Maximising business efficiency – managing Business Processes and Automating Workflows
Making the best use of your business resources
There are some things technology just can’t do. It can’t motivate or inspire your employees. Nor can it innovate, create rapport, or imagine. For tasks like these, you need people – and good ones.
But for many common business processes; technology outperforms people every time. The trick is identifying which processes are which, and understanding why.
The benefits of letting technology do what it’s good at are impressive. Reported results include:
- 90% reduction in transaction costs;
- 2-6% incremental reduction in the cost of purchased goods & services; and
- 40% reduction in renegade spend.
So what exactly are Business Processes and Workflows?
A business process is an often-routine set of tasks and activities that accomplish a specific business goal. Examples might include:
- submitting a purchase order,
- approving leave, or
- processing a sales order.
Each apparently-individual task is actually made up of a chain of several complex, separate steps. The step-by-step sequence is called a “workflow” (for more information about workflows, please see our
Workflow Automation white paper).
Which Workflows should you Automate?
Workflow automation works best with simple, repetitive steps that need to be performed quickly and to a set standard. And automation is flexible: you can automate an entire workflow, or just specific steps within it.
Signs that a process could be more efficient if you automated part or all of it include:
- sourcing data from one or more databases,
- writing data to one or more databases,
- getting approval from one or more staff members, or
- getting input from one or more departments.
The quickest way to discover which processes your company can manage more efficiently is to
contact us to discuss a Business Process Review. To find out more about what’s involved in a review, please see our free white paper,
Business Process Reviews: Fixing it BEFORE it gets Broke.
Want to learn more about efficiently managing your Business Processes and Workflows?
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Finally, please feel free to
contact us if we haven’t answered your questions on this page.