future, it is necessary to optimize already automated processes to achieve even greater efficiency.
