You may not think that a creative agency can help to improve your business process automation (basically the way your business words), but at Sixth Story, we can and do. One of our areas of expertise is web. And that doesn’t just mean the good looking bits that your customers see. We grew up digital. With our in-depth knowledge and good marketing sense, we can help you to use the web and your whole tech ecosystem to make your business process automation a lot more efficient. So far we’ve saved our clients’ tens of thousands of pounds doing exactly that.
Automating and integrating workflows
What does that even mean? Well, it’s really just about joining the dots. If you have an e-commerce site to sell your products and an accounting system to keep your books, having integrating workflows so the two can talk to each other means you don’t have to input the information manually. Which doesn’t just save you a tedious job, it also eliminates the chance you’ll make errors because you’re so bored.
The same is true if you have separate online ordering and workflow management systems (carry on reading for a couple of examples). Integration and automation means saving someone the task of manually inputting 10, 100 or even 1000 orders a day, allowing for faster processing and less administration. Time saved is money saved.
The process
The first steps to integration are understanding your business and identifying where connections need to be made. Do you have a web form that’s not linked to your CRM software, or a newsletter signup that doesn’t connect to your email database?
Either as part of a larger digital project, or during a specific workflow consultation, we’ll review your website and systems, map out your processes and get familiar with the way you work.
Making even a few seemingly small integrations could make your whole business more joined up, creating fewer opportunities for tasks to be overlooked and leads or enquiries to slip through the net.
Going a step further, the next phase is to understand which time-consuming tasks and processes can be updated to remove the burden of administration. Jobs like data entry can burn through man-hours at an alarming rate, and are at the mercy of human error. In plenty of cases, these are processes that your technology can do without you even getting involved. Automating as many of these tasks as possible can free up your workforce and create valuable time that allows you to focus on the core activities of your business. Which, let’s face it, is why you come to work in the first place.
Elliott Modular Buildings
We helped Elliott improve the accuracy of their direct marketing by integrating and organising their Salesforce and Mailchimp lists. The marketing department can now automatically send out high numbers of relevant communications to a range of different and changing audiences across the globe without have to spend hundreds of hours sorting the data.
Clearabee
After building them a complete integrated e-commerce system, we automated Clearabee’s entire ordering process. As soon as an order is placed on their website, all of the systems involved – including Amazon Logistics and Delivery Vehicle Tracking – work together in harmony to ensure a smooth, seamless transaction. Savings equal around £100,000 per year in man-hours and admin costs.
Get in touch to see how we can help your business automation and integration process.