Types of Business Automation for Your Business
Automation has already revolutionized the manufacturing sector. Business automation is just taking off. These automation tools are automation processes in both the front office and the back office as well as in sales and engineering. Here are the types of business automation available for your business.
Customer Relationship Management Tools
Customer relationship management tools or CRM allows you to manage all the records related to your customers. They will generate new records when the person signs up for your email list or when they complete their first purchase. It will track their purchase history, allowing your company to build a profile of each customer. Sales staff may be notified when a customer stops purchasing your product so that they can attempt to re-engage the customer. Data input by tech support and customer service goes into the customer’s file so that any employee talking to the customer has all the necessary information.
Accounts Payable Automation
Accounts payable automation can automate the generation of purchase orders, invoices, expenditure approvals, and payments. A good AP automation tool will eliminate manual check printing while giving management full visibility into the payment process. Automated business-to-business payments ensure that your vendors are paid on time. The payments may be automatically sent as soon as the inventory is ordered or confirmed to have been received. Automatic invoicing will improve revenue and reduce collections costs. Most AP automation tools will automatically flag those who haven’t paid on time so that you can begin following up. Some AP automation tools seamlessly connect to your ERP system. Integration should be a key deciding factor because you don’t want to have employees manually inputting data into two different systems. This increases the risk of errors.
Sales Automation
Sales automation is anything that makes the job of sales easier. It can include assigning hot leads to the best salespeople or redistributing work based on who is in the office. It may involve assigning scores to prospects so that people devote their time to the best prospect. Sales automation may tie into CRM systems, resulting in emails automatically being sent to notify someone when their order is shipped and sending them coupons to encourage them to buy again.
Product Data Management Systems
Product data management systems control all data related to your products. This includes drawings, parts lists, test procedures, and assembly instructions. Product data management will control access to these key documents. It will use automated workflows to route drawings to drafters to be updated before sending them to checkers to be approved. If a part becomes obsolete, engineering is informed of the need to find a replacement part. Once they approve an alternate part, every drawing that uses it will be flagged for review so that it can be added to the drawing if appropriate. If product managers authorize it, the technical data package may be sent to a vendor to build the item. Product verification is much simpler when you have the parts list for every single assembly since it is tied to the purchase order.
