Many European and South African businesses have already started to reap the benefits of a move from outdated manual operations to automation. After all, manual processes are a lengthier and more complicated way of working and are prone to human error. Lexmark recently conducted a survey of employees in Europe and South Africa, which shone light on these inefficiencies. More than ever, it shows how businesses that still run manual processes need to wise up to the business benefits automated operations can bring.
The length and error-prone nature of manual processes is costly on two counts. The first is wasting valuable staff time and the second is leading to situations that can lose the company money, such as making duplicate payments. In fact, in response to our survey, we found a staggering two-thirds of the workers questioned have experienced a situation in which an error made through manual admin tasks at work has cost their company money, says Mark Hiller, general manager at Lexmark South Africa.
The reality of today's economic climate is that we're all more demanding and used to the fast-paced nature of the digital age. Customers and partners want faster answers and quick cycle times.
Our research showed that on a personal level, staff want fast, simple work processes that assist their day-to-day productivity. Having to deal with lengthy and complicated manual processes isn't efficient. When asked in our survey, 'What is the biggest problem associated with manual admin processes?' 50% responded that 'it takes too long to complete'.
This leads to one conclusion: companies that don't optimise their processes to ensure better efficiencies of working risk losing time and money by burdening their staff with unnecessary, time-intensive routine tasks.
There are many ways to improve business process efficiency, but making the move to automated processes is an obvious first step. An automated process approach translates to a reduction in costs and employee workload, because employees are able to concentrate on their core tasks, instead of time-consuming manual admin.
Our experience shows that automation brings error rates down too, by 80% to 100%. Further to this, the initial investment in automation tools should not be higher than the amount you can save over one year, meaning that in subsequent years, businesses should be making pure savings.
But perhaps one of the greatest benefits is that, on top of all this, it improves access to, and flow of, the most important company asset: enterprise data.
Enterprise information and data is essential in day-to-day operations to grow the business. Digitised data that's stored and indexed in an effective way - and made easily accessible by relevant parties - brings about greater business performance. For example, imagine being able to scan and capture an invoice or an account opening form at their point of entry, so these details are automatically captured into a structured format and transferred to business processes and stored in corporate systems. The visibility of this information across the company is greatly improved.
'Intelligent' software solutions exist that increase the level of accuracy associated with automation by enabling the accurate extraction of data from hard copy documents. For instance, these solutions are able to recognise if a document is an invoice or an application form. Regardless of spelling mistakes or where the information is located on the page, the solution can identify and take the relevant information - for example, invoice number or vendor details - to process and store it in the system. The software learns from each document during the processing stage, so over time it is able to recognise and deal with more information.
Added to this, any ensuing actions can subsequently be dealt with much earlier than if the data had been manually inputted. In many cases, eliminating manual data entry can take the speed of processes from days and weeks to mere minutes and hours.
There is a great benefit across a range of applications that need to avoid delays by having access to the right documents at the right time. This includes corporate headquarters processing documents, payable/receivable, mail rooms and order processing. Employees can be more productive too - on one hand maximising the number of transactions that can be completed within one working day, and on the other hand freeing up their time to focus on other valuable work tasks.
Driving financial performance is a top priority in business. When it comes to growth drivers, it's the people and operations that ensure businesses keep moving forward. To avoid getting left behind, it's vital that the right business processes are in place to maintain efficiency - both of staff and operations - and keep operational costs down.
Nowadays, document-imaging technology does just that. It refines and automates the manual processes that cause bottlenecks and employee unproductivity. Combining its use with process and content solutions drives efficiencies within businesses through powerful workflows. Our survey results show the inefficiencies of manual processes should be a wake-up call to companies. They should look at how adopting technology can play a critical role in transforming their business. The benefits are clear to see. What better result can a company hope for than meeting the needs of employees, customers, partners and other parties, while also aiding company growth?
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