We all know that technology and the Internet have transformed almost every business model, and perhaps one of the most powerful tools is access to automation.
It wasn’t that long ago that only large corporations could truly automate business processes . But today, everyone from the self-employed entrepreneur to SMBs can strategically automate important areas of their operations.
Relevance of automation for SMEs
Incorporating automation technologies into your business can help increase agility, reduce costs, improve productivity, reduce delays, minimize errors, and improve customer satisfaction.
An automation strategy allows you to systematically apply the right tools to reap the benefits of new technologies and optimize results.
In turn, there are many ways to use automation to streamline marketing and sales operations, increase efficiency, improve productivity, and reduce costs.
What can be automated in the company
Marketing automation: collects and processes customer data to inform how you can deliver the right message, on the right channel, at the right time; while providing timely support to improve customer acquisition and retention.
For example, you can automate the sending of email campaigns, the maturation and nurturing of a contact base, or qualify and assign an opportunity to the sales team. Other types of automation can be, for example, publications on social networks, and 24/7 attention with a chat bot.
Business Process Automation – These systems run recurring tasks where manual effort can be replaced by technology to streamline workflow, minimize costs, and increase efficiency.
Benefits include the reduction of repetitive activities performed by employees, automatic billing, and real-time data generation and reporting.
Sales and inventory management automation: comprehensive solutions that involve the sales area, work as a system to automatically add, edit and send product information to or from your website and / or eCommerce.
Obtaining product information in real time serves to minimize pending orders or canceled orders, while improving the entire shopping experience.
Importance of automating processes
If you think automation means large corporations replacing human employees with sophisticated robots, it’s worth taking another look at the current context. As a small or medium business owner, you are probably already using some automation tools in your day to day life.
If you use apps like RD Station or HubSpot to save time and streamline your marketing and sales processes, you’re already harnessing the power of automation.
If you use automation in repetitive marketing tasks , you will optimize the productivity of your team, the budget and improve the results. There are plenty of affordable tools you can use, covering areas like email marketing, CRM, sales, lead qualification and nurturing, among other solutions.
In particular, SME automation helps to process, analyze and organize a large amount of customer data so that you can implement personalization strategies, which will be the key to improving sales and marketing results both in the short and long term.
How to drive development through automation
A small business owner is filled with big decisions, but there are also many smaller tasks that take time and effort. That means there is no shortage of responsibilities, and entrepreneurs need effective solutions to make their time and business profitable.
Automation is rapidly gaining ground in the development and growth of SMBs , with 70% of technology experts reporting to Forbes that the shift to automation is mandatory for businesses to evolve.
Additionally, a third of small business owners expect to implement some form of automation this year.
Even so, the automation of SMEs can be intimidating and it is necessary to promote its implementation from all aspects, and considering all the factors and elements that involve this change.
Understanding that the implementation of a process automation software can generate a relevant expense for a micro company, we must understand it as an investment.
Once we understand that the automation of SMEs plays a fundamental role in increasing the profitability of each area or process, it is when we can begin to define an educational and transformation process.
In short, the best way to boost the growth of your company is by investing in automation tools that allow you to have efficient processes.
It is important that these automation tools offer solutions directly related to the objectives of your company , and in turn, an effective training program that allows employees to get the most out of these tools, which will increase their performance in each of the tasks. the areas.
Conclusion
Automating processes in the company will allow the organization to respond more quickly and efficiently to changes without having to invest many resources in new hires and without affecting the quality of the processes.
Implementing automation in your business is going to require some investment in technology and to effectively prioritize resources, you need to identify the areas where automation will have a high impact on your business.
