By Kimberly Connella   |   July 12, 2022   |   0 Comments

Innovation and Business Process Automation

A Moment of Reflection

Is there anything to gain from Business Process Automation? Take a second right now to think of your daily work agenda, more specifically, the tasks you complete. Perhaps even compile a list of these items in front of you. Is there anything on that list that you find to be annoying, frustrating, or tedious? What if it did not have to be that way? What if you could just hit a button and an application could achieve full automation of this business process for you? Would that enable you to come and leave work with a bigger smile on your face? I think you and I both know the answer to that question!

Technology on the Rise

Over the past century, technology has been growing exponentially and so have businesses.  However, there is one crucial concept that has been a major gamechanger: the intersection of technology and business. This is the way to achieve as close as one can to perfect productivity, increase employee satisfaction, and optimize spending. Subsequently, this is where business process automation comes into play.

Automate Workflow

Here at aNetworks, we strongly believe that the businesses that choose to utilize software development to automate their daily tasks have a greater chance of achieving their short-term and long-term goals. There are so many incentives to do so, if learning about this is something of interest to you, be sure to check out our previous blog: App Development to Automate Your Workflow.

In brief, the streamlining of simple tasks allows for a business to maximize productivity day in and day out. Since the task at hand can be accomplished with limited input from employees, this allows the employees who previously performed these tasks, to reallocate their time towards work that maximizes the utilization of their best skills. By doing so, not only will your business be saving money by not having to hire employees to do “basic work”, but also the existing employees will be infinitely times more grateful for the opportunity to be able to spend their time doing work that is up their ally. Additionally, this creates a lot of room for professional growth within a company. This is very attractive and possibly even a deciding factor for a potential employee who may be deciding between your company and another.

Business Process Automation Examples Across the Industries:

Accounting Business Process Automation:

Processing Sales:

• Companies have the capability to automate just about every stage of processes pertaining to orders. As a result, invoices can be uploaded swiftly without human error.  Also, this feature can ensure the customer has to pay the correct amount for the products purchased. This accounting business automation process eliminates the need for an accounting associate to be involved with the sales order process. Rather they can redirect their attention to higher difficulty tasks that are more closely related to their specialty.

Product and Service Acquisition:

• When businesses acquire products or services, it typically calls for a plethora of paperwork, which commonly includes purchase orders, contracts, and other types of forms. Automating this process can work towards making sure nothing gets lost along the way. This holds true since the process becomes fully digitized. Additionally, all the paperwork associated with this process is completed with 100% accuracy. The security, as well as the safeguard of several-step accounts payable practices, can be secured through the automation of purchasing operations.

Reimbursement for Travel and Mileage:

• It is quite common for companies to devote hundreds of hours per year simply filing, processing, and approving minor operating expenditures. These expenditures include travel and mileage reimbursements. This process is basically unnecessary, in addition to being completely excessive to the cumulative organizational efficiency. Employees can now attend business trips with their travel already approved and completely compensated before they set out. This process eliminates what can seem like a never-ending wait to get your hard-earned money back to your bank account.

Finance Business Process Automation:

Accounts Payable:

• Prior to your finance staff being able to pay any statements, they have to be verified against purchasing acquisitions for correctness. Also, clearance is usually necessary before delivering a wire or cutting a check. Through business process automation, the software can quickly detect discrepancies between accounts payable claims owed, and invoices. Additionally, it can also speed up payment acceptance, ensuring that you never miss a deadline.

Accounts Receivable:

• Your department may use automation to completely interchange the labor-intensive accounts receivable operations. Automation may help you handle cash flow more effectively, starting with credit management and ending with invoicing.

Payroll:

• For any business, all your staff members need to get paid on time. However, as various departments in your business grow, so does the number of staff members per department. This will gradually increase the level of difficulty of doing payroll for all of the employees. Given this information, it is imperative that as your business grows, the individuals in charge of payroll are able to keep up with payroll and on the off chance that errors start to occur, there needs to be a backup plan in place. As a result, with the aid of financial automation software, organizations may implement a simple solution to this potential problem by streamlining data that can be combined across many time-tracking systems. From there, the finance automation software is able to compute deductions as well as create audit schedules.

Marketing Business Process Automation:

Loyalty Programs:

• Both you and I know that the truth of the matter is that nearly every business has competition. Given this information, it is fair to assume that your consumers are aware of this as well. Still, the businesses with the most success do not have complete consumer loyalty. However, you may improve your rates of retention by streamlining your loyalty initiatives to reconnect with previous clients. Every company goes through expansion pains, and you may have made some errors along the way with your clients. But the good news is after you’ve solved all the issues, there’s no reason why you can’t pique their attention again. Email marketing is also beneficial for at-risk clients. Also, the best part of it all is that if you chose to automate your marketing processes, you don’t have to devote anything even close to a whole day to have this task completed.

Special Access Content:

• You not only get to have the opportunity to produce fresh leads but, also simultaneously get to provide useful information to current customers and potential customers alike. As a result, downloading this special content is a proven approach for obtaining leads, thus another example of marketing business process automation. Consequently, customers anticipate you to take on the role of being an “alpha-marketer”. Therefore, people would like to obtain relevant content from your brand. There is no doubt that special content is an effective way of generating leads. Gated material is more specialized and serves as a reference for a single topic. Furthermore, to download this special material, individuals must just enter an email address and name. This automated process can also double as a lead generator!

Welcome Back Emails:

• Upon gaining a new customer, you should definitely choose to capitalize on that momentum in order to receive customer loyalty straight from the get-go. The first order of business is to write a welcome email. This ensures that your company can make the best first impression possible. Even if the consumer is equally ecstatic, a welcome email can result in clicks and opens. Through the utilization of email marketing workflow automation, your business can routinely greet every new customer. As a result of this, brand recognition increases.

As always, you can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Lastly, our Resource Center is another great way of staying connected!

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