Is automation the answer to rising business costs?

Business costs are rising; the market size remains the same. The pressure now is to drive revenue-focused productivity, increasing profits without negatively impacting the workforce.

Studies have shown that office workers spend approximately three hours of their day on administrative tasks. It makes sense when you consider that a few minutes here and there filing documents or pulling reports adds up. If you go by a 7.5-hour workday (accounting for a lunch break), that’s 40% of the day!

Of course, we have to factor in that no employee is 100% productive 100% of the time, so we could be facing the reality that only ~50% of your day is dedicated to driving revenue.

Think, instead, of being able to trust that your software will notify you of customer requests, sort and file communications and attachments, schedule and run reports. All without constant user input. Now, your users can dedicate that saved time to driving revenue.

This is all achievable through the automation offered with TrustQuay Online, so I wanted to tackle the subject of automation by answering the four questions that TrustQuay gets asked the most on the subject.

1.    What is automation?

Simply, it is a way to speed up your processes without dedicating more employee time to the issue. In particular, there is one type of automation that we will focus on. Business Process Automation (BPA) uses applications to execute recurring tasks, replacing manual effort.

People often think of automation as a way to reduce staff or replace them entirely, but this is not the case at all. In fact, it is the best way to optimise the staff you have! Nothing can replace a human being with skill and knowledge, but automation can enable that person to focus more on the work they were hired to complete rather than the tedious administrative functions they can often get stuck in.

2.    How can automation benefit my business?

Automation allows you to improve your overall operational efficiency by reducing the time, effort, and cost of completing administrative tasks. You can also benefit from an improvement in your quality of files through the reduction of user error.

Overall, though, it comes back to your employees. By reducing the number of tasks that need to be manually completed, you also allow users to work on more engaging activities, improving business morale and employee satisfaction. This then trickles down to your customers, as they are being helped quicker, with more consistency and accuracy.

3.    Why should I consider automating?

Business costs are on the rise. The best way to combat the escalating cost of business is to drive efficiency and profitability. Recruiting additional staff could increase efficiency, however it would also increase your overall spend on personnel. Instead, you need to make the best of the workforce you have, the ones who have knowledge of your customers and business.

Include automation in your annual digitisation plan in order to:

•    Improve overall efficiency without any added resource cost
•    Increase annual revenue, as users can focus on driving profit rather than administration
•    Increase confidence in your regulatory compliance, avoiding fines
•    Improve confidence in data accuracy due to a decrease in human error

4.    How can TrustQuay help?

Knowing that bringing automation to a business can be a challenge, TrustQuay Online has been specifically designed to be lower complexity, lower cost, lower risk, and offer a future-proof solution that will grow with your business.

Through this, you can automate time recording, create templates for common forms, set up workflows to complete tasks on behalf of users, set reminders to review and update documentation or contact customers, automatically receive regulatory updates to keep your business complaint, and so much more.

📷 The beginning of one of several sessions revolving around automation at TrustQuay Forum 2022.