How to Save Time and Money with Workflow Automation?

The business environment is pressuring companies to become more agile and flexible. Otherwise, they will be sentenced to extinction. That is why it is very important to understand how to save time and money through workflow automation. Even if you already have a well-established business, a startup, or a simple project, in this article we will discuss the benefits of task automation.

Every company needs to get the most out of technology to gain an edge. But too many people think more tools must be better. At some point, managers have to distinguish which automation tools have real power and concentrate on getting the most out of them. By default, the business needs to be adjusted to provide the flexibility required to implement these changes. Let’s see what workflow automation is and what its benefits are.

What is workflow automation?

A workflow is a repeatable process composed of a sequence of activities. They unfold and complement each other in a certain order. For example, in any department of the company, we meet workflows:

• the process of induction of new employees in Human Resources.
• the method of supply in Operations.
• the process of converting prospects into customers in Sales.
• the billing process in Financial.

The list can go on with many essential processes for business performance.

These work processes are usually adjusted over time. This way, your business can cope with new conditions outside or inside organizations. Sometimes processes can change completely as a result of the introduction of new technologies. Through these technologies, companies can connect with customers, partners or employees. In this case, we can talk about a digital transformation.

Workflow automation involves a transformation of the workflow so that the tasks, documents and information on which the activity depends function independently of human intervention. The ultimate goal of automation is to make people’s work easier and thus increase productivity.

Why should companies go through the disruption of implementing workflow automation? Some of the reasons are convenient cross-channel conversation, automatic access to feedback, performance statistics or feedback, and insights that increase productivity. There are many benefits you can enjoy by automating workflows. Not to mention that you save time and money with automated flows.

Benefits of workflow automation

• Cost reduction. You may think it costs a lot to implement automation. You can rest assured that increased productivity will reduce costs in the long run. According to Forbes Business magazine, intelligent process automation generally results in cost savings. These values can be of at least 40% and they can go up to 75%.
• Save time. Why waste time with tasks such as sending identical messages to multiple recipients? A template is a good example of a simple solution that does not require any technical training. Automate!
• Eliminates human error. Mistakes happen even if you are the type of person who seems certain to manage everything. Chances are high that you will finally make a blunder someday. This is particularly the case when we talk about ordinary, everyday duties. Or anything that is outside your area of expertise.
• Relationship with customers. Workflow automation provides useful information about the customer’s journey and previous interactions with him. Customer relationship management (CRM) software provides a detailed overview of each contact. This is useful in determining the most effective strategies for finding new customers and retaining existing ones.
• Timely deliveries. In this age of immediate satisfaction, you generate more trust by quickly delivering your goods or services. In this area of expertise, workflow automation can increase performance by increasing concurrency and customer happiness.
• Communication between team members. Files and materials can be shared and debated by team members. Also, you can check the status of a member of the project without having to ask him every time.
• Improvement of work processes. In order to automate a work process, we must first be aware of that process. When we define in detail the process we want to automate. We may come up with ideas on how it can be improved or simplified.

How it saves time and money?

Retaining an assistant is pricey. There are many extra expenses other than a mere salary. Automated workflows can manage a broad collection of recursive tasks much better than people can. These types of software can supervise notifications, data entries, emails, and much more. Furthermore, it saves money through efficiency, lowering operational costs, and pretty much by doing more with fewer resources.

If you don’t have any employees yet and you are doing all the heavy tasks to keep your business up and running, then an workflow automation tool will save you time. This way you can spend more time managing more important tasks and, also, keep a lookout for new opportunities.

The best workflow automation tools

1. Hubspot. You can think of HubSpot as the place where you have all the relevant customer data and various marketing tools. If you have a company you may be already taking care of these things with the help of many different tools. HubSpot provides you with all these tools in one place. The main advantage of this tool is the CRM part around which you have a multitude of natively integrated functionalities.
2. Integromat. Integromat is a platform that acts as middleware. It integrates the APIs of over 2000 solutions and thus allowing them to communicate automatically with each other. This way, for example, you can integrate the services of applications such as Slack, Google Sheets, Google Forms, Microsoft Office and many more. Using Integromat, all these solutions have a fast integration. You can read the comparison between Integromat and Zapier.
3. QuickBooks. An excellent tool to automate your company’s accounting and audit is QuickBooks. It connects to your bank records and credit or debit cards to immediately and automatically refresh your ledgers in the cloud. You will be required to manually validate the correct group for particular activities. Still, QuickBooks is a highly powerful tool to automate accounting and create up-to-date statements.

Conclusion

There are technical solutions for almost anything. But our preconceptions that sometimes cannot incorporate new models and technologies remain the real barriers. In order to maintain our competitive advantage in both the local and the international market, we must adopt progressive thinking and challenge the old methods.

Any computer system depends on the people who understand and adopt it. If used wisely, it can provide substantial opportunities for the future. There is a huge opportunity to free people from repetitive or simply unpleasant work.

In terms of future automation technologies, there is the opportunity to provide a socio-economic environment of sustained growth, in which people can enjoy a more pleasant lifestyle. And let’s not forget that you can save time and money through workflow automation.