More and more companies are adopting workflow automation every day. The benefits are clear: from reducing manual data entry to staying on top of critical processes to simplifying your business so you can concentrate on strategy and growth. You might be surprised to learn that many of your competitors have caught on to workflow and process automation but keep quiet about it because it is their secret competitive weapon.
Here are 11 things your automated competitors don’t want you to know about workflow automation.
1. Their Business is Now Simpler Than It Used to Be
Companies often accept complexity in their business because, “that’s just the way it’s always been.” For example, you get used to the fact that your HR system can’t attach documents, so you create extra steps in your employee onboarding. Or you can’t integrate your ERP to your incoming information or your emails, so your employees spend hours entering information on their own. With workflow automation, your business gets a lot simpler by eliminating complexities that you took for granted.
2. They Have More Time for Strategy
The human mind wasn’t meant for redundant, meaningless tasks and follow up. When you eliminate extra steps in your business, your best and brightest employees can focus on areas that bring you and your customers the most value. Instead of spending so much of their day on mindless work, automation lets them focus on higher priorities and strategies.
3. They Have Happier IT Teams
Without a robust workflow automation tool like Paperwise Symphony, your IT team must wade through many different requests. Workflow automation allows teams to take charge of their own processes without waiting for IT to build new tools and integrations. In turn, IT teams can focus more on delivering more performance and security.
4. They Enjoy Tighter Processes
Many industries require consistent and repeatable processes. Workflow automation makes it easier to stay on track and enforce your corporate governance rules. And each workflow you design becomes a new building block for future workflows so you can consistently drive alignment and follow through in your entire company.
5. They Collaborate
Workflow automation helps your teams collaborate with automated alerts, communication, processes and more. Every organization suffers from gaps. Gaps between disconnected systems. Gaps between people and things. Gaps in the functionality you wish you had to efficiently run your business. Paperwise process automation fills those gaps with customer workflows, data sharing, information routing, alerts and communication, low-code development and more. You’ll improve efficiencies by removing the obstacles to collaboration you currently face.
6. They Can Move on a Dime
Every company wants to improve their agility. To be competitive, you need to improve customer response times, collaborate with vendors, respond to market trends, and more. Workflow automation removes many of the bottlenecks in your company, allowing you to solve problems faster and quickly create new processes and solutions inside your organization.
7. They Improved the Use of ERP
Workflow automation connects your people, systems, and data for a unified culture. Your business relies on complex networks between data, people, and processes. Automation simplifies these connections by integrating your systems like ERP, CRM, accounting, HR, and more with unstructured data that your ERP systems are unable to handle like paper, processes, spreadsheets, and emails.
8. They Maximized Creativity
Workflow automation helps you turn your ideas into reality. What kind of company would you build if you weren’t limited by disconnected systems, communication choke points, data silos and manual processes? Paperwise Symphony removes those limits and unleashes your imagination. With automation, you are only limited by your own imagination as you plan, create, and implement your own process applications.
9. They Out-perform You on Costs
Workflow automation has exceptionally high ROI. Our clients report saving 90% of their manual entry time, 50% of their HR onboarding time, 80% of their AP invoice processing costs, and more. Additionally, you save money by not losing out on early payment discounts, late maintenance, or lost customers due to slow or incomplete responses. How much more competitive would you be if you could reallocate those costs to new strategic investments?
10. Their Employees are Happier
Workflow automation makes it easier to train and onboard new employees. It eliminates the worst, most mind-numbing parts of their job. It reduces manual data entry. It reduces repetition and complexity. According to a recent Forbes Insight survey, 92 percent of organizations see an improvement in employee satisfaction as a result of automation that allows workers to spend less time on manual, time-consuming tasks and more time on strategic, high-value work. (Read more about how workflow improves employee morale.)
11. They Reassigned Resources for Better Productivity
Some leaders are afraid to approach automation because they think it means eliminating jobs. Automation doesn’t eliminate jobs; automation makes the jobs employees do more valuable and meaningful. The HR admin who saves 5 hours per week on onboarding new employees can now spend that time recruiting top-level talent or improving your benefits packages. The AP clerk who saved 90% of their manual data entry can now focus on better purchasing processes that save you more money down the road. Automation is about assigning your resources toward the most important aspects of your business.
