“An Ounce of Automation Is Worth a Pound of Perfection”
Sunil Jagani, AllianceTek President and CTO
Business process automation simplifies processes and implements systems that enable your business to run like a well-oiled machine. It measures key performance indicators so you can tweak and optimize your business processes, breaks down communications barriers, avoids duplication of effort, and eliminates time wasted on monotonous, non-productive tasks.
Until recently, organizations depended on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems that were out of reach for most small, mid-sized, and fast-growing companies. With the advent of cloud computing, however, platforms like SharePoint, Salesforce, and Service now can quickly automate business processes and serve as gateways to future ERP implementation.
These “mini-ERP” stepping stones are evolving into the lifeblood of companies striving to master adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, and continuous improvement. Most important, they eliminate the three top productivity killers that continuously threaten to mire organizations in inefficient, money-wasting quagmires.
Three Productivity Killers
Inefficiency: The Money Shredder
Because managers may not have an effective method of managing and calculating the task efficiency of other departments, they can’t focus on streamlining them. After all, if they don’t know time is being sucked into a vortex of waste, how would he/she determine the urgency to cure these problems?
Do you know the steps to process a sales order? Has delivery of your service or product has been delayed because the order hasn’t been efficiently transmitted from the sales rep to customer service? Or, perhaps, customer service representatives spend too much time searching for a project code to process the order.
If these types of issues occur, your production team has to jump through hoops to cope with lost time and poor planning. The team is working overtime to make up for broken processes, and your customer service may not be meeting their expectations. These minor process leaks can greatly impact business growth, especially in the long run.
Time is money. When time is frittered away on ineffective processes, it’s like putting your money through a paper shredder.
Decision Making in the Dark
Efficiency alone, however, won’t get you where you want to go if you’re going in the wrong direction. And that’s what happens when managers are forced to make decisions in the dark. With ERP, decisions can be made soundly with access to company information. Again, the success of a decision highly depends on data gathered and timely decisions.
When information is either untimely or incorrect, managers cannot be blamed for choosing a path that leads the wrong way. For example, consider a manager who perceives a growing market segment and decides to focus marketing efforts on that segment. With the correct systems in place, this decision has little risk. However, if proper systems are not set up to handle the data and the information turns out to be incorrect, the resulting poor decision was misguided by inaccurate information. In this case, it doesn’t matter how efficient associates are because their systems are failing them.
Auto Wreck or Auto Pilot?
Do you handle your business like a manned machine or one on autopilot? Too often, managers get wrapped up in hands-on processes and they forget automation can free up resources and streamline processes for their employees. They’re uncomfortable taking a day off for fear a wreck will occur.
If a task is dependent on you, it’s a sign you’re working in your business rather than on it. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the company running on autopilot while you’re planning for strategic growth, or even basking in the sunshine on a tropical island? By defining logical streamlined processes and methodologies, and developing an ERP system that ensures they work like clockwork, you can increase efficiencies, make better decisions, and even take a zero-tension vacation.
