Editorial
One-third or more of your work activities could be automated. And that’s not it.
According to McKinsey, over 40% of workers spend on average 25% or more of their week on manual, repetitive tasks, which could translate into potentially saving six or more hours a week for high value tasks. Would you like to set up an environment where automation makes your activities more profitable? Here are five steps you can take to leverage automation within your workforce, saving employees time and maximizing productivity.
1. Identify the Consequences of Manual Work
Manual work is part of the daily routine of many employees. Why question it?
A portion of employees fear that automations might generate job loss as their positions would not be needed anymore. According to Forbes, 60% of employees who use AI regularly reported they worry about its impact on their jobs. On the other hand, 75% of respondents surveyed by the firm recognize that automation significantly increases productivity.
Consequences of manual work for employees and companies are different.
For organizations, the impact of manual tasks is not only on the employee experience, but on costs and profitability. Paycom, an expert in HR software solutions, conducted a study that found the average estimated cost of manually entering HR data without technology is $4.70 per single entry. Not to forget the cost generated from people quitting their job because of work fatigue.
Manual work is also responsible for missed opportunities for sales teams. Missed deadlines, endless internal opportunities qualification processes, heavy back office work account for endless sales lifecycle and lost sales.
Legal teams are not left behind with manual work affecting their day to day as compliance issues might occur more often. Manual work creates frustration and fatigue, which deteriorates employee satisfaction and retention. It also affects human interaction as employees work more in silos; they are more isolated.
2. Identify the Sources of Manual Work
Most of the manual tasks come from dealing with email, data collection and data entry.
Don’t get me wrong with data collection: it is good that you have initiated this proactive approach, as it will give you and your team interesting insights to make informed decisions.
Where the problem arises is that initial data entry and successive updates from and into several sources and systems generate recurring manual low-value work.
Ask yourself:
- Do you have your sales team update their activity reports monthly?
- Do you have multiple templates to track KPIs?
- Do you analyze the data from your team members in a separate consolidated template?
If you answered yes to those questions, the good news is that you are eligible for the power of digital transformation.
Other sources of manual work might include looking for information in the company system(s), fixing data entry errors, reconciling various workflows from different departments/resources and checking data reliability to ensure the right insights are shared.
3. Identify the Reasons Why Tasks Have Not Been Automated
Different factors lead companies to stick to manual work. For one, old legacy systems such as ERPs might be difficult to integrate with modern applications. There are also always numerous exceptions to normal automated processes that must be accounted for.
Implementing automations means revisiting the way employees work. If the proper resources are not allocated, and guidance isn’t provided, it makes change hard and adoption of new processes limited. Companies might not embrace or even fail at implementing automations if they cannot support their teams through change management.
4. Identify the Reasons Why Tasks Should Be Automated
The major reason to create some automations is productivity. If your teams spend more time on generating ideas, talking to their customers, making plans to generate new business opportunities, or brainstorming for innovations, not only will your company be able to increase revenue and profit, but your employees will feel empowered.
In digital transformation there is “transformation.” There is no effective transformation if people don’t support it. When people are empowered in the workplace, they are more willing to commit and dedicate themselves to their activities.
Automation also prepares your business for scalability. Would you be able to consolidate and analyze sales data from 20 sales managers the way you do with 10 if you do it manually? Would you be able to run a marathon if you don’t start running regularly?
5. Identify the Opportunities for Automation
Automations should always come with a potential return on investment.
The first opportunity you might consider is the implementation of a CRM strategy, whereby you would streamline the entire customer lifecycle, talk to your customers in a way that up and cross selling are automatically created, secure your data to build a strong data-oriented environment and create more interactions between your staff, among others.
The CRM is not the only chance to reduce manual work.
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For companies with a high volume of product information, different sources and a multichannel strategy, the implementation of Product Information Management (PIM) software is the way to go.
For companies with a high volume of customer requests related to product information, orders tracking or quality concerns, a ticketing system is a solution to consider.
APIs now always available to connect business applications such as websites and CRM
Companies sometimes implement multiple systems according to their needs as there might not be a solution that fully covers their requirements. In that context, it is crucial to create some connectivity between the systems, and avoid duplicate work and information, such as customer databases. When benchmarking digital solutions, organizations should look carefully into options available to create connections, such as API or plugins.
With digital transformation, there is no pre-defined strategy and action plan. It all starts with identifying the company's pain points and challenges, objectives and resources that can be allocated, either internally or externally, to move from manual work to high-value tasks.
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