Want to Simplify Business Operations?  Workflow Can Help!

We love automated workflow! Although, we may be a little biased. It’s been our business for over a decade. We are firm believers that technology is meant to work for you. If it isn’t, then what good is it really? If you are still looking for a few good reasons why you should embrace automation, here are 10 we hope will win you over.

1. Decrease Dependency on Spreadsheets 

Spreadsheets are great for storing, crunching and analyzing data, but they can be a bit of a pain for tracking and driving work forward. With automation, data entry can be replaced with data imports or bulk uploads. Status updates now occur with the completion of a task versus a lengthy meeting or multiple emails.

As tasks are completed, new ones are created automatically moving the process forward. Those involved can monitor and track tasks through dashboards, eliminating the need for passing around spreadsheets.

2. Streamline Approvals 

Approvals—the necessary evil to ensure that all the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed. Sometimes getting those approvals can be difficult. Need an approval but can’t find the person? Need an approval, but the person is on vacation? Better yet, do you need an approval but don’t know who that is? 

With automated workflow, those questions are a nonissue. Complete the task and the system directs the approval to the appropriate person. It’s off your plate on to the next person that can approve it.

3. Reduce Human Errors 

We are all human.  We make mistakes, but mistakes can be costly for an organization. Whether it’s entering incorrect data, making a bad decision, skipping a step in the process, or letting a task slip through the cracks, there’s a cost associated. With the help of automated data entry, process controls and alerts, workflow can reduce your risk of errors occurring.

4. Improve Visibility 

Can you easily see what’s going on within your organization from end to end? Workflow provides an unobstructed view into the operational status of your organization. Employees can quickly view tasks within their pipeline, supervisors can monitor departmental workload, and executives can identify organizational trends. Visibility across the organization helps you identify gaps in processes, streamline operations, and highlight and leverage efficiencies.

5. Provide Audit Trails 

Do you want to know what activities took place and by whom? When processes are automated with workflow, you have a detailed audit trail of all activities that originate in the application. You can track the process from start to finish. Making it easy to trace through how a process got to the status that it is in. Teams have a comprehensive view into the preceding actions and events that led up to the current status. 

6. Enforce Accountability 

Remember when you were a kid and mom would ask who left the mess in the living room?  She may have had an idea of who did it, but never really found out who.  With automation, audit trails, and real time data views it makes it easy for organizations to monitor process compliance. With every action having a deadline date, and live dashboards to monitor progress, performance based objectives can be reached, and violations can be detected before it is too late.  All actions are accounted for, retained, and ready for audit.

7. Eliminate Manual Hand-offs 

When you or your team finish up a task, how do you pass it on to the next individual or team?  Do you walk a stack of papers down the hall?  Have a meeting to discuss?  Well it’s time to find a new way to get in your steps and free up your calendar.  Workflow that pulls together data, documents, and images in one place makes manual hand-offs a thing of the past.  When tasks are completed, the person responsible for the next step gets the task in their queue.  All the information they need is right there in real time.

8. Increase Throughput 

This one is a no brainer.  There are things that technology can just do quicker than a human.  By automating your manual processes, workflow will help you get work done faster.  By eliminating process lag times, you have the ability to increase productivity and handle higher volumes without additional staff all the while improving quality.

9. Simplify Change 

Need to change the way a process is executed?  Changing a manual process requires communication to all parties impacted by the change.  Depending on the complexity of the change, some training may be needed.  Then you cross your fingers that the change is followed through.  If your processes are automated, you simply update the system with the changes, test the changes, and you know the newly updated process is being followed.  A little training and communication may be needed for a heads up of the change.  It is easy to do.

10. Boost Speed to Market 

It’s no fun being the last to the party, especially from a business perspective.  It’s important to be able to rapidly modify organizational processes to tackle industry challenges or take advantage of opportunities to stay ahead of your competitors. Automated workflow makes it easy to add new programs and services without new technology.  

CLARIFIRE^® Workflow

Now are you as excited about workflow as we are?  We have the technology available to ease your effort to get work done. Work the way you want in the timeframes that you want. CLARIFIRE does the rest.  Let us show you how!