Many of us are familiar with the concept of recording a macro in Word or Excel to eliminate repetitive tasks – This is office automation in its simplest form.
Macros are just the tip of the iceberg. Automation in the office place can go much further, saving you time, money and a lot of effort in all areas of your business.
Office automation can run multiple programs and processes all at the press of a button or at timed intervals during the day. Each program or process can be run in sequence or the automation can change the order they are run in when set criteria are met.
So why should you invest in office automation?
Save Your Business Time & Money
In these economically hard times, it is more important than ever to save time and money. Office automation can either totally eliminate the time taken for tasks or reduce them to a click of a single button, saving you time and money.
If you have a daily task that takes just 1 hour a day to complete, this will mean you spend 5 hours a week doing the same thing over and over again. Over a year that comes to an amazing 260 hours a year or 32 working days! Now imagine a task that takes 2, 3 or even 8 hours a day. How many man hours could you save by eliminating these tasks?
Office automation can either complete a task or a series of tasks at the click of a button or at set times of the day.
Eliminate Errors From Your Data
The more steps in a process handled by humans, the more chance there is of human errors creeping in to your data. By automating these tasks, you eliminate this risk from all of your tasks.
Not only will automated software repeat these tasks in exactly the same way time after time without variation, it will also eliminate the need to enter the same data in to multiple packages. Automated software will allow you to enter your data in to just one place and it will then automatically enter the data in to your other programs. Further eliminating the risk of human errors.
Prevent Process Creep
Process creep is when one of your processes changes from your documented processes over a period of time. Staff will often make undocumented “tweaks” and changes to your processes to make their lives easier or in reaction to problems they face.
No matter how well intentioned these “tweaks” are, the people making them often don’t take the big picture in to account or the knock on affects they will have on other processes further down the line.
