Baby Steps: Moving Toward Automation

When it comes to launching a process automation strategy, the first step is often the hardest one to take. Today’s customers are moving faster than ever before. They expect faster responses, want to make faster decisions, and want products at their doorsteps or implemented into their organizations faster than ever before. Because of this, it’s imperative that companies embrace automation where they can.

According to research by McKinsey, the average worker spends about 28 percent of their workweek managing their email, and 20 percent trying to track down information or trying to track down employees for assistance on specific tasks. Automation technology offers many opportunities for businesses to mitigate these inefficiencies and keep up with fast-moving customers and vendors.

Here are some steps you can take toward automating your currently-manual processes:

• Ask automation vendors for case studies and references so you can see what other companies are doing on the automation front. This may give you an idea of where to start and figure out where other companies have found success.
• Figure out where your company is losing time and money due to manual processes. The processes that are the most cumbersome and the most tedious may be a good place to start automating.
• Enlist a team of decision-makers from various departments that automation would affect. Getting buy-in from a variety of team members will help you start an automation and digital transformation strategy that will benefit your organization as a whole.
• Start small in your automation efforts. You can always expand automation to other processes and across the enterprise later, but it’s important to set small, realistic goals, celebrate those accomplishments and measure the ROI so you can move forward strategically.

Has your company taken steps toward an automation revolution yet? The jump into digital transformation can be as big or as small as you need it to be, because opportunities for further digitization are imminent. Ready to take the first step? Our team is ready to help guide you! Reach out to us at info@metafile.com for more information on how to start the automation process.