You use automation every day; recording your favourite TV shows and being thankful for Facebook birthday reminders, even the sprinklers in your garden are automated. The benefits of automation don’t only make our daily lives easier, they make it possible for businesses to thrive. Instead of focusing on repetitive admin tasks, they can focus on figuring out how to get us to Mars.

Automation is used to simplify and speed up operational processes, making mundane and time-consuming tasks a thing of the past. I kinda wish I’d known about the benefits of automation a bit earlier on in my career. I wouldn’t have wasted as much time copying and pasting, that’s for sure.

So, to make sure you don’t waste as much time as I have, I’ve created a list of the top 7 benefits of automation that lay it all out for you.

1. Centralised databases

One of the biggest benefits of automation is that of a centralised database. A single repository for all your customer information and operational functions. This makes it significantly easier for teams to access customer transaction history, workflow status and other useful information. And the best part? Everyone sees EXACTLY the same information. No more internal information delays or miscommunication between departments means time and efficiency savings for everyone.

Centralised databases benefit your customers too. As your customer-facing teams have immediate access to the information they need such as customer information, billing details and ticket status, they can respond to customers quickly - directly improving customer satisfaction.

2. Integrated digital data management

Automation software means less physical document management. Not only is this great for the environment, it also means you spend less time, completing, filing, passing around and storing paper. [Read: “less time deciphering bad handwriting, losing paperwork and having to dig around for it on your or other’s desks”].

Automated processes mean that records and associated documentation are stored digitally, easily searchable and attached to the correct datapoint; be it a support ticket or customer contact record.

3. Invoices at a click of the button

Remember when you had to send each and every invoice to each and every customer - one click at a time? The reality is that companies may still do this: but why waste precious time when you could be sending hundreds of invoices each and every second?

All you have to do is click a button and the cleverness of automation begins. We’re pretty proud here at SOLIDitech that our business automation platform, SOLID, can process around 800 invoices per second. So if it currently takes you about a minute to send an invoice to a customer, you can imagine how much time you would save when using automation software.

4. Scalability and workflows

Up-to-date workflows lead to operational consistency and efficiency, meaning you waste less time on operational tasks and can focus more on your customers. This further benefits the company, as automated workflows reduce time to market for new products and services.

Manually, completing a task twice takes twice as long as completing it once. Once a task (or set of tasks) is automated, it doesn’t matter whether you process 1 or 10,000 items; it takes the same amount of time. This drastically improves scalability and reduces cost-per-task.

5. Tracking breadcrumbs

It’s difficult to track who did what in a company. Another benefit of automating processes is that each step in the workflow or change made to a record or process is digital, and therefore recorded. This creates an audit trail so it’s super easy to track back when mistakes or changes are made.

This means more time for managers and supervisors to take care of their teams, it also increases accountability.

6. Deeper business insight

It’s pretty hard to gather and analyse information from documents and spreadsheets, especially when there can be thousands of them spread out over different offices. Trying to forecast and analyse information - like customer complaint records, bottlenecks, and employee performance - can be a nightmare.

Good automation software with a centralised database will run reports and produce dashboards of key business information for you. You can then spend all your efforts and skills on analysing reports and the results thereof.

7. Remove human error

People have good days and bad days. When things get chaotic, there is a possibility that mistakes may happen. Luckily for you (and your customers) automation takes care of the rote tasks that have a high possibility for human error. This leads to a significant increase in accuracy and lets employees concentrate on the real meaty work without the chance of making constant errors.

Now that you’re a bit more clued in on some of the benefits of automation, why not try implementing it into your ISP? Not convinced yet? Check out these top 5 reasons why you should automate your business and find out everything you need to know about business process automation.