April 25, 2019

Digital Workflow Systems: Why they matter

With productivity and collaboration becoming increasingly important for the success of organizations, a digital workflow system for recurring business processes is indisputably important. Workflow automation can help release critical bandwidth from key employees, which can be used for more valuable work that involves creativity and decision making. This allows companies to work far more competitively, as they shift their focus from automatable processes to offering their customers innovative solutions. A highly efficient digital workflow system essentially automates repetitive business processes, with minimum effort of input required from a user, based on business goals of delivering tangible results.

Considerations

Before switching over to digital workflows, a few important considerations must be made. One must identify the stage at which the organization and its employees are, and if both are ready to shift from traditional processes to an entirely new system. Since it is essential for employees to work as a team, it makes it all the more essential for an organization to consider if it will be able to deliver the same quality of products as before, upon reduction of manpower for processes. If it is identified that these considerations are positively met, one can begin to focus on automation.

Benefits

Listed below are a few important benefits of workflow automation.

• Streamlined and faster processes

According to McKinsey, 60% of occupations can save up to 30% of their time, with the help of automated workflows. With a digital workflow system, it is possible to do away with the need for manual inputting, checking and handling of data, including paperwork. This reduction of manual entry and request handling enables employees to focus on only those areas that require their expertise.

• Minimised errors

Since manual processes are tedious and monotonous, it is very likely for employees to make errors in different areas of the process. It is difficult to calculate the exact cost of human errors, but the cost can go into billions, depending on the industry and the error! Human error is inevitable due to unavoidable problems such as stress, overloading in one’s working memory, poor engagement, or physical impediments and incapabilities. It may be possible to avoid these errors using digital workflows.

• Better compliance with audit trails

Often, it is a good practice for the company’s policies and procedures to be aligned with the legal environment in which they operate. Any applicable laws and regulations must be complied with, and all company processes must be designed with this in mind. Creating workflows that are secure and auditable, while staying consistent with regulations, fosters a healthy culture of compliance within organizations.

• The challenges of scaling up

Businesses encounter several bottlenecks on a regular basis, which are often not investigated properly. Amongst the most important ones is that introducing newer processes and/or diversifying can be difficult to execute. This results in a series of events that lead to losses. An example of a company that identified its roadblocks correctly and managed to scale up, was an industrial manufacturing company. It intended to scale up its network of dealers. It had operated with a small set of dealers initially, up to 5 years, had learned a lot and had created successful business partners. Based on all the learnings, the company built a workflow-based process that took care of onboarding dealers, running incentive schemes, promotions and training to scale country operations.

Bottlenecks can occur on a very large scale, in different departments of companies. It is essential for these to be identified in time, so as to be able to manoeuvre past them without wasting any time, thus saving billions!

DelphianLogic offers tailored solutions for automated workflows for your business. To learn how workflow automation can help you, write to us here!