Today, technology has evolved to where we can better organize the workplace and businesses processes than ever before. Document workflows are just one area that can benefit from automation. As you begin the automation process, here are some key questions to ask and answer to help define your business needs.
Automating Process
Process automation is defined as: “the digitization of any manual business process that centralizes and compiles information within a business enterprise.”
This can include everything from streamlining workflows to creating electronic filing systems. Process automation can:
- Minimize human error and eliminate the related costs
- Speed job completion, freeing employees to focus on core business tasks
- Track, monitor and report on documents workflows and processes
- Improve regulatory compliance, information reliability and corporate governance
There are many benefits of process automation that can be shared enterprise wide from marketing to the mailroom! The consulting group McKinsey found that process automation can reduce the costs of document management by up to 90 percent.
Identifying Document Automation Opportunities, What’s Next?
Once you’ve identified areas ripe for automation, it’s time to dig into the process to capture more data to then create your automation strategy. Ask and answer these questions:
- What type of documents do you create? Invoice, proposals, time sheets, forms
- How and where do your store these documents? Filing cabinets, storage boxes, digital file formats
- What is the volume of documents you produce company-wide? Daily, weekly, monthly and yearly
- What formats do you typically use? PDFs, word documents, emails, etc.
- How many team members require access? At one time, in total
- Do you currently have workflow systems in place? What methods, equipment and applications do you currently use
- Is data manually input, or automatically captured? How many employees are necessary, how many hours does it take
- How do you currently manage process? Reporting or management information control
- How long does it take? Can you access data in real-time?
- Do you get the information you need? Can you access the information you need to run your business day-to-day?
Process automation provides businesses with tremendous benefits. Want to know more? Give us a call and we’ll show you how process automation can make your business run more smoothly and lower your costs!
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