Currently, more and more companies are investing in one form of digital transformation or another.
The budget for this change has increased by more than 25 percent over the past year, with more than half of the mid-sized firms and big companies investing more than $10 million in the transformation process.
Still, there are companies that are hesitant to jump onto the bandwagon. CEOs, managers, and entrepreneurs alike are still grappling with the question ‘what is the value of automation?’
Let’s answer it, shall we?
Customer Retention
Automation helps you boost customer satisfaction, which, in turn, enhances customer retention. The current volatile market demands that companies look for innovative solutions that keep them ahead of the competition.
Automation is the ‘eureka moment’ for any firm that seeks to acquire not only new customers but also retain existing ones.
Marketing automation tools such as HubSpot, Netsuite, or MailChimp can streamline operations in the company. These tools help in marketing, sales, and support. And when you integrate them, you can put your business on auto-pilot.
More importantly, you will be able to retain valuable data concerning your clients. This data informs you of the best marketing strategy to boost your sales.
Operations Transformation
Automation helps an organization achieve business agility. This means that your firm will be in a position to adapt quickly to both internal and external changes.
Furthermore, you will be able to respond rapidly and flexibly to the ever-changing demands of the customer. Automation focuses on streamlining operations by eliminating repetitive tasks and the overall costs of operations.
FedEx, for instance, streamlined operations in their warehouse by introducing integrated software systems and robotics in the movement of goods. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) streamlined the task that used to take hundreds of people to conduct manually.
This automation not only helped FedEx cut their costs, but also enabled them to improve the workplace environment and the experience of their employees.
Enhanced Employees Experience
Today’s employees are demanding more than just a good salary. People want a job that improves their quality of life and enhances their professional know-how. Automation can help with all of these.
In fact, a business that has lost the automation train will not be a very desirable employer. Your staff can’t learn much of what other companies are demanding of them, so their career would be actually put on hold.
Even more, through automation, you will be able to avoid high turnover rates while increasing your chances with talent acquisition. Automation streamlines the employee onboarding process — from recruitment to training. It also automates employee mentoring due to mentoring software that matches mentees with suitable mentors, tracks progress and facilitates communication.
Software solutions such as Zappos simplify the HR process of record maintenance, payroll management, and office time tracking. Automation helps your firm optimize time and enhance employee engagement.
Agility
For an organization to remain relevant in today’s volatile market, it has to invest in consistent automation. Agility is enhanced by embracing digital transformation and developing an organizational culture that embraces the latest innovative solutions.
Automation helps a firm enhance its business agility through technology, architecture, and software. Robotic Process Automation, for instance, automates tasks and processes, thereby enhancing the work environment for employees.
The ‘white-collar automation,’ on the other hand, automates tedious tasks, thereby freeing up to 15-30 percent of the workers’ time. This free time can be used to focus on tasks that increase sales and revenue.
Back Office and Front Office Automation
The development of back-office automation tools helps deliver efficiency in back-office areas such as finance, compliance, product development, sales, and marketing.
These automation solutions eliminate issues such as data miss-handling, communication issues, lack of an audit trail, or poor reporting and monitoring.
Automation helps organizations to avoid manual mistakes and misunderstandings largely. Furthermore, stakeholders are alerted by ‘triggered emails’ in the event an issue arises. This way, everything can be solved with minimal downtime and revenue loss.
The exact value of automation differs from company to company. If you look at the studies, you will see that every process that was automated (the right way!) brought a better ROI. The only trick is finding the processes YOU have to automate and doing it in the right order.
Not sure where to start? We can help! Give us a call or drop us a line, and we’d be happy to advise you on how to tackle automation and integration in a way that boosts your revenue.
