In today’s business environment, enterprise automation is the key to growing your enterprise. It brings you benefits in terms of productivity, integration and visibility. And your enterprise automation strategy will be very important in determining whether you would be able to achieve your goals, given limited resources.
The promise
Business process automation is usually a top propriety for most CIOs. And why not? Up close, automation allows the business to complete tasks in a lot less time than when you do them manually. You can also finish tasks with less manpower and fewer problems down the road, too. It cuts costs, while also giving you more efficiency. In short, it is an achievable solution to improving profitability. It is the answer to businesses that have suffered manpower downsizing and shrinking budgets – something particularly problematic during times of economic downturn or recession.
And the good news is that while enterprise automation is traditionally aimed at large corporations, it can also benefit smaller businesses. It can help startups get the ball rolling, grow and scale. Medium sized business can enjoy improved stability, while enterprises can continue to grow. Regardless of industry and geography, a business can use automation to easily handle big data, along with other upcoming trends and challenges that come their way. For instance, enterprise testing can help small businesses by equipping them with process guidance and information that helps them streamline their business activities.
The tools
Software and services providing enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, and business intelligence are common business tools. There are also the different modules for specific business processes and activities, such as supply chain management, human resources, inventory management, collaboration and communication. It is not a surprise that more and more companies are looking to deploy enterprise platforms for automation, especially when it plays a crucial part in their operations. Human input is necessary in working on these software, but these instances are becoming less frequent.
For example, keeping ERP and CRM platforms up-to-date is usually tedious and time-consuming, requiring a significant investment in time and effort in order to ensure that the new implementations go smoothly. With process automation, businesses get the chance to test out their upgrades and updates before they roll it out. This cloud-based platform specializing in ERP testing and implementation even recommends fixes for errors in code that it discovers, with the use of big data analytics. The tool saves thousands of testing hours, cutting down the need to manually track and fix potential issues and bugs, likewise reducing risks of downtime and non-compliance.
The benefits
An automation strategy can help businesses standardize best practices. This is especially true if you are implementing new processes. Those involved in the project would be able to avoid deploy custom code or implement poor development practices. Automation also reduces risks characterized by costly and time-consuming errors, while also making execution a whole lot faster. Using big data, automation will determine all possible scenarios in your project to find what could go wrong. Plus, it gives you ideas on how to correct and clean your code, to prevent inefficiencies. Furthermore, automation allows you to do away with the unnecessary process and the redundant use of resources, enabling businesses to cut down on costs by using fewer assets, but still doing the job right.
The future
What can we expect from enterprise automation? Back-office tasks would be automated as companies realize how much more expensive, inefficient, error prone and difficult it is to rely on manual labor to do repetitive tasks. Automation in back office tasks will usher in better accuracy, faster completion and accountability. Month-end reports, for instance, would have fewer errors made by humans. Employees would no longer have to spend time gathering data and instead just focus on data and trend analysis. The automated back office can also be used to ensure that various platforms, technologies and applications work together seamlessly, without drawbacks and inefficiencies.
Another trend that will further gain momentum in the future is the use of automation services that are delivered via the cloud to help in process automation. Virtualization will likewise play a big part in automation strategies. Given this scenario, even small businesses can gain all the promises and benefits of building an enterprise automation strategy, without high barriers to entry.
A good enterprise automation strategy helps communicate to your competitors that you are a serious player in your industry, while also helping customers discover that you are out to satisfy them both with a great product and a great experience. A good start would be to take a look at what companies in highly regulated industries are doing and what they are doing right. Automating process just for the sake of automation will not give you the promised benefits. Take a look at what you need, and consider how automation would help you get it.
