Automation - The next step in business evolution?

Automation is what separates an entrepreneur from a business owner. Entrepreneurs know that to scale up their businesses and achieve real growth they need to automate as much as possible and delegate the rest.

"Automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency" - Bill Gates

Over the past five years working with hundreds of companies from start-ups to huge global enterprises it is clear to me that the most successful companies all understand this principle. How is it that some companies can reach $1 billion in their first five years while others struggle to keep the lights on? The key is to create systems in your team and business that run automatically without you needing to get involved in the process. Once you learn to effectively automate and delegate within your team or business then this opens up more time for you and your employees to focus on growth and innovation.

Some of the areas that I have seen the biggest wastes of time, money and personnel resources are: 

• Using people to transfer data between systems
• Manually inputting orders and invoices
• Spreadsheet hell! Manipulating and transforming data manually!
• Reporting and document distribution
• Procurement/Fulfillment

With modern technology, none of the above should be a part of your employee's daily routines! If you are paying people to do these tasks then you are literally throwing money away, not to mention demotivating your employees. Nobody wants to spend all day doing data entry or manipulating spreadsheets regularly!

When systemising your business there are two types of systems to consider, People systems and IT systems. IT systems run your business and people run your IT systems.

People systems essentially involve creating a system that can run without your input. You delegate the tasks that you would do to your team that you have trained and skilled up to be able to handle these tasks efficiently. Eventually your whole business should be able to run and grow without needed any input from you. The key step to achieving this is to create an Operations Manual. This manual should outline every process in your business and the steps needed to complete it. Once you have created this your team will then be able to run your whole business without your input. Make sure that you hire a skilled and capable manager that can keep motivation high, oversee operations and handle any exceptions.

IT systems are used for automating your business and processes to minimise the amount of human interaction needed for these menial tasks. This frees up your employees to focus on growing and improving your business rather than doing repetitive tasks that don't engage or interest them. Examples of IT systems would be ERP systems, e-Commerce, CRM, Warehouse Management Systems, Shipping, 3rd Party Logistics and Point of Sale. Once you have your IT systems in place the next step is then to integrate your systems so that they can communicate with each other automatically.

If you follow these steps you will have a fully systemised business. Getting these systems set up and in place takes a lot of work initially but once you have done it then you are able grow exponentially. The fewer manual processes that you have in your business, the faster you will be able to grow.

There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.

Ronald Reagan

About the Author

I'm Luke Scott. I'm passionate about working with businesses to give them the knowledge and tools that they need to transform and grow to their full potential. I am always looking to work with people and businesses that share my love for technology and helping businesses to thrive. Thankfully, I get paid to discuss these things with businesses and like-minded people every day.

I am Sales Director for Realisable Software Ltd. We are now recruiting new Sage business partners to work with globally. If you are interested in becoming a Realisable IMan partner, or want to understand more about our proposition then please get in touch at [email protected] or visit our website:

www.realisable.co.uk

Realisable's IMan software has been a game-changer for Sage customers and Sage business partners. IMan is a code-free configuration based integration, middleware and BPM solution that can integrate virtually any application with a number of Sage solutions including Sage 200, Sage 300, Sage X3, Sage 50, Sage CRM & Sage Pay. It dramatically reduces the time and resources that you need to implement your Sage project, which means you have more time to focus on the other key parts of the project to get a quicker return on your investment.