What does the word “automation” make you think about? The first thought is robots taking over the World and your job? But it shouldn’t.
Companies adopting automation is not a new phenomenon. Although there are many companies adopting automation, it’s still not enough to meet the global demand for increased efficiency and productivity. The main question that arises then is what is holding companies back from embracing automation?
There are two main things that come into play when considering why more companies don’t adopt automation, and both foci on employees lack of enthusiasm to embrace technology because of the fear that automation will take over from them.
Why companies don’t Adopt Automation
Automation is slowly becoming a necessity, and many companies need to start adopting it if they want to remain competitive in their markets.
What is the most common barrier to adoption? The two main things that come into play when considering why more companies don’t adopt automation and both foci on employees lack the enthusiasm to embrace technology and upset people. It sounds crazy, but without them on board, it is bound to fail.
Educating employees on why automation can help a company achieve its goals and making sure all employees have clear career paths with opportunities for growth with automation can help change their mindset.
Tackling fear and reskilling programs are two pillars that can make or break your automation program. The benefit of deeply involving your employees early on in your automation efforts is that you develop digital employees. Digital skills alone will not shift mindset.
Shifting Mindest to Embrace Automation
The first step for this, however, is to make employees no longer fear automation but embrace it.
Workers across most companies still fear that automation will get them fired, do them out of a job. This fear of being replaced by a machine has been rampant since industrialisation, and it’s only now, as more industries adopt automation systems, that employees have an understanding of how they can work alongside robots/ AI to benefit the business.
The second thing holding companies back from adopting automation is when employees don’t have a clear career path for how automation can help them from what they are doing now to what they could be doing in the near future.
This requires companies to create an environment that helps employees find the right skills they need for their new role, so they are willing to embrace automation working out the best mix between automation and human.
By making employees embrace technology early on, you can make sure they are able to find their new role with your business sooner rather than later. This way, there is no disruption or impact of adopting automation in your business operations.
Automation benefits for Business
How does automation change business? There is a clear path to how adopting automation will benefit your business, even if you are stuck in an industry that has been slow or resistant to adopting technology. The benefits of adopting automation include increased production capacity, faster output, and fewer errors.
Why do companies prefer automation? Automation is great at taking care of routine, repeatable tasks and processes far more efficiently than you or your team could ever do. All businesses, whatever their size, large or small, can benefit from automation and doesn’t have to costs a fortune.
Reduce Human Errors: Mistakes happen; we are all human. However knowledgeable and proficient, you are eventually something slips. However, when things are automated, mistakes just don’t happen. Automation tools don’t get tired, get overloaded by tasks or distracted by events happening around them.
Streamline and Automate Workflow: Organisation of time & tasks, so you don’t miss important deadlines. Automations are like putting tasks and processes on autopilot, making it so much easier to know what needs doing and stay on top of everything.
Free Up Brain Space: We all have limited brain space; we cant upgrade memory. We can become exhausted from trying to remember everything that needs doing. Automations allows repeatable tasks to be completed more efficiently than you could ever complete them. This also frees up brainpower to concentrate on more important tasks.
Data & Analytics: Automations offer you insight into processes a way to analyse and improve business processes.
Free Up Time: Free up time so you can focus on creative ways to grow your business or spend more time on client-facing tasks.
Increase Productivity: Get more done and make work life easier. Improve processes and optimise business efficiency.
Companies adopting automation will create more opportunities for the company to grow.
Are there negative to adopting automation?
Does adopting automation have any disadvantages? The answer is yes.
As with everything in life, there are some downsides and negatives to adopting automation which you need to consider before committing your business fully to the process.
This doesn’t mean you should skip adopting automation altogether, but it does mean that there are some things to think and plan out before taking the plunge.
There will always be a need for human involvement in different aspects of the process. This is because automation tools aren’t perfect and need continuous tweaking to get the best results.
Automation Tools: Finding the right automation tool for the job you need it to do. Investigate and trial the product to see results.
Designing the process: It takes time to implement automation and decide how you need it to work to get the best results. It will never be the perfect first time.
Trusting Automation: Trusting it can be difficult as you can put important tasks in your hands, but you can monitor this to start until you feel confident.
Evaluation & Improvements: Automated processes need regular evaluations of performances.
Automate Business Processes
Every business runs and functions because of numerous business processes that allow the business to be successful.
Everyone process that can be automated frees up valuable time, schedules tasks and assigns tasks when needed.
Once you start to feel the benefits of business process automation software, you can start to link out through integrations and APIs, which allow you to connect different software together and trigger events in each system without lifting a finger.
With the best automation tools for your business, you can streamline, work smarter, be more productive and deliver even better results for your customers.