flow automation is fundamentally changing how modern businesses operate by enabling previously unimaginable productivity gains.
This transformative technology automatically handles repetitive clerical and administrative tasks – freeing up employees to focus on value-adding work.
As a result, companies can increase output 5 to 10 times over manual methods with the same number of staff.
Intrigued by the promise of enhanced performance but unsure about the benefits of workflow automation?
This guide details exactly how automating SharePoint workflow solutions results in exponential efficiency improvements and unbridled scalability.
Why Manual Workflows Eventually Become Bottlenecks?
Let’s first understand why manual, people-powered processes fail to scale effectively:
- Repetitive Tasks: Employees waste time on mundane responsibilities like data entry and document filing. This distracts them from critical work.
- Prone to Human Error: People make mistakes completing repetitive chores over long periods. These errors further reduce productivity.
- Limited Scalability: Adding employees doesn’t linearly increase output due to training and management overhead.
- Lack of Visibility: Organizations have limited insight into how employees spend time on manual workflows. It’s impossible to accurately track productivity.
The solution? Workflow automation.
4 Key Benefits of Automating Workflows
Streamlining workflows through automation and technology provides these tangible advantages:
1. Increased Throughput and Productivity
- Automation handles rote tasks up to 10x faster than employees.
- Bots work 24/7 without breaks, sick leave, or holidays.
- Employees freed from repetitive work can redirect their efforts to high-value responsibilities.
For example, automating invoice processing with optical character recognition and approval bots allows an accounts payable clerk to reduce invoice processing time from 2 minutes per invoice to 20 seconds.
That 11X throughput increase means employees can handle more total invoices in less time.
2. Improved Data Quality and Reporting
Automated workflows standardize business processes through systematized procedures. They:
- Ensure data is entered and handled consistently every time.
- Greatly mitigate human error that degrades downstream data integrity.
- Seamlessly transfer information between systems without manual reentry or duplication.
Moreover, automated workflows accumulate granular process data that wasn’t feasible to collect previously.
Analytics algorithms generate intelligent business intelligence insights from this data, enabling fact-based process improvements.
3. Enhanced Compliance and Security
Standard operating procedures codified into automation workflows prevent deviations that may Result in security lapses or compliance failures.
Built-in safeguards block bots from making prohibited modifications or accessing unauthorized resources. Comprehensive activity logs grant full transparency into automated tasks for auditing.
4. Boosted Employee Satisfaction
Employees don’t enjoy soul-crushing administrative work any more than you enjoy assigning it.
Eliminating these dull responsibilities through automation demonstrably enhances organizational morale.
Workers can dedicate time to challenges that leverage their skills and knowledge – likely what excited them about the role originally! This drives higher engagement, performance, innovation, and retention.
In summation, automating repetitive aspects of critical workflows is indispensable for scaling output amid relentless growth and complexity.
The remainder of this guide outlines actionable tips for assessing, designing and implementing automation in your unique context.
Identifying Automation Opportunities with Value Stream Mapping
The first step is understanding existing processes and pinpointing areas ripe for automation.
Value stream mapping (VSM) provides this insight through in-depth workflow analysis and documentation.
VSM exercises assemble process experts and leadership to collaboratively analyze and record all sequential steps comprising a workflow from initiation to completion.
The key goals are highlighting value-adding vs non-value-adding activities and revealing bottlenecks hampering flow.
Common steps for effective VSM include:
- Define the workflow’s scope and objectives
- Identify key personnel across all roles and systems interacting with the workflow
- Map the current state by documenting each process step and associated metrics
- Classify steps as value-adding vs non-value-adding
- Find waste and constraints impeding process velocity
- Brainstorm automation opportunities for non-critical manual work
- Design an optimized future state process incorporating automation
For example, consider using VSM to assess accounts payable workflow handling thousands of monthly invoices.
The analysis would reveal mundane manual document handling steps (printing, sorting, filing) and data entry activities slowing down employees.
These tasks provide no business value, yet consume employee time that limits invoice processing volumes.
Their automation and elimination facilitate faster billing, cash flow improvements and dynamic scaling.
Critical Capabilities for Automation Solutions
Once promising automation candidates emerge from value stream mapping, next evaluate various tools capable of supporting scalable, reliable automated workflows.
Powerful solutions require specialized functionality exceeding traditional business process management suites:
Robust Integration Engine
- Seamlessly moves data between 90+ enterprise systems with inbuilt connectors
- Handles millions of integration transactions daily without performance loss
Enterprise-Grade Automation Bot
- Executes repetitive tasks like filling out forms and downloading/uploading data
- Built-in computer vision supports document data extraction via OCR
Unified Orchestration Canvas
- Enables anyone to build sophisticated workflows with a simple drag-and-drop interface
- No coding or scripting needed
Operational Analytics
- Contextual dashboard revealing automation trends like daily transaction volume
- Audit trail logs showing detailed historical bot activity data
Compliance Guardrails
- Environment controls regulating bot behavior
- Granular access policies restricting unauthorized workflow changes
Counting the Cost: Pricing Considerations
Thoughtfully evaluate pricing models to maximize automation ROI and constrain budgets. Typically, solutions fall into two buckets:
Per User Licensing
- Price fixed based on number of named users
- Simpler budgeting
- Pay for unused licenses
Consumption-Based
- Pay exclusively for actual usage
- Right-sized spending aligned to needs
- Usage costs scale directly with business growth
Further, for consumption models understand how usage is calculated:
Per Automation Hour
- Charged for duration bots run
- Disincentivizes inefficient bot logic
Per Automation Transaction
- Billed per workflow completed
- Cost scales directly with the volume
Generally, transactional-based pricing aligned with business value creates a stronger impact and material cost savings.