How automating processes can benefit smaller organisations

McKinsey & Co’s 2020 global survey* of business leaders. from a wide cross-section of industries, revealed that 66% were piloting solutions to automate at least one business process – this is up from 57% two years earlier. In addition, the survey found that 31% of businesses have fully automated at least one function, which indicates that automation is accelerating.

IT organisations have long focused on automating manual tasks and activities, using automation tools, workflow management systems etc. to take out repetitive manual tasks, deliver speed and agility of service provision and ultimately provide greater value to the business. Here are just two ways in which automation makes a difference:

??Workflow Automation?which uses rule-based logic to automate manual activities, files, and processes into a centrally managed and controlled set of services.?For example, integrating customer purchasing portal requests, through finance procurement controls, to logistics and dispatch.

??File Management Automation?which includes managed file transfers across the hybrid infrastructure (Cloud, Distributed, Virtual and Mainframe), is a safe and secure transfer of submitted files via a managed file transfer portal. For example, integrating disparate 3rd party supplier billing and purchase management.

Smaller organisations are moving towards making automation a strategic priority, aligning the IT automation strategy with overall business strategy and placing automation high on the C-suite business agenda. With this shift to business-focused process automation, SMB's see significant advantages, including significant improvements in delivering value for money; reducing the likelihood of business-critical errors and boosting productivity.?

How are they doing this? By focusing on three key elements:?

??Business Process Automation:?by automating rafts of business processes with dependencies between systems, applications, databases and machines and integrating them together in a centrally managed, seamless, end-2-end solution.?

??Workload Orchestration (i.e. ERP): Coordinating processes across the whole ERP ecosystem and orchestrating these with business logic that links critical transactions. This overcomes many?limitations of built-in scheduling tools and enables the orchestration of SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Infor, Workday and other ERPs, together.?

??Process & Workload Monitoring, providing a unified view of application and file transfer workflows which delivers control, reliability and data security.

However, despite the improvements in automation, many organisations fail to look at the whole picture. Successful automation is no longer just about automating what is currently being delivered. Instead, over 74% of respondents* who reported successful automation efforts, indicated that the number one enabler was “systematic process redesign” -?what we like to call ‘process re-engineering’ of business processes.

This concept of ‘process re-engineering’ means taking a holistic approach to your existing business landscape and reviewing what is currently being delivered, often manually, what is currently automated, which key business processes are needed for future business models, and what needs to be stopped as it’s no longer needed.?

In the same survey, 65% of the smaller companies reported success with automation, compared with 55% at large organisations.?

This clearly shows that automation delivers significant business benefits to smaller organisations. There is one extra element that stands out for smaller organisations – as part of their automation strategy - considering the entire organisation under the scope of automation efforts. This means putting in place tactical milestones across the organisation and measuring their success.?

Here at MDB Service Consulting, we are actively helping clients – both large and small -?developing business focused automation services that meet their future needs and other clients with optimising their automation solutions so that they extract the most value from those they have already purchased.?

If your business is facing challenges developing and delivering workload automation that deliver real business benefits, get in touch. We’ll carry out a?FREE health and value check?to see where you could successfully switch to the automation solution guaranteed to save you time and effort.

For further information contact?[email protected]?or visit?www.mdbsc.co.uk

Notes:

? * McKinsey Survey reference: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/the-imperatives-for-automation-success