For a firm that constantly seeks to remain competitive and improve its bottom-line, striving to increase productivity while reducing costs is a persistent battle. Automation goes an extra mile in ensuring companies gain competitive advantage by making them operationally efficient and effective to withstand the extremely harsh corporate operating environment. Automation is the use of applications and technology to replace redundant steps from their processes while increasing efficiency. The automation methodology adopted by entities should be customised depending on their current business needs.
Business Process Modelling (BPM) plays a crucial role in automation. It is vital for a business to create a business process model of standard operating procedures and processes in order to understand the current operating environment and determine which areas need to be streamlined. Once you have mapped out the processes, understood them as-is and automated those that need to be automated, it is easier to streamline the business workflow and in return increase the overall productivity of the business. Gradually you start to reap the benefits, some of which we will now take a look at.
Automation saves on resources. Manpower, time, paper, money…you name them. For any organization, resource saving is important. Streamlining processes helps to reduce manual labour and as a result, resources are redistributed to more crucial areas of the business that really need it.
Creation of a sustainable Business Process Model. We have established that it is important to have a BPM during automation. Once you have this, it is easy to keep track of your processes, to understand which ones need not only automation, but improvement, re-engineering and which ones need to be phased out. This promotes your business sustainability and increases your chances of noticing a problem in good time.
Quality assurance through reduction or elimination of manual processes. Automation drastically reduces the probability of human error and oversight tasks. System-performed tasks are often less prone to errors compared to human-oriented tasks. This means that output produced is of quality and this in turn makes your brand more reliable.
Competitive advantage. Automation of business processes is fundamental to acquiring competitive advantage in one’s business environment. The combination of process improvements, communication, quality assurance and cost reductions all greatly contribute to ensuring that you stay afloat and ahead of your competition. It is important to note that success in business does not stop at automation; in fact, technology is simply an enhancer/enabler of success. Ensure that there is constant market research and analysis of new risks and opportunities, and adapt to the environment.
So how has Cytonn benefited from automation?
As highlighted, automation offers greater opportunities to a business for continuous growth, compliance and maximum productivity. It makes current processes efficient and effective for businesses and clients alike. All you need to do is to fully understand your processes and then use automation to make things better. The first step in the right direction is to assess your current business workflow, then figure out how to use technology to automate your processes to ensure efficiency.
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