Digital transformation is one of the key elements of business sustainability and long-term growth nowadays. It is particularly relevant for you as a small business owner to invest in digital transformation in order to keep your business afloat and even thrive in the new normal. Of course, there are many benefits to digitizing your processes and adopting new technologies, one of the key perks being automation because you need to automate to boost efficiency.
Automating processes and tasks in your company is vital for better financial management, employee and customer satisfaction, and boosting efficiency across your organization. From automating parts of your content marketing strategy all the way to payroll automation and smarter employee management, there’s a lot you can gain by adopting smart software.
With that in mind, today we are taking a look at five important processes that you can automate with ease in order to take your small business forward. Here’s what you should do.
Start By Automating Logins For All Accounts
No matter how small your business is or how small your team may be, chances are that you and your employees are using various devices and apps every day. After all, there is nowadays a piece of software for everything, and each requires you to create a unique login. Managing login information across a variety of devices and accounts is not only time-consuming but can also expose you to numerous cybersecurity risks should you fail to put that information in a safe place.
Now imagine if you allowed every employee to create their own password for every business account. You’d probably have yourself a data breach in no time. To prevent a business-shattering scenario, be sure to automate logins and password management by implementing a reliable password management tool that will generate strong passwords for you and store them in a safe place with maximum security. You won’t have to remember your login information, and you will be able to log into an account with the push of a button from a verified device.
Automate Your Email Marketing
Email marketing has become one of the most effective tools in any marketer’s arsenal, and if you use it right it can be your ticket to more conversions and loyal customers. However, to make email marketing as effective as possible, you have to use it to communicate with customers and clients regularly and bring tailored offers and messages to their inboxes. Fortunately, you don’t have to do this time-consuming task manually, as nowadays you can automate almost every aspect of your email marketing strategy.
Using a comprehensive email marketing platform, you can send tailored emails to customers based on their interests, browsing history and interactions with your website, and other important factors. The key here is to get the right emails to your customers at the right time, such as when they abandon their shopping cart. By automating your email communication with customers, you can capture new leads quickly, get potential customers back to your site to finish their purchases, and nurture leads to fruition.
Scheduling Employees And Workflow
Employee management, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when your employees are probably working from home, can be a challenging task. In fact, you can expect productivity and output to take a big hit if you’re not able to schedule your employees’ time and workflow to match the company’s and customers’ needs. Needless to say, doing this via email or manually is next to impossible when you’re working remotely.
Fortunately, you can use a dedicated software solution to automate this process and minimize the risk of error. Some of the best scheduling software on the market should allow you to seamlessly create employee rosters, manage employees on a micro level with intuitive features, view staff availability, and delegate with ease. Automating employee scheduling is a great way to save time and improve efficiency, but it’s also a great way to build a happier workforce.
Automating Invoices And Payroll
Managing finances is another cumbersome process that requires some form of automation in order to improve efficiency and ensure financial stability for your company in the new normal. Aside from integrating a payment gateway to streamline payment processing from customers, you should also consider integrating a dedicated invoicing software with automation features. This will allow you to get personalized invoices out quickly and optimize your invoicing strategy for the customer.
You should also consider automating the entire payroll process by integrating a payroll tool that will distribute salaries automatically, calculate overtime and bonuses for you, organize and track absence and vacation days, and more.
Don’t Forget To Automate Your Reporting
Lastly, there is no reason to keep manually creating reports for your various departments. Nowadays, you can automate the reporting process with one centralized reporting platform that pools data from all of your analytics tools and accounts, and integrates with your CRM. Imagine having all of your analytics data neatly laid out on a single dashboard where you can extract valuable information and generate comprehensive reports within minutes. That’s the best way to make good long-term business decisions.
Wrapping up
Automation is one of the key pillars of business growth nowadays, and luckily there are many processes you can start automating today to take your small business forward. Be sure to automate these tasks to boost efficiency and productivity, and build a happier employee collective.
