What business processes should you automate?

What business processes should you automate?

What business processes should you automate? Is your business still stuck with outdated, manual processes? Do you want to free staff up from time-consuming admin and manual searches, so they can focus on the things that matter?

We might have the article for you.

Business Process Automation is one of the key benefits of a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. However, for those who are only beginning to develop an understanding of the software, the potential of ERP to automate may not be fully clear.

Automating with ERP allows you to reduce the strain of routine tasks, saving time and money in the process. But there are many processes that can be automated, from finance to customer orders.

Here, we take you through some of the main business process that you could automate, as well as the benefits to your business operations.

 

Automating departments

One of the key benefits of an ERP system is the ability to link up departments to automatically share and access data.

This way, employees can access that information that they need from anywhere in the business if required.

It means departments can save time repeating the same process that was filled out by someone else hours earlier and also ensures the whole business has the accurate information at hand.

In this sense, accuracy between departments is assured, reducing the risk of costly errors or misunderstandings.

Related to this is standardisation. By automatically pulling through the original data, the data itself will be shared in one format throughout the business.

 

Automation and business intelligence

The implementation of a new ERP product can ensure greater reliability of data and better business intelligence.

By integrating your applications, as well as your departments, you’ll find that all aspects of your business become standardised and are used the same way by all. Once this is done, data can be exchanged automatically.

Automating information sharing will lead to a speedier, more cost-effective operation that benefits the customer, as well you’re your business, by cutting down on waiting times and minimising errors.

In this sense, everyone benefits from the investment, and happier customers means more business in the future.

 

Automating business processes

With automated processes as a result of your ERP system, managers within the organisation are able to get up-to-the-minute visibility of key business processes. Importantly, these can then be controlled and manipulated with the touch of a button.

Being able to intervene in processes that are not working as planned is obviously going to be of interest to most staff but providing data for more long-term improvements also has its plus points.

In this way, ERP systems help to reduce costs from to manual errors and other inefficiencies.

Human errors, after all, will always occur if we are left to our own devices.

Employees will often forget payment due dates, fail to notice deadlines or make a payment for services or goods that was never received.

Thankfully, an ERP system helps minimise these errors through swift automatic processes.

 

Conclusion

If there’s one thing you take away from this article is should be that automated business processes offer reliable outputs and ensure departments and individual staff are able to access the same data whenever they need it.  By co-ordinating tasks, you can rest assured that your bottom line will be enhanced and the time wasted on manual operations will be given back to your employees.

Want to learn more? Simply contact a CBO expert here to discuss the benefits of automation in more depth.