What processes can businesses automate for better productivity?
- Customer service and support
- Marketing and advertising
- Human resources and recruitment
- Inventory management
Nowadays, practically every kind of business process can be automated by technology. These innovations make it possible to do things faster, enable communication among business departments, and cuts down on storage and labor costs. In this article, we answer the question: what are the processes that businesses can automate?
As mentioned, nearly everything can be automated. But some departments benefit from automation more than others, which is why so much software and various systems are available to ease their processes.
Without further ado, here are some of the processes that can benefit the most from automation.
Customer service and support
A business can automate its processes that involve interacting with customers. Instead of manually talking to the clients, they can have AI chatbots and automated replies do the job, as long as there is still an option to talk to a real person if the customer’s concern is not addressed.
They can provide knowledge bases for customers as well, which are similar to FAQs in the sense that customers can access these bases when they have a concern that’s been encountered before. Through these, they can follow best practices or gain more insight into their concerns.
Automating processes for customers’ self-service is also an option for businesses, especially if they can afford to invest in it. An example of this is a self-service portal, where customers can access their profiles on a database and manage their account information, track orders, and resolve issues.
Marketing and advertising
In the way that information can be made available to customers and patrons through automation, advertising doesn’t have to be done via word-of-mouth or expensive physical means any longer. Email and social media marketing are made more efficient with automated email campaigns, scheduled social media posts, and management tools that allow businesses to maintain a consistent and present online persona.
That’s not all. Every good marketer knows that current patrons matter just as much if not more than new prospects. With marketing automation, you can leave repetitive tasks like lead generation, segmentation, and scoring to technology instead of manually doing them yourself. You can also optimize the consumer journey for your patrons to ensure that they stick with your brand and are wholly satisfied with their purchases.
Human resources and recruitment
HR processes like recruitment, onboarding, attendance tracking, benefits administration, and performance tracking can all be improved with automation.
Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) can streamline the recruitment process. Electronic forms and online portals can make the onboarding process more efficient and reduce paper-based documentation. An automated time and attendance tracking system can track employee hours and manage payroll easily, and online tools allow businesses to track employee performance, set goals, and give feedback.
All of the aforementioned systems and software exist to automate and optimize your human resources processes, allowing your HR personnel to be less concerned with repetitive and mundane tasks and more focused on addressing the actual needs, concerns, and disputes of your workforce.
Inventory management
inventory management is the process of overseeing and facilitating the ordering, storage, and use of a company’s materials, goods, and products. It involves keeping track of what the business keeps in its inventory, the coming and going of raw materials and finished products, and all orders and payments that take place.
Inventory systems can be automated via processes like barcode or RFID scanning to keep track of and manage stock in real-time, or employing inventory management software (IMS) to automate tasks like tracking stock levels, generating orders and reports, and the like.
Automating your inventory management makes a particularly big impact because of all the items you now have records of and can track. The bigger your shop is and the more it offers, the more likely it is that you require automated inventory management.
Key Takeaway
To conclude this article, let’s go back to our question at the beginning: what are processes that businesses can automate? If you ask us, the answer is expansive and covers many departments and industries. But at the same time, we recognize that the four fields we mentioned above are the ones that can benefit the most.
For that reason, we appreciate not just the automation of business processes, but a system that additionally allows collaboration among teams and departments, tying all business systems together. With the ultimate SAP software in the Philippines specifically designed to streamline key business processes, SAP Business One, that’s exactly what you get.
SAP Business One allows you to manage the entirety of your small or medium-sized business with streamlined processes, greater insights, and real-time information. If you’re interested in learning how it can adapt to your business, DynamIQ Enterprise Solutions Inc. is the authorized distributor of SAP Business One in the Philippines, and we have the answer! Contact us today to know more.
