If you’re struggling to get your head round exactly how IT can automate workflow and processes, we’ll go into a bit more detail and give you some straightforward examples.
Who knows? Maybe you’ll see some processes within your own business that could potentially be automated to save you both time and money.
What is automation?
Let’s start with a basic explanation in its broadest terms, of what automation is:
Automation is where technology is created and applied to produce, or deliver, services or products with minimal human effort.
But you probably knew that already. The main point is that minimal human effort is needed, and tech does the job instead – once the work has been put in to get the tech set up and working.
A simple example of automating workflow
Imagine a situation where if an employee needs to request annual leave, they have to email you. You then have to approve, or decline, the annual leave and mark it in your calendar, but then have to separately inform payroll by email, and potentially manually enter this in your HR records. - we dare to suggest, on an actual physical paper record of annual leave. (We’ve seen it happen.)
Then you have to email your employee back and tell them your response.
What a bind! And what if the employee changes their mind? You have to do all the above again to undo your manual recording.
How much easier if there is an automated system the employee enters the leave request within that then sends a message to you with a click option to approve or decline, as well as populating your team calendar? The system then sends an automated message to the employee informing them of the decision, with payroll and HR records automatically updated.
That’s just one example of automating workflow. But the possibilities are endless.
Repetitive tasks? Think automation
It doesn’t matter how many people carry out these repetitive tasks, or where they are, they can be automated within one system to easily manage and monitor.
Imagine a team of drivers for a distribution company. They are all self-employed and manually record their journeys and deliveries to customers, and then bring all this information back to the office weekly for them to be paid accordingly.
The information is collected from the spreadsheets, or even paper, the drivers maintain throughout the week, subject to human error, and then photocopied or emailed to the manager to approve, who then emails or photocopies the records to accounts.
How much easier if they all used an automated system? The drivers could log in to their account to enter journey and customer info, which by the way, could be integrated with the sales system so they wouldn’t even have to do that, then the info is collated as they go, automatically notifying the manager, and once approved, notifies payroll and triggers a payment.
Want to know more about automation?
Cultrix help businesses automate workflow and processes all the time. From building systems to make life easier for whole teams of interpreters and the administration and compliance that supports them, to creating a bespoke grant application system that manages applications and makes decisions.
If you have a niggling feeling that something you do in your business could be automated, we bet you it probably can. Just ask us to take a look.
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