Many businesses find themselves spending a lot of time on low-value, repetitive tasks. This includes onboarding new clients and keeping track of open items in a project. Also, it involves capturing feedback from client review meetings, creating invoices monthly in addition to following up with overdue payments and closing projects. The good news is, you can increase efficiency and lower costs by automating these manual processes.

Identifying the processes that should be automated first requires a keen understanding of your current business processes and systems. Business Process Management (BPM) or Business Process Management practices, is the best method to accomplish this.

By automate firm processes involving key team members in these workshops and brainstorming sessions to gain a better understanding of the processes in place and which areas could benefit from automation. Once the As Is process map has been created it is important to analyze the effects of these processes on the overall business results. It is also essential to pinpoint any potential problems that could arise if these processes are automated.

Be aware that automation cannot replace human intervention. Automation is best used as a supplement to the existing work. It is also important to realize that you won’t be able to automate everything in one go and that the best way to do this is to start with a small amount, then test your chosen tool and monitor the effectiveness as it is implemented.

There is an excellent chance that your business could benefit from a process automation tool regardless of whether you’re looking to cut costs on overhead or reduce your time-to-market. If you adopt a practical, thorough approach to automating, your firm will gain the benefits of improved efficiency and transparency as well as reduced errors.