Automation is becoming the catch cry in many industries from mining to accounting with driverless trucks becoming the normal practice on mine sites to automated accounts payable systems in accounting software.

In terms of strategy, this is now one of the most important issues open to business to both improve productivity and efficiency and eliminate a large amount of human error.

With current advances, particularly in accounting software, human intervention is less and less required.

What does this mean to business? Principally this results in cost savings which can then be re-directed and invested in more productive areas such as marketing, capital expenditure and debt reduction. In addition and as indicated it basically removes issues created by human error on data input.

It is incumbent upon all business managers and owners to investigate what their existing suite of software is achieving with regards to automating processes and also to investigate what else may be available to either add onto or replace existing systems.

To achieve this it may also be necessary to consult an automation specialist to assist in the process.

In order to develop an automation, plan management needs to conduct a review and analysis of its processes to determine to what extent any of them can be either fully or partially automated. This process will also involve researching what software will be needed to achieve the correct outcome.

There are a number of types of automation available to businesses such as:-

• Marketing and eCommerce Automation
• BPA to execute recurring tasks such as employee onboarding and invoicing
• Robotic process automation
• Chatbots
• Inventory management automation

In addition here are of the benefits to be gained by implementing BPA:-

• Automation allows your business to complete many repetitive tasks without the need to hire additional staff
• Reduces labour costs by either not requiring new staff or reducing staff numbers
• Frees up resources which can be allocated to more productive areas
• Minimises human error
• Improves employee satisfaction
• Creates enhanced partner communication
• Improves customer experience
• Ensure compliance with various government agencies

Any business that is not actively involved in investigating and implementing BPA will suffer as a result.