Automation

Programmatic Advertising is the Future of Digital Advertising

Buying and negotiating advertisement sales is a tedious process. It is a significant expense out of your pocket having to hire someone to help you with ad placement. You try to select people that know the most about the market, go back and forth on a reasonable price, and strategize about the best way to place ads. However, ad placement can be tricky even with this process, and not everyone knows the best posting times to reach your target audience. Although this process is frustrating, it no longer has to be. Programmatic advertising is an up-and-coming way to simplify this process and does so with the application of new technology.

What is Programmatic Advertising?

Programmatic advertising is the future. This software tool uses AI technology to buy and sell optimal ad space for your company based on your selected target audience. This application can utilize the ad space for banner ads on websites, native ads within social media, ad placement at the beginning of videos, or various other locations. This process is straightforward and does not take up much time. The program uses different algorithms to determine what ad space will result in the best performance for your company. It then returns analytical data regarding how well your company performed from the ad placement. This data tells you about the number of impressions, clicks, and interactions your ad got. Programmatic advertising is a great new way to simplify the process of buying and selling the best place for ads for your company.

Programmatic advertising is the future. It simplifies the buying and selling of ad space through its AI technology, has a high ROI, and does not entirely remove the human element of digital marketing.

The Human Element

Although many people fear the transition to AI, there is still a human element to programmatic advertising. The application only focuses on obtaining the ad space for your product, handling the transaction process, and determining optimal posting times. You are still in control of the content you want to be published and who you target to view these advertisements. If something you created is not working how you desired, the person in charge of the ad campaign can interfere and stop it whenever they want. Once stopped, the ad can be changed multiple times, and the changes take immediate effect. Programmatic advertising is not all artificial intelligence. You are still in control of what you post and can even make changes to your campaign in the middle of it, which is not plausible otherwise.

Benefits

Programmatic advertising has many benefits for organizations. The automation process promotes better return on investment for ad placement and ensures efficiency, productivity, and cost savings. Here are the top four benefits of programmatic advertising.

1. Anyone can use it

Both large and small companies can use programmatic advertising for ad placement. The program does not break the bank and is a cheaper alternative to hiring someone to buy ad space for you. Small businesses could select a more niche target audience to focus on for their programmatic advertising. Once the company gets a large amount of outreach from this, they could broaden the target audience they are trying to acquire. For larger companies, they can use programmatic advertising for whoever they wish to target at the time. If they were releasing a new product line for women’s shampoo, they could use different targeting for that advertisement than for men’s razors. The possibilities for programmatic advertising are endless, and any company can use this program.

2. Eliminates Difficulties of Manual Ad Buying

Programmatic advertising is very efficient. As previously discussed, the entire process of buying ad space, which is supposed to be a long and tedious process, is done within a matter of seconds. Organizations no longer have to worry about going through this process since AI technology can do it for them. Not only does this benefit their profits, but it promotes time savings within the company. Organizations can now use their previously wasted time negotiating deals for ad space towards other business aspects. Additionally, companies can work on new ad campaigns while promoting the current one through programmatic advertising. Companies will have an easier time dealing with the purchase of ads and, in turn, can use this extra time to do more for their organization.

3. Return on Investment

Programmatic advertising has an amazing return on investment. The algorithms in the application determine the best location and posting times based on the target audience provided. This technology ensures that optimal posting is done to promote your brand. As a result, people get excited about your brand, and it is more likely that people will view your website. Then that can turnover to purchases, which will create a profit for your brand. Plus, programmatic advertising is much cheaper than hiring someone to buy ad space for you. It only costs $0.50-$2.00 per 1000 ad impressions on websites and $6-$7 per 100 ad impressions for social media. This alternative to manual ad purchasing saves you a lot of money and results in a much higher ROI.

4. Automation is the Future

Programmatic advertising is just one of the many applications that deal with automation. Automating more aspects of your work will save your company time, money and promote efficiency. Plus, as more people adapt to this technology, it will be essential for your company to keep up with competitors and the ever-changing market. If other people benefit from the technology, why wouldn’t you want to? Automation truly is the future, and it is vital to keep up with everyone in the market so you do not fall behind.

Automation is not going away, just the opposite. It’s been gaining more traction and getting wider adoption. Instead of being afraid of it, people should embrace it and fully enjoy its benefits. Programmatic advertising is one of the first steps to integrating this technology into organizations. This application will simplify your life and help your company become more successful. Programmatic advertising is a great way to bring automation into your company while also helping save you money and time.

Simply Flows strives to automate and simplify your life.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Service Businesses

Have you ever realized that most companies that perform services for you are small businesses? They deserve our support, loyalty, and respect. However, service businesses face many challenges, especially when starting up. They have to make the right choices when it comes to their offerings, marketing, finances, operations, and customer service in order to be successful. These companies need to be cognizant of the do’s and don’ts of service businesses.

Reading time: 5 mins | Published on: 2/2/2022

DO: Build Strong Relationships

Whether with your customers or suppliers, you have to form strong relationships. It is essential to be honest, ethical, and respectful with everyone you interact with. Creating these connections is vital to business success. Respecting and appreciating your suppliers builds trust, which in turn helps negotiate better prices or navigate any issues down the road. With customers, excellent service and being attentive to their needs will give people a positive experience with your company. This will increase brand loyalty, meaning that customers will return to you. Building strong relationships with the people you work with – suppliers, vendors, customers, landlords, partners, employees – means paving a successful journey for your business.

DON’T: Overspend

Launching a business is exciting but could easily get expensive. If you do not keep track of your spending, you will run out of money… fast. Every penny counts when you’re just starting. Buying or renting physical space, machines, purchasing materials, and insurance are just some of the very costly factors. You have to ensure that everything you buy is of value to your company. Unnecessary spending will get you nowhere and could even result in your organization failing. It is also crucial to track the money you spend. Budgeting is also a good way to prevent overspending on items you don’t really need.

DO: Choose the Right Investors

When first starting, you want to find investors to help with funding for your service business. It is important to find people within your industry. You want to look for investors that not only can provide you with funding but with guidance and connections. If the person investing in your company has no idea what it does, then that will not be helpful. You have to find people that are just as invested in your mission as you are; you want them to care about more than making money. Plus, if your investor understands your business idea, they can advise you on improving and growing your business. By choosing the right investors, you will have funding but also a new wealth of knowledge and access to the investor’s network.

DON’T: Underestimate Competition

Companies rarely operate in isolation. They are a part of an ecosystem where competitors need to be kept tabs on. Businesses often do not realize how many players there are in their field competing for the same target audience. You need to find these competitors as early as possible, to research their strategies, and to determine how they get and retain their customers. Then, you have to think of a differentiator – something that sets your offering apart from the competition. Your next step is to figure out the best ways to reach your target. Do not underestimate competition. Instead, determine who they are and learn from them.

If you follow these do’s and don’ts of service businesses, you will have an advantage over your competition. You can understand where you are performing well and where you can improve, which is vital.

DO: Take Risks

Risks are precisely what they are, risky. But, many times, risks are rewarding. Rather than being scared about possible negative implications, it is important to sometimes think outside of the box. For example, you could offer a new service to attract more customers, but it may not be something your target audience would love. Even if this is the case, it is always beneficial to try something new. Living in fear will never help you progress; it will hold you and your company’s potential back. Be sure to calculate the potential positives and negatives of risk before going through with your idea. If you understand that your risk may not go perfectly and are okay with both possible outcomes, take the chance! Taking risks will get out of your comfort zone and could wind up helping your company more than you may expect.

DON’T: Neglect Marketing

How will people know about your service without marketing? Utilizing digital marketing is a great way to promote your company, especially while launching. Nowadays, people search online for nearly everything. By using digital marketing, you can reach out to many different groups of people. Plus, it is a very inexpensive way to market your services. Through social media, you could show people what you do and how it helps people. Google Ads could help promote your company (for a small price), and Google Maps can ensure that people can find you, see when you are open, and even call you. Using digital marketing will help increase your outreach, which will, in turn, grow your customer base.

Follow these do’s and don’ts of service businesses to become an influential player within your field. We hope that this list will help your business as it has been helping ours. Check out the Simply Flows product if you need assistance with streamlining and automating your repetitive, manual processes.

New Jobs Process Automation has Created

One technology segment has been rapidly growing in the last few years: the Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Automated processes improve productivity, eliminate human errors, and reduce costs. Automation also has the ability to complete tasks significantly quicker than a regular employee would. Some people fear that robots are taking away jobs from people. And robots are taking jobs that used to be people based; however, automation and robots have the ability to create jobs as well. Here are a few new jobs that process automation has created.

RPA Developer

An RPA developer is a crossover between a software developer, a business analyst, and a project manager. They work with the business operations to analyze current processes and suggest automations for parts or the whole process. The end goal is to transform existing, primarily manual and time-consuming processes into RPA systems. Contrary to their software developers counterparts, RPA developers do not write much code. Instead, they use third-party solutions to build ‘bots’ or ‘robots’, which carry out the manual operations. In addition, RPA developers are responsible for deployment of those ‘bots’, for testing the system, for troubleshooting and fixing issues, and for documenting the new systems. In a nutshell, RPA developers introduce technology that drives up operational efficiencies.

Chatbot Developer

Nowadays companies need to communicate with their customers 24/7, they want their customers to know they care. To help with communication, many businesses add chatbots to their websites. Behind these chatbots are software developers, specializing in implementing chatbot technology. Chatbot developers design and implement voice or text chatbots to be used on websites as a form of a contact center for the customer. Such developers need to have experience in software development, functional design, dialog flow design, and machine learning algorithms. They create chatbot systems that simulate human conversations. Furthermore, they test, debug, and maintain chatbots throughout their lifecycle.

RPA Consultant

RPA consultants bring a combined knowledge of business and technology. They are usually hired by the company to evaluate the current state of operations and to suggest improvements. After initial evaluation, they prepare a strategy for employing automation platforms and tools to achieve higher productivity and efficiency. Implementing RPA may not be straightforward or cheap, therefore RPA consultants rank the business processes by their ROI. Then the organization decides which processes to automate first depending on various factors like budget, time, resources, urgency, and the beforementioned ROI.

RPA consultants need to work across departments and teams to come up with the most suitable solutions. Most all of these specialists engage with clients to identify processes for automation, specify the goals, and then suggest a strategy for achieving those goals. While others take on the implementation and the quality assurance of the solution as well. All consultants must have excellent communication skills, along with advanced analytical and problem-solving skills. Additionally, RPA developers need to have industry-specific knowledge and experience with various platforms.

Process Improvement Analyst

Analysts act as the liaison between the business and the technical team. Their main responsibilities are to understand the business problem and translate that into technical requirements. After this, the tech team is ready to start solving the problem. Analysts need to have a deeper understanding of the business but also knowledge of the underlying technology. Process improvement analysts focus on company’s operations. They analyze business processes and find the ones that need to be improved. The end goal is to streamline processes, eliminate redundancies, and reduce costs.

Ultimately, change can be scary. The idea of automation and systems taking over jobs that were previously done by humans is daunting. But with change also comes opportunity. Process automation creates new jobs to help advance technology even further. RPA tools and systems have the ability to bring us into a new age and we’d better embrace that.

Learn more about how Simply Flows can help you bring automation to your business.

6 Unexpected Cost-Cutting Strategies for Small Businesses

Being a small business owner isn’t always easy. The business will always have up and down periods. Sometimes customers line up, and the company may not be able to keep up with the demand, but other times it may be very quiet. During these low times, you may not have enough income to keep your company as supported as you may like. At such times, cut back on your spending rather than take out more loans. You need to be thrifty to keep your venture afloat. These are six unexpected cost-cutting strategies small businesses will benefit from.

1. Automate

Why do tedious tasks yourself when you can have a machine do them for pennies? Automation is the future of business. It can be very annoying to do repetitive, mundane tasks manually. Plus, someone could make an error which could cost your company even more money. To prevent this, you should invest in automation. Small businesses need to focus on the bigger picture items to grow and be successful. By implementing automation into your company, tasks like sending out reminders, getting notifications, sorting through invoices, etc., could be done in seconds. Employing automation is much cheaper than having employees do this work. Many companies, like Simply Flows, offer a free trial version of their product and then reasonable plans to choose from. Using automation will help your small business not have to worry about tedious tasks and save you money in the process.

2. Hire Freelancers

Instead of hiring full-time employees or expensive consultants, hire freelancers for your standalone or independent projects. The reason why freelancers will save you money is because they have no overhead fees. All you have to pay them is their designated fee for the work they perform. No health insurance, retirement, or time-off expenses to worry about. Instead, only pay them for the work they have completed. Obviously, a contract should be drawn between your company and the freelancer defining your expectations, but this is a significant cost-cutting strategy, given that labor costs are usually the biggest expenses for a business. Using freelancers is a great way to help your organization save money.

3. Right-Size

Having ample office space for a small number of people and the occasional meeting with a customer is not efficient. It is not smart to pay rent, utilities, insurance, etc. if you do not properly utilize the amount of space you have. Downsizing could be your unexpected cost-cutting strategy. Plus, you can arrange people in this smaller office to sit where it would promote the most efficient results. For example, if someone is constantly going to the filing cabinet to get excess paper or other products, it would be beneficial to place them by the filing cabinet rather than the printer. This strategic placement in a right-sized office would save money and promote productivity.

Also, consider running a fully virtual company, i.e., not having an office at all. Then, you would not have to pay for rent, furniture, or property insurance. Even before the pandemic, many companies were starting as virtual. That way, they could hire people from anywhere without being restrained to a physical location. People, on the other hand, would have the benefit of working from their homes, shared spaces, or the beach, if they wanted to, without being forced into crazy commutes and unpleasant cubicles. Both right-sizing and going virtual are viable options to save you money.

4. Cutting Operating Expenses

Operating expenses can go through the roof if not appropriately managed. Bills can begin to pile up, and small businesses may have no way to pay them if they do not have the income. It is essential to do whatever possible to cut back on these expenses. For example, electricity costs a lot in the industry. If you forget to turn off machines or lights, this could result in higher fees for your organization. Possible ways to cut these operating costs would be investing in solar energy or more cost-efficient lighting.

Additionally, consider reviewing and renegotiating the professional services you pay for. A small business may work with a few agencies for their bookkeeping, accounting, marketing, hiring, etc., and each may be willing to lower their fees if you renegotiate them. If this did not work, you could transfer to another agency with lower fares.

5. Do Your Own Advertising

Another unexpected cost-cutting strategy is that small businesses can do their own advertising. Rather than hiring someone that charges a lot to create digital advertisement materials, you can do this yourself. There are various free applications to get the job done. For example, companies can use Canva to create all sorts of materials for posts and ads – images, infographics, banners, postcards, etc. If a small business does not know where to place its ads, it can utilize programmatic advertising. Programmatic advertising is the placement of ads on websites and social media through AI. This is much cheaper than hiring someone to do this process for you. To cut costs, small businesses could make their own ads and do the ad placement themselves or through programmatic advertising.

6. Buy a Smart Thermostat

Would you be able to do work in a place that was overly hot or cold? I doubt it. Being in a comfortable setting contributes significantly to employee productivity and job satisfaction. Investing in a smart thermostat will surely pay back. These thermostats learn the company’s climate preferences and automatically adjust to create a comfortable temperature. Over time, this investment would cut back on heating and cooling costs. People would no longer have to constantly adjust (or argue over) the temperature settings in the office. Plus, a comfortable workplace contributes to workers being more relaxed and productive.

Small businesses need to cut costs to remain afloat, especially during low points for their organization. Saving money will help with the financials. Furthermore, these strategies can lead to more efficient and productive workplace. Also, being efficient means more time and attention towards customers and your products. Strategizing and determining the best ways to save money is vital to small businesses. These unexpected cost-cutting strategies will help your organization not only thrive but be more successful than the competitors.

Learn how to automate your small business and cut costs by checking out Simply Flows product.

Best Time-Saving Tips for Success in Business

Throughout the workday, there are various tedious tasks a person has to do that consume a large amount of their time. A lot of other, high-value, tasks don’t get completed because there isn’t enough time in the day. Not to mention that people feel burnt-out from doing such mundane work. It is essential to find ways to save time because time is the only non renewable resource. Here are the best time-saving tips for success in business. They will help your organization be more productive and, ultimately, more successful.

Time is the only non renewable resource and we have very little of it. Therefore, wasting it on low-value work is unacceptable.

Time-Saving Benefits

Time savings can help increase productivity within a company. You open yourself up to getting more work done throughout the day by eliminating minuscule tasks. This, in turn, can lead to higher productivity and professional satisfaction in the workplace. People like to see that what they are doing is making a difference. Getting rid of low-value tasks means more time dedicated to growing the business, taking better care of the customers, and investing in employees’ professional development. This, in turn, would lead to higher customer loyalty and job satisfaction. Last but not least, saving time would contribute to increasing the organization’s value, revenues, and opportunities.

Time-Saving Tips

So, how does one increase time savings? There are various ways that a company can cut down on its inefficiencies. To start, a person has to stay organized. If someone’s files are all over, there is no way to get their work done efficiently. They would just be searching for what they need, which would take up a large portion of their day. It is essential to focus your attention to ensure you are doing high-quality work without making mistakes. Getting a job done before deadlines is crucial, so keeping an eye on the time and hitting those deadlines can increase time savings. To add, one other way to help save time is to avoid multitasking. Although it can be tempting to try and get everything done at once, it could be a distraction. Using these tips, one can become better at implementing time-saving techniques into their routine.

Automation: The Biggest Helper

The best way to increase time savings is through automation. Automation can eliminate tedious tasks, so that you do not have to waste time doing them yourself. You could create workflows for repetitive data entry and other manual data processing tasks. Then, you can focus your attention on your customers, for example, while the software does the tedious work. Something else, investing in automation to do your payroll is a huge time-saver. You get back that person whose only job is to work on the payroll tasks all day long. Business would grow, revenues would increase, and customers would be happier once you employ automation – the most significant time-saving helper a company can get.

Using the above time-saving tips for success, you can help your company cut back on inefficiencies and make more money. Automation is the biggest helper when it comes to saving time in a business. Automated workflows can eliminate tedious tasks and give you time back to grow your company and make it even more successful.

Simply Flows can save you an immense amount of time, check out our product.

The Best Productivity Tools for Business Interns

Most of us have been interns at some point in our lives. As an intern, you have to learn the ins and outs of a company in a very short period. Intern’s tasks can be very random and not always the most organized. It can be tough to stay on top of the non-streamlined work given to interns. Since many tasks are not set in stone, there could be confusion and miscommunication between the intern and their manager. To avoid such issues and to be efficient and productive, you can use many different tools. These are five of the best productivity tools for business interns.

1. Hootsuite

Companies give interns lots of busy work, such as making and managing posts. Hootsuite helps simplify the process of posting. Rather than switching between multiple apps and posting on each of them, Hootsuite keeps all social media in one place. This is a great productivity tool for business interns because you can schedule posts for weeks at a time so that you never forget to post. Also, the app aggregates your posts’ performance statistics from all social media accounts. It tells you what posts are doing well and which ones are not. Hootsuite is beneficial because it automates your posting schedule and gives you analytics to let you know if you should stick to your strategy or make changes.

2. Canva

One of my favorite tools to use as an intern is Canva. Canva is an app that allows you to create original art or edit photos using different templates. You can easily move, resize, or edit images to your liking and needs. If you had to create an image for emails, a new company logo, an icon, or a banner for social media, Canva is your go-to tool. This is one of the best productivity tools for business interns because of all the features. For example, one of the best features of Canva is its design tab. You are several templates to choose from and can make things from videos to business cards with the click of a button. You are given the creative freedom, as a business intern, to make items quickly and with ease, even if you are not a graphic designer. There is both a free and paid version for the application. People who want access to more features can get the paid version, but as an intern, Canva has a lot to offer with just the free version.

3. Trello

Trello is an excellent app for both project tracking and team collaboration. Through Trello, people can see their weekly tasks and update them according to their completion status, assignment, priority, etc. Interns can organize their workload into a manageable schedule to meet their deadlines. Trello allows other coworkers to see your schedule so that they know when you are busy. Managers can assign tasks to team members and manage workloads, deadlines, and project goals in Trello. This is a beneficial application that increases productivity. It helps you manage and schedule your tasks and communicate what you are currently working on with your team.

4. Grammarly

Grammarly is an essential productivity tool for business interns. Sometimes, you may not have time to go over all your grammatical and spelling errors when writing something. That’s what Grammarly is for. This application catches the majority of mistakes that you have made in a piece of writing. Whether it is a simple comma error or a passage with passive voice, Grammarly tells you where the issues are and gives you suggestions on how to fix them. This is vital for business interns, so emails, letters, presentation slides, and other documents look and sound professional.

5. PomoDone

PomoDone is very helpful with time management. You use a clock to determine how much time you spend on specific assignments. For example, you can schedule yourself to work for 45 minutes straight, then take a 15-minute break to recharge. This will motivate you to focus on your current task and get as much done as possible before the break. It will also prevent you from getting distracted from your tasks since you know you will be stepping away from your work in a short time. PomoDone is a valuable productivity tool for business interns.

Knowing these tools will not only give you a leg up at your internship but at a future job as well. Increasing your productivity as an intern will leave a significant mark on the company. They will be impressed with your work, which will contribute to you performing well in future jobs. Having systems for organizing, correcting, and editing work is vital in the business world, and understanding how to use them can help you be more competitive as a company.

Simply Flows is an application created to help with workplace productivity and efficiency. Click here to read another one of our blogs about productivity in the workplace.

5 Ways Automation Tools Help Improve Customer Relations

Businesses adopt task and process automation at a fast pace. As the technology evolves, it spreads across more and more verticals, roles, and use cases. Automation makes processes faster, smoother, and reliable. In addition, it increases productivity, improves quality of products and services and reduces lead times. The business is automation’s prime beneficiary. However, given the cost savings and productivity gains it brings, customers are positively impacted, too. Did you know that process automation tools can help improve customer relations?

1. Customer Personalization

Communication with customers manually is hard to manage and scale. In fact, it becomes nearly impossible with customers across the globe, trying to get in touch with the company from different time zones. This is where customer experience automation comes in. This can range from personalizing the website when users log in, addressing customers by name or offering personalized recommendations. Personalization makes customers feel appreciated and recognized, increasing their brand loyalty.

2. Quality and Consistency

Automation can remove human errors and make processes run smoothly. When customers interact with a business they want quality and consistency of service. If a customer has made a purchase, they want to track their order from shipment to delivery. Customers can receive real time updates via text messages or emails. Ultimately, the automation tools improve the product or service. And that means a better customer experience.

3. Ease of Use and Customer Support

Improving customer support has become one of process automation’s major trends lately. Some tools have become commonplace – chatbots, for example. Chatbots automatically respond to customer’s questions. They ‘know’ the user well and offer customizations and help based on location, preferences, and other context. Guided tutorials of software products is another real-world application.

4. Improves Relationship

When customers feel appreciated by a business, they are more loyal and tend to return to purchase again. Automation can provide customers with attention and support 24/7. It personalizes the way each customer is addressed and improves the customer’s interaction with a business. Personalization and availability subsequently makes customers feel recognized and appreciated by the business.

5. Scalability

No matter how hard a business tries, there will be a point when customer care specialists cannot manually handle the load of customer questions or issues. There are different reasons for this. For example, customer support may be temporarily understaffed. In other cases the timezone differences reduce coverage. Other times holidays and vacations get in the way. Whatever the case, the business will have troubles responding to customers’ needs. This is where automation offers unparalleled help. Once you have automated a process, it can scale up indefinitely. The best candidate for automation is the first tier of support. That is where customers ask basic questions or need resources like user guides. Automating this first line of support takes a huge chunk off the plate of already overwhelmed support team. Also, it shortens the overall wait time, allowing more people to get help.

Automation has the ability to tailor experiences based on their customer needs. Also, it allows for personalization, consistency and ease of use. And last but not least, many more customers can be taken care of via automation. Therefore, automation tools can improve customer relations between the business and their clients.

Learn how Simply Flows can help improve your customer relations.

Robotic Process Automation: RPA Benefits

What is RPA?

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a software technology. It combines task automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to mimic repetitive processes usually done by people. Modern RPA solutions are much more advanced and dynamic than their predecessors, which only automated simple tasks. Nowadays RPA can recognize patterns, learn from the data, navigate systems, respond to customers’ questions, etc. Robotic process Automation is moving towards Intelligent Automation, fueled by AI. Not only can it achieve the same results as people, but RPA can complete tasks much quicker, without making any mistakes. And that is a game changer for the business – competing for talent, striving for cost effectiveness, and avoiding the high toll of data errors. Let’s further explore the RPA benefits.

Pros of RPA Systems

RPA systems complete repetitive mundane work that is usually the responsibility of knowledge workers. As a result, this increases employee satisfaction and productivity because they are no longer spending hours on monotonous work. Indeed, a study of 10,500 office workers from 11 countries around the world showed that over 75% believe spending time on tasks that could be automated is a poor use of their skills.

RPA saves time and money for the business and improves the overall quality of product and services. Since these systems are more accurate in their executions, they save a lot of money from auditing and correcting errors caused by humans. Furthermore, RPA can handle high volumes of tasks, without the need of overtime or extra hires, once again saving a lot of money for the organization.

RPA Across Industries

RPA systems are versatile, with a myriad of use cases. The technology is applicable across many different industries. It can help the insurance industry with automating the process of reviewing claims or risk mitigation and risk ratings. The healthcare industry is one with an abundance of information and medical professionals spend endless hours manually entering patient information. Many business processes like updating patient information, processing claims, motioning records, etc. can all be completed through automation. Lastly, it can help the manufacturing industry with migrating data, simplifying and updating bill of material statuses.

RPA is moving to the front office at a rapid pace. Customer care becomes more and more involved, dispersed, outsourced, and… terrible. Let’s be honest, keeping a customer/patient/prospect on the phone for half an hour is just not acceptable. Transferring your call between several different tiers/departments/companies is frustrating and inefficient. RPA has a huge potential to improve the journey of the customer and their relationship with the business.

Robotic Process Automation technology is on the rise. It automates manual repetitive tasks and streamlines processes currently done by people. RPA systems have many advantages like saving time and money, eliminating data errors, increasing job satisfaction, and reducing turnover. As RPA systems evolve, more companies will adopt and benefit from such solutions. RPA is a game-changing technology that carries indefinite possibilities. Furthermore, not only does it automate high-volume, repeatable tasks but by doing so it frees up time for impactful work and innovation. RPA is the future of work. Therefore, companies embracing that technology are leaping into the future.

In this article we’ve covered what RPA is and its main benefits. Interested to learn more about why RPA is the future?

Robotic Process Automation is the Future

What is Robotic Process Automation?

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a software that automates repetitive business processes. It utilizes technologies like API, webhooks, screen scraping, and character optical recognition. RPA connects different applications with one another and makes it possible for data to flow through the different applications. RPA software imitates the human interactions with systems but does it in a much faster, reliable, and safe manner. Some of the RPA solutions have low-code capabilities allowing users to build integration scripts. Others are no-code, where even people with no technical experience can automate their work all by themselves. Not surprisingly, RPA has been gaining a lot of popularity and adoption lately. And it’s not going away. Just the opposite, Robotic Process Automation is the future.

Why is RPA Making a Rise?

The RPA market is rapidly growing. According to Gartner, its compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is expected to be 49% between 2020 and 2027. Even though most of the RPA technology had been around for a little while, it really started booming in the last decade. Furthermore, the pandemic and working from anywhere accelerated the adoption of automation by businesses. The RPA market is still nescient and therefore quite fragmented. We are already seeing consolidating happening, as it matures. Currently, the 10 largest RPA providers hold over 70% of the enterprise market. Due to an enormous demand to automate legacy paper-based and manual processes, the need of RPA solutions will continue to grow.

How does RPA Work?

Most RPA vendors offer subscription-based services. Customers can choose between several tiers, depending on their needs. Some may only need a couple of workflows, while others will require a high-volume automation. Many solutions have a free tier or a free trial, so users can try them out before they decide on a purchase. Also, most tools support cloud applications only but there are some that work with desktop software as well.

There are many different ways organizations can use RPA across different departments. RPA can help improve finance and accounting processes, recruitment, supply chain management, customer care, as well as other areas. For example, RPA can assist in processing a huge load of documents like contracts with e-signatures, uploading documents, or approval procedures. Additionally, people specialists can use RPA to update employee information and automate time sheet submission processes.

Where is RPA Headed?

• RPA is still developing and evolving. It started by automating simple tasks and has been evolving to a much more complex solution. Nowadays it utilizes AI technologies like process mining, machine learning, and natural language processing. Next, it will enter the AR/VR world (metaverse).

• Additionally, it is moving from strictly back-office operations like accounting and invoicing to front-office processes like customer care.

• At the beginning RPA was only accessible to the big enterprise due to its high cost. Recently, we see more and more RPA technology offered to the small and mid-size businesses.

• As with the rest of the technology, RPA has also been moving to the cloud. And this trend is going stronger.

• Originally RPA was best suited for the BFSI – banking, financial services, and insurance. Nowadays everyone needs their work automated, so they are more productive.

As RPA is on the rise and as it continues to cement its role in the future, more organizations are starting to adapt. Companies employ RPA to optimize operational efficiency, accelerate an existing process, or to optimize cost. RPA will eventually be an end-to-end intelligent system automating complex business processes. Organizations are already realizing the benefits and will continue adopting the technology. Indeed, Robotic Process Automation is the future.

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Time wasted on repetitive tasks is over 40 percent!

A study found that the time wasted on repetitive tasks that could be automated is over 40 percent. Most of those are mundane tasks like data entry, copy-pasting from one application to another, and reporting. Half of them believe that is a poor use of their skills and getting in the way of doing their main job.

Automation Anywhere performed a global study in the fall of 2019. The research included data from 10,500 interviews with office workers from 11 countries around the world.

What were the top takeaways from the research?

Knowledge workers waste over 40% of their time on manual digital administrative processes.
Data entry is the most detested manual task.
Over 75% believe spending time on tasks that could be automated is a poor use of their skills.

The most detested manual tasks?

Data entry
Email
Filing documents
Compiling reports
Managing invoices

Time wasted on repetitive tasks is over 40 percent

Organizations need to take action. Indeed, 87% of the surveyed office workers believe their company should take action to automate mundane processes. 85% find a company investing in automation more attractive. And more than half, 55%, would leave their current employer if the burden of manual work becomes too high.

Not surprisingly, women spend more time on manual administrative tasks – 3.4 hours, compared to 2.8 hours for men.

To conclude, the time wasted on repetitive tasks is over 40%. That hurts employees’ job satisfaction and morale. For employers, that means wasting money, losing high-skilled people, and missing on opportunities to grow and innovate.

Category Archives: Automation