Digital Transformation Archives - Page 2 of 2

Productivity vs. Efficiency: Which is More Important?

When working, you know that it is important to be both productive and efficient. However, do you know the difference between productivity vs. efficiency? It is essential to understand that they do not mean the same thing. Knowing the difference between productivity and efficiency can help you better understand them and decide what occasions call for one vs. the other.

What are Productivity and Efficiency?

Before we delve into differences and similarities, let’s first define the two. Efficiency is the production of something without wasting a large number of products or time. It ensures that you produce high-quality products while only utilizing the necessary resources. Productivity is the measurement of how efficiently inputs, such as products and other components, can create multiple outputs for a company. In simpler terms, productivity determines how to create a product with little input wastes.

Differences

Although some people use productivity and efficiency interchangeably, the two are not synonymous. The effort put into a project is efficiency. A business tries to use the least amount of resources to get what they need done. Productivity is the physical amount of work that you can complete. It focuses on getting the job done with the current resources at the company’s disposal. Efficiency focuses more on the resources used to make a product, and productivity is more about how much work gets done in a period of time. Efficiency is a reactive process, which means its outcome results from a person’s effort. In contrast, productivity is proactive. You put in the work to create the most items in a short time interval.

Which is More Important?

Trick question! Both productivity and efficiency are vital to keeping a company strong and profitable. By adding together productivity and efficiency, you can get actual productivity within an organization. Some may say that productivity is more important than efficiency, but one can not exist without the other. If you’re making something for a company, you can do it efficiently so that it uses few resources but has a good quality. However, you also want to produce the most amount of products possible during that time. By combining productivity and efficiency, you can optimize fewer resources while still making more output for your business. Productivity vs. efficiency may have their differences, but together they create an optimal model for a company.

Knowing the differences between productivity vs. efficiency is just the first step to getting your business on track. Now, one must implement these practices into the workplace. By doing this, you will have lower operational costs, better utilization of resources, and increased profits for your company.

Check out our product to find out how you can increase efficiency and productivity within your organization.

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?

How Technology Has Transformed Business Today

Business itself and organizations are always changing and undergoing growth periods. One of the biggest catalysts for change is technology. There are many ways in which technology transforms business. Technology in business can be used to communicate with customers, make operations more efficient, implement security, and enhance research capacity, as well as many other functions. Organizations of any size, big and small, can use technology to benefit them both in tangible and intangible ways. Overall, technology has the ability to transform business and organizations.

Technology Transforming Business

A huge benefit of technology is that it has the ability to collect and store tons of data. For example, organizations collect information about consumer behavior, so they can improve the customer experience. They track trends, customer buying habits, and other contextual information. With technology, organizations scan further segments and target their customers based on their individual interest and buying behaviors. Technology makes organizations more powerful because the more data an organization has the more of an advantage they have in the market.

Technology over the years has been able to transform how we interact with organizations. The most significant evolution happened when mobile applications became available. Most people have an internet-connected device nowadays. People use their smartphones to browse a website, to shop at an online store, or to communicate with the organization’s help center. Apps are the main point of contact and engagement between customers and organizations. Therefore, organizations need to further think about how mobile applications can fit in their engagement strategy.

Automation Propelling Digital Transformation

Lastly, the biggest change that technology has on business is automation. Systems are being built for machine learning and predictive analysis. Many complex algorithms are available to complete tasks in a fraction of the time human workers perform them. Automation has the ability to improve productivity and efficiency tremendously.

Technology adoption has been growing and improving businesses in each and every industry. Technology transforms business for the better, and it will continue to enable organizations to realize savings, improve performance, and better serve their customers.

Learn more about how Simply Flows can transform your business.

Why Digital Startups had an Upper Hand

Insights from Statista’s Digital Economy Compass 2020

Moving to a Digital Setting

Before COVID-19, the world was slowly adapting to a more digital environment. However, most companies still neglected their digital marketing strategies. Many organizations focused solely on promoting the in-person experience and did not try to improve their online business. When COVID-19 hit, companies that did not have a well-developed digital marketing strategy were ill-prepared for this drastic change, and many struggled to keep up. However, internet-based companies benefitted from this change. Even more interesting to note is that digital startups performed very well in this new environment. The pandemic exacerbated the digital transformation, thus creating opportunities for digital startups to be successful right from the start.

Startups Stronger During the Pandemic

It’s not easy for a startup when it first enters the market, and a global pandemic never helps. This was not the case for digital startups. According to Statista’s “Digital Economy Compass,” many startups, such as gaming, blockchain and crypto, and social media, to name a few, did not suffer when they entered the market. In fact, there was only a -14% change in revenue for blockchain and crypto companies, while companies in traditional industries had a loss of income between -39% to -70%. Being a startup in the digital economy during the pandemic did not severely harm revenues. Companies would more than likely become more profitable over a short span of time.

Remaining Digital

We were all looking for new things to do once the pandemic hit. Due to the lockdowns, we turned to the digital environment for everything. Work, learning, shopping, entertainment–all switched to being done online almost overnight. The pandemic fast-forwarded the inevitable future. Now, these digital companies need to keep up with their strategy to be even more profitable. We will continue to go online for most of our needs, and businesses need to stay competitive. The startups which were born digital, navigate the digital economy much easier and that is giving them the upper hand. If these organizations can continue adapting to the ever-changing environment, they will not only hold their standing in the market but outperform their peers.

Learn more about Simply Flows, a startup that entered into the digital economy during the pandemic.

Many cloud apps used by businesses nowadays

Data from a study by Blissfully shows that small businesses use 40 SaaS apps on average. That number gets to 203 apps for companies with over 1,000 employees. Indeed, businesses use way too many cloud apps nowadays. This is partly due to the IT decentralization. Departments, teams, and even individuals choose separate tools for their needs. The result is a variety of apps. And most of them are not connected with each other.

More apps = more inefficiencies

The bigger the number of apps, the more opportunities for inefficiencies. Each application has its own databases and workflows. Data must ‘move’ through different places to assist with decision-making and other business needs. Therefore employees get more and more trapped into manually and repeatedly transferring data between different applications. The cost is high. A lot of energy is spent on busywork, instead of on high-value work. Not to mention all the mistakes people make while manually processing data.

Data silos

The more cloud applications a company uses, the more opportunities for silos of data. Since data is stored in each cloud app’s databases, it easily becomes segmented. Even though some integrations between applications do exist, the reality is that apps rarely ‘talk’ with each other. Therefore, often times employees need to manually piece together data from different sources for their analytics, reporting, or business needs. Silos of data hinder business analytics initiatives and may hide valuable insights from being uncovered.

Best of breed

Teams and individuals opt for the ‘best of breed’ approach, rather than the ‘best of suite’. Indeed, this helps with flexibility and independence but it has its drawbacks when it comes to connectivity, integrations, and reporting.
As organizations continue adopting more and more cloud applications, the need of connecting their apps and moving data between them will steadily rise.

Find out how Simply Flows can help. We can make the data flow seamlessly between your cloud apps. That’s right, no more data silos and no more manual transfers of data between your applications.

Fixing data errors takes 30 percent of the day

We all make errors. Most of the time when we manually enter data or copy-paste information between systems, we make mistakes. Actually, such errors are unavoidable because humans are not good at repetitive tasks. On one hand, we easily lose focus or get carried away in thoughts. On another, we hate such mundane work and rarely give it our all. We all have been there and know how easy it is to do a wrong entry, to paste data twice, or to mess up a number. Later on, we need to go back, find, and correct the mistakes we’ve made. We can imagine how big of a time-sucker that is for the business. Indeed, a study found that fixing data errors could take up to thirty percent of the day.

Gartner discovered that Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can save 25,000 hours in a year.

The average amount of avoidable rework in accounting departments can take up to thirty percent of the day. This equates to savings of 25,000 hours or $878,000 per year for an organization with 40 full-time accountants.

A Gartner study shared these findings back in 2019. Gartner’s analysts interviewed over 150 chief accountant officers. Also, they gathered data of the RPA adoption at those companies.

Automate to eliminate data errors

Apparently, fixing data errors is a big problem for organizations. The good news is that there is a solution for it – process automation. When the data processes are automated, errors are eliminated. Additionally, organizations save a lot of time and money by not paying employees for such tasks. Knowledge workers are able to focus on high-value work. Once unburdened, people have time to be creative and contribute to the company’s innovation. An added benefit is that job satisfaction goes up and turnover goes down when employees feel that their skills are better utilized. And last but not least, an organization can employ RPA without breaking the bank!

Do you need help with automating any of your processes? Connect with us or have a look at our product page.

Category Archives: Digital Transformation