SMEs CAN IMPROVE BUSINESS OPERATIONS WITH AUTOMATION
Automating complex business processes and mundane tasks has become essential for entrepreneurs and organisational leaders alike. Digital automation allows SMEs to boost productivity and save valuable time and effort. In the wake of COVID-19, businesses have adapted their working methods, embracing hybrid work models, and small to medium-sized enterprises are increasingly leveraging digital advancements to simplify day-to-day operations. This is precisely where workflow automation can make a significant impact. Implementing automation in small businesses streamlines routine activities, minimises human errors, and enhances overall task efficiency, ultimately contributing to a company’s professionalism and effectiveness. Let’s explore the advantages of business process automation and delve into some practical automation ideas tailored for SMEs.
IMPROVES ACCOUNTABILITY
Automation in SMEs empowers both leaders and workers by allowing them to concentrate more on their designated tasks. This setup ensures that every team member is engaged in fulfilling their responsibilities effectively. Accountability is crucial in any business setting, and in small businesses, automating processes can assist each team member in upholding efficiency and accountability standards.
ENHANCES PRODUCTIVITY
Juggling multiple business calls, tracking activities, and managing personnel can be incredibly time-consuming and overwhelming. To facilitate the growth of your small business, enhancing productivity is paramount. One effective strategy is to automate complex and repetitive tasks. By automating these tasks, you not only streamline processes but also mitigate the risk of human error, ultimately expediting operations.
MOTIVATES STAFF
Continuous, repetitive tasks can quickly become monotonous and draining, often devoid of any sense of job satisfaction. However, with the implementation of automated processes, your staff gains the flexibility to take breaks in between tasks, allowing them time to socialise and invest in skill development. This not only promotes a healthier work-life balance but also fosters a more engaged and motivated workforce.
INCREASES PRECISION
As humans, we are susceptible to errors and mistakes, influenced by factors such as confusion, stress, fatigue, or disinterest. One of the most significant advantages of process automation is its ability to mitigate the risk of human error, effectively minimising the occurrence of mistakes stemming from various causes. By automating processes, businesses can proactively prevent future errors and enhance overall accuracy and reliability.
ENABLES COLLABORATION
Business process automation offers significant advantages in facilitating smoother communication and collaboration within teams and breaking down silos between departments. Utilising apps, you can easily track project statuses, provide real-time updates to your team regarding task progress, and send essential notifications and reminders to all stakeholders involved. This streamlined communication process fosters efficiency, ensures everyone stays informed, and enhances overall project coordination and collaboration.
SAVES MONEY
Implementing business process automation can yield significant cost savings, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises. By eliminating costly errors that are both time-consuming and expensive to rectify, automation helps businesses avoid unnecessary expenditures. Additionally, automating bulk processes can lead to substantial cost reductions by streamlining operations and increasing efficiency. Moreover, business automation enables companies to accomplish more tasks without the need to expand their workforce, maximising productivity while minimizing labour costs.
IDEAS FOR AUTOMATION
Now that you’re aware of the benefits of automation for your SME, let’s explore which processes are best suited for automation. Here are the ones we like:
- Workflow management – your workflows associated with lead generation, marketing, sales, and communication processes can all be automated with relative ease.
- Customer services – As businesses prioritize brand expansion, ensuring seamless customer service becomes imperative. Responding individually to every client or prospect can be overwhelming. Utilising customer automation for small businesses streamlines this process. This may encompass features such as customer relationship management (CRM) software, live chat software, and chatbots.
- Leading nurturing – Lead nurturing involves fostering relationships with qualified leads by consistently providing them with valuable information. Automation offers several methods to nurture new leads, including automated email marketing campaigns, SMS, calls, and social media outreach. By utilizing outreach automation for small businesses, you can effectively convert prospects into clients. This can be achieved by implementing lead scoring through your CRM software.
- Scheduling – Manually managing meetings, reminders, and calendars often leads to juggling tasks and struggling to balance schedules with limited resources. This not only risks compromising your brand’s credibility but also increases the likelihood of burnout and losing clients. To mitigate these risks, it’s crucial to implement scheduling automation solutions for your business.
- Financial and accounting automation – This is one of the essential business automation ideas. With financial and accounting automation, you can plan everything from receiving payments to avoiding miscalculations to settling invoices. Automated financial activities also help reduce your headache of credit card fraud and account data entry.
Now that you’ve seen all the amazing things that automation can do, it’s time to discover which tool out there will do the best job. Many think it’s Zoho Creator, the innovative low-code application and say it’s your one-stop-shop for all automation needs.
ZOHO CREATOR
Zoho Creator is a low-code application development platform that helps you design, develop and run any business software you need. It followed hot on the heels of the release of Zoho CRM in 2005, along with the release of Zoho Projects, Sheet, and Show. As of today, more than 14,000 companies have created 7 million apps using Zoho Creator and the platform, used by the likes of Amazon and Marriot, has 6 million users. James Hirst, VP of Development at ITV Studios, has these words of praise for Zoho Creator:
“Before using Zoho Creator, we had data everywhere and multiple potential points of failure…The platform is now a one-stop-shop for all the information you need.”
Zoho Creator empowers businesses to collect data, automate processes and workflows, analyse insights through reports, facilitate user collaboration, and integrate with external apps. Each auto-scalable application developed on Zoho Creator is accompanied by a native iOS and Android app, meaning that users can access up-to-the-minute data from any location, at any time. Zoho Creator is capable of doing anything on our list of ‘Ideas for Automation.’ Just remember, most of these apps aren’t plug-and-play, they need to be developed.
BENEFITS OF AUTOMATION FAQs
What are the advantages of automation for small businesses?
In the era of digital transformation, small business owners are increasingly turning to automation to streamline repetitive tasks, broaden their reach, and enhance sales efficiency.
How does automation enhance efficiency for SMEs?
Automation plays a pivotal role in boosting efficiency for SMEs by minimizing human errors, handling multiple tasks concurrently, and streamlining workflows. This results in simplified operations, improved productivity, and reduced labour requirements.
What are the key benefits of automation?
- Enhanced workplace safety
- Cost reduction
- Decreased human error
- Increased productivity output
How does automation influence the workplace dynamics in SMEs?
Automation is becoming a fundamental aspect of workplace processes across all business sectors. By minimizing human error and tackling repetitive tasks, automation alleviates labour-intensive duties, thereby transforming the workplace environment.
What is the primary objective of automation?
The primary goal of automation is to optimize business workflows. Through automation, businesses can curtail costs, save time, boost productivity, and maintain real-time control over their processes.
PROCESS IT BETTER
If you are looking for affordable, intelligent and effective solutions to automate and digitally transform your business, you’re knocking on the right door. With Zhero’s Process IT Better, you can orchestrate any process, anywhere with our bespoke apps. Process IT better has been carefully crafted and developed to reduce manual effort and give teams better visibility, control and performance with a single solution. Let us help you accelerate your business by building and implementing the business apps you need, quickly and easily. With the ability to extend or customize the apps that you already use, Process IT Better also enhances productivity and innovation. Reach out to Zhero today and get automated.
