Taking Advantage of Digital Transformation is a Must for SMBs
New digital tools and processes have the potential to totally transform the businesses that adopt them. Three quarters of organizations feel that digital transformation is changing how business is done. Businesses everywhere can take advantage of new efficiencies, capabilities, streamlined operations, improved customer satisfaction, and cost savings. Many small and mid-sized businesses feel that digital transformation is just for the “big guys”, but the truth is, it has the power to even the playing field and make SMBs more competitive with larger organizations.
Where to Start?
If you’re ready to begin your digital transformation, it can be overwhelming to find a starting point. It’s important to have a measured and strategic approach, and the key is determining which core business processes will benefit the most from digital transformation. Here are the three top areas where you can see an immediate benefit:
Accounts Payable
Accounts Payable is a fundamental activity for all businesses that is often bogged down with manual processes and paper files. This can result in a labor-intensive AP process that leaves organizations behind their competitors. The purpose of automation is to reduce the manual steps in the AP process. By reliving the burden of day-to-day manual entry and other repetitive activities, organizations can save $16 per invoice, sometimes more. AP staff are then freed up to focus on more productive activities that add value to your business. On average, it pays for itself within 6-18 months.
Software systems like DocuWare can manage the entire AP process from electronic invoice delivery and document management, to workflow automation and analytics. There are a number of ways SMBs can see an immediate advantage to streamlining AP processes. You can take advantage of early pay discounts that are normally overlooked, ensure vendor satisfaction by processing accounts faster, and get better insight to predict financial outcomes.
Human Resources
Human Resources is yet another department that is buried in paper documents despite the increasing digitization of business processes. Unfortunately, paper shuffling claims up to 60 percent of the average office worker’s time, and can account for up to 45 percent of labor costs. This results in HR staff often spending far more time performing administrative duties, rather than hiring the best talent and maintaining high moral.
Managing any staff requires documentation that starts well before an employee is hired, and continues even after they leave the company, including applications, background checks, state and federal taxes, health insurance, employee reviews, and more. That’s not to mention things like workplace claims, training and certifications, and annual benefits re-enrollment. And don’t forget, when an employee retires or quits, there is even more documentation to keep track of.
There is great benefit in automating HR processes with document and content management tools. Luckily, developers such as DocuWare offer solutions that are specifically designed for these very processes.
Sales
The buyer’s journey is so different than in the past. People find all of the information they need to research and choose a product on their own. By the time a customer contacts your business, they are typically already close to making a purchase decision. That means your business needs to be ready to move fast in order to close deals. Your sales team needs instant access to information and a great sales process is essential for customer satisfaction.
Give your sales team the modern tools they need, such as centralized, cloud-based document management and workflow automation.
Sales and marketing are dramatically enhanced by workflows that digitize documents and leverage workflow automation to route information to the right team. Once the deal is done, sales representatives can digitize, manage and share contracts with a workflow to facilitate collaboration between sales, legal, and executive reviewers.
Recommendations:
What are best practices? Here are some recommendations to consider as you move forward.
Evaluate Your Current Processes
It is important to thoroughly evaluate your current processes so you can pinpoint gaps in performance. Which areas can you save the most time? Which processes are causing opportunities to fall through the cracks? Take a hard look at your processes in their current state, and be honest about how they are falling short.
Establish Objectives
Now that you’ve thought long and hard about your current processes, you need to determine how you would like them to change. You can do this by determining specific expectations and objectives. For example, reducing the time needed for an invoice payment or reducing the number of hours spent on-boarding a new hire from 5 hours to 1 hour.
Evaluate Targeted Options
Many software solutions have solutions that are specifically made for core business functions like AP, HR, and Sales. This can be the quickest and most reliable way to implement an efficient solution.
Les Olson IT is a proud DocuWare partner. Our team of certified professionals can help your business implement the perfect solution to immediately start streamlining your business operations.
Source
AIIM Study “Digitalizing Core Processes”
