You’ve probably heard of people spruiking the term ‘digital transformation’ for your business all over the place. It’s no secret. Buzzwords like ‘digital transformation’, ‘paperless’ and ‘document management systems’ are being tossed around now more than ever. However it’s vital to know that today, digital transformation doesn’t simply refer to emails and networking, but to entire work processes.
According to the Harvard Business Review, “companies that rate highly in both digital leadership and management, have better business results than their peers, with stronger revenue growth and greater profit margins.”
Today, businesses like yours have no excuses. Technology is more affordable and accessible than ever before, so an entire business can be automated in no time.
As a business owner or stakeholder, your job is to find the best digital solutions for your business. Yet in our world of unlimited possibilities, where do you start?
These four steps will guide you towards automating your business effectively:
1. Evaluate your current situation
At a glance, which areas of your workflow today, need automation? Where is your business feeling the pressure?
The most effective results will come from digitally transforming operations at the core of your business. These processes will offer multilevel efficiency benefits and justify your ROI.
Ultimately you’re aiming to achieve efficiency within business processes, increased profits, increased customer satisfaction and improved customer retention. So automate areas of your business that can do all of those and more.
2. Improve Document Management
Previously, document management was left to Sharepoint. It was systematic – dump everything on the one platform. Essentially, this is exactly what you want to do and more. So put in the extra time and scope out all your options.
Today, there are many other advantages linked with Document Management Applications, other than just search and retrieval. You can find better platforms, search engines, machine learning capabilities and user interfaces. Many Document Management Applications can double up for uses across your business, facilitating process automation and workflow.
3. Automate Work Processes and Flow
Automating your work process will really set you apart from the competition. With the added agility in areas such as vendor onboarding and HR onboarding processes, you will really notice a difference in your ROI.
Likewise in your workflow, you can avoid classic bottleneck areas such as approving and processing contracts and financial documents. Automating these procedures will ensure you have faster settlement times, lower payable hours and greater vendor discounts from punctual payments.
4. Engage Professional Help
Once you’ve decided where your starting point is for digital automation, seek the help of a professional firm. You want to look for proven experience, a business understanding (not just a technical perspective) and actual experience with user-client interactions. A competent firm will be able to independently assess your business’ needs and translate your goals into a workable scope, both within a reasonable time frame and appropriate budget.
There’s no doubt, the use of technology to improve business workflow has become a requirement in order to remain competitive. When it comes to documentation automation and digital transformation, you want to be proactive.
If you have any questions on how to begin such a transformation, our team is only a phone call away.
