4 Things Businesses Should Automate

Wouldn’t it be great if you could save time, improve productivity, and deliver a better experience for your end users– all while actually taking work off your own plate?

Automation is key in the business of innovation. With automation tools, you help your team work more efficiently while making your customers’ lifecycle more meaningful. When merged with a talented team, these tools have the potential to streamline everything from marketing to customer relationship management to internal processes. Here’s how to automate your business with emerging technologies:

1. Customer Journey

Managing a lead pipeline efficiently can be challenging, but customer relationship management (CRM) software can make the process much easier. You can target leads more effectively, make your target audience feel good about purchasing, and also manage your sales process with the right tools. Think about being able to surprise your customers with anniversary emails and product updates. With a robust CRM, you will be able to deliver a personalised and premium experience without putting in additional work.

Example of solutions:

• Customer Moments is a customer insights tool focused on identifying and optimising the moments of truth across the customer journey. It offers an effortless experience for your customers to foster sustained loyalty and help you get to know them better.

• Customer Intelligence helps you gain innovative insights that will help you focus on the right customers who will create true value, thus reaching the full potential of your business.

• Sitecore is (web) content management system (CMS) which combines a set of tools to manage and optimise responsive websites. Your team can create and publish content and even measure key performance indicators, all without knowing how to code.

2. Financial Processes

For small business owners, it is critical to keep track of accounting and invoicing matters. Through automation, you will be able to streamline recurring invoices, manage timesheets, and automatically track your Accounts Payable (AP) and Accounts Receivables (AR). With proper, dependable, and consistent invoicing, your customers will be put at ease.

Through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data, you will also be able to optimise the many steps of your bookkeeping, general accounting, closing, and financial consolidation processes. This raises efficiency and free up time for value-added tasks.

Example of solutions:

• Robotic Process Automation (RPA) allows businesses to automate business processes at a fraction of traditional IT solutions. By mirroring human actions, RPA frees up your staff to increase productivity to achieve better business results.

• SAP S/4HANA is a new ERP business suite which puts real-time data at your fingertips while allowing you to be more agile. With this robust tool, you will be able to cut the total cost of ownership.
  

• CFO Digital Finance Transformation Roadmap helps finance departments step out of their islands and become strategic business partners that add true value to their business in today’s increasingly digital era.

3. Sales & Marketing

From saving time in scheduling social media posts to generating more revenue, the automation of sales and marketing functions goes beyond simply automating repetitive tasks. In the market, many small businesses struggle with engaging their audience and finding customers. Using the right automation tools can help you to overcome these issues by complementing your sales and marketing efforts. 

Example of solutions:

• Omnichannel Experience is an all-in-one tool which offers a unified experience to your customers, no matter which channel they are shopping from. With this, you will be able to give customers individual attention, making them feel valued and appreciated.

• Digital Orchestration is your complete customer-intimate marketing partner which helps you to hone your content marketing vision, develop a personalised strategic roadmap and deliver top-quality content to your target audience.
  

• Strategy and Insights leverages the competence of machine learning to enrich your marketing approach with sound theory and robust data and analytics.

4. Supply management

By automating your office supply orders, you will be able to reduce man hours and save time. By automating this business process, your orders will be sent out on schedule or when supplies are running low – automatically and without lag time. Even when it comes to fulfilling customer orders, software and automation tools come in to digitise the process and automate incoming sales order processing. Doing so allows you to reduce costs and administrative time to focus on strengthening relationships with your customers, eliminate human error and information delay to make quick and informed decisions, and provide an effortless user experience.

Example of solutions:

• SAP Ariba is a cloud-based B2B marketplace where buyers and suppliers can find each other and do business via a single, networked platform.
  

• Vendor Invoice Management enables accounts payable (AP) staff to automatically process invoices – from recognition to approval, posting and archiving. It is an end-to-end solution that is seamlessly integrated into your ERP or finance platform.

Automate Your Business Processes with delaware

New technological advances have produced robust solutions such as cloud computing and AI. As such, many automating functions are now possible at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions. With delaware as your automation partner, you will be able to save time and money, which can be channelled to serving your customers better. You will also have access to advanced analytics to give you powerful insights.

Find out how you can achieve digital transformation with emerging technologies, or schedule a strategy and consulting session with us to discuss how we can help.