ARTICLE SUMMARY
Process automation helps you save time and money, consequently improving your company's results. Find out how you can do more with (a lot) less.
Most people immediately assume that automating workflows of different processes will help them save time. It makes sense when you consider that automation does allow people to complete their work much faster. However, that’s not all process automation has to offer.
It makes sense to use the cliché and say “time is money” to justify that. If it saves time, your company will also save money. That is why most managers apply it to convince their company to invest in workflow management systems.
Besides actually saving time that would be spent on doing specific tasks, workflow and processes automation also help to reduce errors and enable your highly capacitated professionals to focus their expensive hours on high-priority tasks to keep your company running and growing.
Workflow management systems are also very useful sources of data that will allow your company to make better and informed decisions.
Read the report No-code Automation: Good for Business, Great for IT
Why should I automate?
Inefficiency is one of the most harmful aspects of a business environment. Some reports show that inefficient workflows can cost up to 30% of your company’s revenue. That’s certainly a lot more than you’d pay in an automation system that will help avoid that inefficiency, right?
Even considering bulkier workflow systems, costs usually pay for themselves in a very short time after the implementation.
It’s simple math: how much will you save by automating your workflows? Is it more or less than what you would pay for the actual system? If you come to the conclusion that it would cost (much) less, you should not even have to think about it before deciding to automate it. To help you make that decision, we already gathered some pros and cons of process automation.
In this sense, keep in mind that if you rather stay on the safe side, automation is the word—and Pipefy is one of the best tools to help you enable it. Why? I will help you decide by showing you 5 ways to save time (and money) through automation.
Find the right automation tool for your business with the Buyer’s Guide to Automation Platforms
How can I save time and money automating my workflows?
1. Spending less on people
People are expensive. Hiring an employee is pricey. There are many additional costs other than just his/her salary. It is pretty logical to say that, when you shift routine tasks currently performed by humans to a system, you will save money.
Automated workflow systems can handle a wide array of repetitive tasks much better than humans can. These types of software can handle notifications, data entry, email flows, and much more.
I’m not saying your business should completely replace human employees with machines.
Although it may become a reality in a distant future, that’s how automation currently works.
What I’m saying is that you’ll choose those repetitive tasks and work according to specific execution standards (and which don’t demand any type of decision-making or strategic thinking) and leave them up to your automation system.
By doing that, you’ll free your actual employees’ time so that they can worry about strategic aspects directly related to your company’s core business. Employees and their time are expensive. You need to make the best out of IT automation.
2. Making fewer mistakes (and communicating better)
As we’ve mentioned before, inefficiency can cost your company a lot of money. Before automated workflows were available, most manual processes relied solely on human intelligence to be completed.
That was true for all tasks, from the most menial, day-to-day routines to high-priority tasks. However, not only are humans expensive to hire, they’re more prone to mistakes than automated systems.
Remember when your mother said that “to make mistakes is human”?
She was right. Automating workflows allows you to avoid all sorts of dangers.
This is not about your employees being careless. Even the most careful, dedicated employee will make mistakes from time to time, especially if his activities are demanding more than he can handle.
Machines have clearly set execution standards. They’ll deal with data the way you set them to, every single time. Not having to rely on human minds or reinforce execution standards over and over again are a couple of the reasons why automation drastically helps to reduce the number of mistakes.
A teeny, tiny mistake can cost your company thousands of dollars (or much more). On top of that, let’s consider the amount of money you’d spend finding and correcting a said error. That’s a lot more than you wish to spend, right?
3. Making better, well-informed decisions
I’ve recently heard from one of Pipefy’s mentors: “In God we trust, all others (must) bring data”. Can you think of the last time you’ve made a business decision without analyzing and considering data? My guess is: you can’t.
Making decisions without considering all available data is a clear path to failure (unless you’re really, really lucky). Workflow automation tools provide you with valuable information you wouldn’t be able to extract if you were performing the tasks manually.
Not only does automation helps you save time, it actually helps you collect and analyze data much faster. The more high-quality data you have, the greater are the chances of making better decisions that’ll save your company a lot of money.
4. Lowering your operational costs
Other than the money you save on hiring fewer employees, automation can help you save even more. Automating your workflows allows you to identify redundant, unnecessary processes and cut them out.
Workflow automation systems offer monitoring features that allow managers to identify any bottlenecks and waste of time and resources. If you associate this with all the reporting and analytics possibilities, you’ll be able to find creative ways to save time and money.
When you begin to automate your processes, it becomes very clear how much time people spend running around in circles. It happens because the data was not available when they needed it. This obviously costs your company both time and money.
5. Doing more with less
This has become an increasingly important aspect for many companies: how can we make more money (increase the output) while saving time and cutting costs (without reducing the quality of the output)?
If you think logically, it seems rather impossible. Improving efficiency and cutting costs without compromising the output’s quality was, indeed, practically impossible before automation came along.
Workflow automation allows your company to do a lot more with less: less time, less money, fewer people, etc. We have to face the facts: workflow automation takes care of tasks much faster than any human worker could even dream of.
It doesn’t mean you should get rid of all your employees. It just means that their time must be refocused on areas in which technology cannot replace them. To learn more about how automation works inside Pipefy, click here. Pipefy is designed to help anyone establish a better workflow and enable processes automation across different areas of the company, without relying on IT.
Pipefy is designed to help anyone establish better workflows and enable processes automation across different areas of the company, without relying on IT, so don’t be afraid to explore all of its features.
Automation helps save time and money, consequently improving your company’s results. Find out how you can do more with (much) less.
Processes automation helps you save time and money, consequently improving your company’s results. Find out how you can do more with (much) less.
