Do you have business processes that need automating? Are you thinking about using software to get you there? Are you getting hungry and need to find something to do so it looks like your busy while, in reality, you’re wasting time until lunch? Whatever the case may be, we have another wonderful listicle for you. So, without further ado, here’s our list of three amazing business benefits of automation.
1) Business Benefits of Automation: Time Savings
Automation equals time savings. Saving time means earning more money. Time equals money, so therefore automation equals money, too. There’s a reason that time savings is always at the top of these benefits of automation listicles.
So, it behooves us to firmly state that one of the business benefits of automation is saving money. In fact, everything in this article will be focused on saving money. After all, that’s the whole point of automation.
Why should I automate my business processes?
Think about it. You don’t automate things for the sake of automation. You automate things to either save money or improve quality of life.
Let’s dig through that statement quick.
There’s two ways to increase profits:
- First, you can increase revenue while maintaining a static COB (cost of business).
- Second, you can maintain revenue while reducing the COB. Automating your business processes falls into that second category (reducing COB). Adjusting revenue or COB makes you more money.
On the other hand, let’s say that your entire reason for running your business is to earn just enough money to live on so you can enjoy the finer things in life. In this case, automating your business processes frees more time for you to enjoy the things you love.
2) Business Benefits of Automation: Automation Increases Productivity
One of the biggest problems people have with automation is that they think that automation replaces jobs. There are so many reasons that is a concern. People need their jobs to live. If you dig deeper into the subject, working provides a means of self-worth. Working plays a critical role in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Simply put, we need to work to be happy (though whether we enjoy our work is a different debate).
Most business owners understand this to some degree. No one wants to eliminate jobs or fire people. It’s a part of doing business, though.
What if I told you that you could make more money without losing staff while making your employees happier? As Michael Scott would put it, that’s a win, win, win!
Here’s what we mean:
By automating business processes, you give your employees more time to tackle the business challenges that they enjoy.
Let’s say that you own a bakery. This is a loose example, so bear with us. Your head baker spends every morning entering and tracking orders placed online overnight. They spend about an hour every morning working on this process.
That baker really wants to try new recipes and find new things that they can put on the menu, though. Did you know that restaurants that rotate menus typically earn more revenue per customer than high-volume quick service restaurants? That’s because customers always have a new reason to visit the restaurant, and your baker knows this. They want to get new things on that menu in the worst way, but they simply don’t have time.
If your software automated that order process, that would give your baker an extra hour every day to experiment with new recipes. Here’s a bonus: Since the foundation for automation has now been laid down, other business process can start to be automated, too. That means your baker can put more things on the menu. That also means more revenue and profit. By the way, you customers will be a lot happier, too.
Step 1: Automate your business
Step 2: Profit
3) Business Benefits of Automation: Cleaner Records
Bad data leads to bad business decisions. If data is entered manually, there will be mistakes. There’s no two ways about it. We are human, and humans make mistakes. As humans, we also have a sense of humor, and you have to admit, this is an image of a clean record:
There’s a business called Melissa. If you aren’t familiar with it, Melissa’s business model is to verify and automate business records.
One of Melissa’s biggest sales pitches is that business data is like milk. It goes sour after a while. So, business data needs to be checked and normalized.
It makes sense. Imagine if you’re a business that sends old fashioned marketing pamphlets through snail mail. What if 10% of your customer base had wrong information in your database. That means you’re wasting 10% of the money you spent on mailing those pamphlets before you even start your campaign. That’s rough!
The idea behind Melissa is that it collects and verifies information immediately. That way customers don’t enter wrong information by mistake. Later in the customer life cycle, Melissa checks customer data to verify it is still accurate, too.
This is all automated by the way. Melissa’s customers don’t need to interact with Melissa manually. It’s automagic (and yes, that is an official term).
This isn’t an advertisement for Melissa. It’s an example of how people use Melissa to automate their business processes and data entry. Melissa can be a huge savings for its customers, but Melissa isn’t a revolutionary idea.
Just about any type of data entry can be automated. Do you have a bread machine and need to record how long it takes to make different types of bread? Not a problem. Throw a Raspberry Pi on that machine with some custom code. We literally just picked the most obscure thing we could think of while writing this article, and yet, that process can 100% be automated.
That means that most of your data entry and record keeping processes can be automated, too. And, as we’ve discussed in this article already, automation equals money.
Would you like to know more?
We’ve covered three reasons why you should automate your business processes in this article. There are so many more benefits of automation, though. With that said, here’s our sales pitch:
If you need help creating a custom business app, automating business processes, or building customized CRM systems, give us a shout. We’ll help you decide if it makes sense to automate your business, and if it does, help create a road map to get there.