How to approach workflow automation: tools and the best practices to achieve your goals

Some of the characteristics of a successful company are a clear mission statement, highly engaged company members, and a high level of productivity. Various factors can contribute to the success of a company and an effective and efficient workflow plays a vital role in growing and expanding the organization. 

Workflow is the rhythm of every company as it pursues its mission by creating value through its products and services. An efficient and effective workflow allows the staff members to achieve more by doing less. There are numerous benefits of workflow automation and automating purchase orders and automated approvals are just a few of them.

An effective workflow can reduce your employees’ stress from the routine approval tasks, minimize manual tasks, avoid retyping or typo for important documents, and clarify communication lines and delayed approvals. 

How Automation Helps Businesses Grow

According to current workplace research, 43% of companies say that they plan to reduce their workforce due to technology integration. This statistic simply shows how businesses are looking for ways to increase their output production by improving workflows. Departments like budget, finance, and procurement would best benefit from these innovations. Creating the necessary documents like purchase orders, expense approvals and budget planning do not need to be tedious and demanding.

Imagine having an efficient and automated workflow that can streamline processes, minimize errors and improve interdepartmental collaboration by integrating different processes involved in daily work routines. That’s where workflow software solutions come in. There is this list of workflow software and other workflow automation examples available on the Internet where you can find workflow software that could fit your company’s needs. 

5 Areas Any Business Should Automate

Not sure where to start on your business automation journey? In learning how to automate business processes, it is very important to come up with clear steps for it: some things are easier to automate than others, so you need to find a place to start. Here are five areas of your business that will definitely benefit from workflow automation the most:

Marketing

The marketing department of a business or a company leads in conceptualizing and implementing marketing strategies to promote its services and products. They are in charge of building a positive brand image and awareness in their current and potential target markets.

There are aspects of marketing that cannot be automated, like conceptualizing and strategizing. However, automation can significantly boost your marketing effectiveness in certain areas. Sending emails to your current clients, social media postings, and approval workflow of promotional campaigns can be efficiently automated to let your marketing team focus on creative tasks. 

Customer Service

The role of a customer service department is to provide assistance and helpful insights to people who purchase or use its products or services. They are also in charge of building a positive customer experience and harmonious relationships. They are the first line of communication that connects clients to the company. 

By automating your customer service department, you will be able to manage client concerns better and focus on building your rapport with clients. 

Finance

The finance department is a crucial area in running a company. It is a component that contributes significantly to the success of a business through obtaining and managing its financial assets on behalf of the organization. Aside from making sure that business experiences minimal financial disruptions, they are given the responsibility to assess, approve or disprove financial proposals.

Integrating automation in the finance department would make assessments and feedback happen quicker and more efficiently. It would also increase the company’s financial accountability and integrity because you have 100% assurance that all your bills are accounted for and stored securely. 

There are many workflow software options to help automate finance functions. Approveit, for instance, is automation software that can transform the approval routine into a smooth and stress-free workflow. It connects your systems, streamlines the approvals, and automates post-approval actions by integrating with the software you use, no-code. Approveit works right in your Slack or Email workspace and is very simple and intuitive for the end-user.

Project Management

Project management is the process of leveraging one’s methods, skills, knowledge, and experience to accomplish specific objectives that are aligned to the company’s mission and vision within a given boundary. Some of the benefits of workflow automation for project management are quicker approval, faster communication, greater accountability, and standardized forms for certain requests. 

Human Resource

The HR or Human Resources department is tasked with looking for new hires, the employment process, and upgrading the skills of the company personnel. Recently, they are also in charge of looking after the well-being of the staff of their company. An effective HR is not just after hiring people but also looking for the right people who would perform well. 

Automating, for example, time-off approval workflow will free up a lot of time for HR managers. Creating standard time-off approval forms with required fields will make sure no details get left out from the request and the HR department has all the information they need to approve the time off for any employee. 

The Future of Workflow: Automation

According to workspace research, 50% of business leaders say that they’re planning to accelerate the automation of repetitive tasks within their organization. Modernization of the workspace is now here and companies must know how to automate business processes in order to keep up with the demands of their respective industries.

One of the keys to running a business with the hopes of making it successful is to do less and achieve more. With the help of workflow automation, companies can better pursue their mission, employees can be more productive and healthy. These are just some of the benefits of workflow automation and why business people should learn how to automate business processes.