How to reduce costs in five key departments with business automation
Doing more for less has always been a key tenet of business practitioners looking to increase profits and efficiency. The introduction of smart tech and automation have certainly helped businesses achieve this, with innovative new solutions being released constantly to improve and streamline traditional business workflows.
Despite the strong uptake of many of these solutions, organisations may take time in looking to upgrade for various reasons or may simply not see the financial benefit in making the transition to digital operations.
However, this couldn’t be further from the truth, with digital operations being a key way of reducing overhead costs. The business case for automation is extremely strong, with impressive returns on investment possible if organisations choose the right solutions to solve the right challenges in their business.
There are five key business departments that experience common problems that digital transformation can solve.
Administration
- Problem: Sensitive organisational data is not securely stored.
- Solution: Cloud services let organisations remotely store important data securely, while still letting staff members access current information in real time. This increases team efficiency and reduces additional costs surrounding the purchasing of hardware solutions. Digitising all documents also eliminates the need for physical filing cabinets, which can take up expensive real estate in an office.
Sales
- Problem: Sales consultants spend increased time on admin processes and less time with clients.
- Solution: Automation has been critical in giving businesses back precious time that has been lost to the burden of manual processes. Many of the workflows that can take up sales consultants’ time can now be easily and effectively handled through digital systems, leaving consultants more time to build relationships and secure business leads.
Finance
- Problem: Accounts department spends significant time managing invoices.
- Solution: Invoice management and other billing operations are a great candidate for automation. Having smart technology assist throughout the payment process assures accuracy for the clients and reduces the pressure on finance teams to follow up on approvals and timelines, meaning transactions are completed quickly, with less chance of miscalculation or other errors. Invoices can move through workflows and approvals automatically, so they’re less likely to get stuck on someone’s desk or be held up because the required staff member isn’t working in the office that day. Instead, they can be accessed remotely and managed effectively regardless of the team’s location.
Human resources
- Problem: Staff lead time-consuming onboarding sessions.
- Solution: While it’s important to have some human contact during the staff onboarding process, being able to use workflow management and administration systems will result in a seamless set-up process for new team members. While documents and forms are managed in the background, and staff members are provisioned with the tools they need to do their job, HR professionals can focus on immersing new hires into the organisation’s culture.
IT
- Problem: Time-consuming record management and navigating changing compliance and government standards is complex.
- Solution: Taking a digital approach to record management is a guaranteed way to safely and securely manage organisational data, while still being able to provide easy access to team members. When it comes to observing compliance regulations, employing cybersecurity measures and digital safety nets provide an opportunity for IT teams to reduce their exposure levels to outside threats in a way that doesn’t require constant monitoring from the team, resulting in greater efficiencies and reduced costs.
For more information on how to save costs and benefit your business through automation and digital transformation, contact the team at Konica Minolta today.