Do you own an online brand, or sell goods/services? If so, you’ll probably agree that one of your primary goals is to increase profit, expand business units, scale your business in general, and/or sit back to watch it grow.
Who wouldn’t want that anyway?
But there’s another thing you may have realized along the way: scaling a business requires more than just a strong desire to achieve business success.
The truth is, to scale your business successfully, you must first take a look inward at your company processes and take action to set yourself up for success before going full steam ahead. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs often assume that scaling their businesses is the same as growing a firm, and don’t take the time to examine their businesses before moving forward.
“What’s the difference between growing and scaling a business?” you may question.
Growing your business usually means increasing the number of employees and/or launching new branches. Scalability, on the other hand, guarantees that your business is not only expanding but your processes are also becoming more efficient and thus high margins and higher profit overall.
What is Scalability?
Scaling your business happens when your company has all of the resources, funding, and organizational capacity to handle a rise in sales, revenue, and overall production. Whether in the context of finance or business strategy, a company has begun to scale when its growth is not hindered by structural or insufficient resources when faced with increased production.
In simpler terms, scalability is the ability of a business to manage production and fulfillment challenges while increasing profits i.e., increase in profit margin while reducing costs and expenses as a business grows.
How do businesses scale seamlessly? If you thought about automation, then we are on the same page.
The best, proven, and simplest method to scale your brand is to use technology – that is, to automate it. Brands generally use business automation systems to make their operations and procedures more efficient. It saves everyone time and reduces some of the hassles of manual work.
Let’s dig further.
What is Business Automation?
Business automation involves leveraging the power of technology to optimize your business’ services and ultimately maximize the customer’s experience. Business process automation allows your company to automate and perform simple tasks without wasting valuable time and resources from your team.
For instance, automating simple tasks like leads generation funnels, conversion tracking, sales reports, email marketing, orders tracking, etc., will free up your team and allow them to use their strengths for other productive and fulfilling tasks.
What is an example of automation in business?
A good example of business automation that was built with the customer in mind is the introduction of mobile banking apps. Customers may simply complete financial transactions from their phones rather than going to the bank and waiting in line for hours. This type of automation was built with the customer in mind.
Advantages of Business Automation
Business process automation, among other benefits, helps to eliminate human work that leads to loss of time and revenue. Automation of processes in business has these benefits. It:
- Facilitates Business Growth and Scalability
- Increases Operational Efficiency
- Reduces Cost
- Increases Overall Output
- Improves Customer Service
- Reduces Errors
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Facilitates Business Growth and Scalability
Business process automation helps to facilitate growth and scalability in organizations. In a manual business system, your service delivery is limited by resources such as time and staff. Automated systems, on the other hand, can execute multiple tasks simultaneously, helping you increase the quantity and quality of tasks completed within a period and customer service delivery.
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Increases Operational Efficiency
Business process automation improves operational efficiency by allowing processes to be carried out in sequence without the intervention of any staff. Automated systems can identify and correct errors in the workflow that would have otherwise been missed or overlooked by some of your employees. Automating your business processes means you’re less prone to human errors, which in turn translates to improved performance and efficiency.
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Reduces Costs
Business process automation helps to reduce the cost of operations and personnel because it replaces the additional labor costs. Studies have shown that businesses that employ automated processes are able to cut their operational costs by 10% while driving up their overall profit by 8%. The math is clear, moving your business processes from manual to automated will help to increase profit margins for your organization and better utilize your resources.
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Increases Overall Output
Business process automation helps to increase your employees’ productivity levels. They’ll get more work done in less time and with fewer errors. For example, sales and financial records that may take many hours to complete by a department can be executed simultaneously and completed in minutes when the processes are automated. In a nutshell, automating complex and time-consuming business tasks will greatly improve your staff’s overall productivity.
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Improves Customer Service
Automation of processes helps to improve customer service by consistently meeting your Service Level Agreement (SLA) and promises you have made to your customers. Business automation gives your customers fast and easy access to your products and/or services, improving their overall experience, and without human error.
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Reduces Errors
Regardless of how skilled or experienced your workers are, they’re still likely to make mistakes because it’s human nature to do so. Automation takes out human error and makes your business processes consistent by pre-identifying and removing the risk of operational mistakes, slip-ups, and redundancy.
Before You Scale Your Business with Automation
Regardless of your industry or your company’s strategy, here are some tips to help you scale your business with automation successfully:
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Know exactly what you want
No doubt, the primary aim of automating your business is growth and business scalability. Still, it is important to know the precise results and achievements you want from the automation system and what part of your business should be prioritized. Knowing what you want to achieve with automation will help you define your milestone goals, and priorities. Thereafter, you can develop sustainable strategies.
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Set realistic goals
Setting smart goals and expectations for the different sections you’re looking to automate will make growth possible. However, don’t set the wrong expectations or compare your business’ process with other companies.
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Adopt automation where possible
To truly scale your business and begin to get the results you want, you must give priority to those processes that are most important to your business and its operations. Nonetheless, think outside the box. There are many areas to automate in every business. Re-assess all the manual tasks you do throughout the day and start making a list.
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Setup a growth evaluation checklist
Since you’ll need to monitor your growth to make meaningful decisions and adjustments where necessary, make sure to have a predefined list that will help you measure accurately. By checking your list periodically, you can quickly identify the parts of your business automation that are working as expected, those that need improvement, and those you should discontinue.
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Choose the right automation tool or platform
Your choice of automation tools/platforms should depend on the business process you’re trying to automate. For instance, sales, marketing, finance, customer service, delivery, or production processes have different dedicated platforms, each with its advantages and disadvantages.
Next Steps?
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