As an organisation grows and its need for new tools increases, it will need to decide where it’s best to invest and where it’s best to automate processes. Luke Shipley, CEO and Co-Founder, Zinc, discusses this topic below.
Typically, organisations will only bring new software into the business where employees are already experiencing challenges and can clearly define the problem they want to solve. From there, a decision is made between bringing software in or hiring for extra hands with specialist knowledge. With a growing business, these tools and processes might be brought in to address scalability issues, such as expanding the tech stack, investing in HR, workflow and communication platforms or introducing new CRM tools.
This decision is crucial for ensuring that an organisation doesn’t become too overburdened with new processes and tools in a phase of the business where there’s an unlimited number of burning fires. Fundamentally, automating processes helps the organisation stay focused on business critical issues.
But which processes should be automated first?
HR, hiring and background checking processes are critical areas for a growing business and well placed for automation. Automating these functions not only streamlines operations but also enhances efficiency, reduces errors and ensures scalability.
- Efficiency and time savings
One of the most time-consuming aspects of business growth is managing the recruitment and onboarding of new employees. As businesses expand, the need to hire talent quickly becomes paramount, yet traditional hiring processes can be slow and cumbersome. Automating tasks such as posting job listings, screening resumes, scheduling interviews and conducting background checks reduces manual effort. Automated systems can sift through large volumes of applications to highlight candidates with the best fit for the role, cutting down hours of administrative work. This allows HR teams to focus on more strategic tasks like nurturing company culture or employee engagement.
2. Consistency and reduced errors
Automation in HR and hiring ensures that processes are conducted uniformly every time. Without automation, human error is inevitable – whether it’s misplacing essential documents, errors in data entry or overlooking information in a background check. Automated systems maintain a consistent process for every candidate, ensuring that no critical step is missed. This is especially important for background checks, which must comply with legal regulations globally and be performed accurately. Automation ensures that the background check process is standardised, timely and thorough, thereby reducing the risk of costly hiring mistakes.
3. Scalability
As businesses grow, the volume of hiring increases. Manually handling hiring processes can become overwhelming for HR teams. Automation enables businesses to scale their recruitment efforts without having to drastically increase the size of their HR department. Tools that automate job postings, candidate tracking and onboarding processes allow businesses to hire at the same rate they grow, preventing bottlenecks and delays. With automated systems in place, HR departments can handle large volumes of applicants and new hires more efficiently, which is crucial for sustaining growth.
4. Improved candidate experience
A smooth and swift hiring process also creates a positive impression on candidates. Automated systems can provide faster responses, increase transparency and quicker background check results, which improve the overall candidate experience. This is vital in competitive markets, where a poor or delayed hiring process could cause a business to lose top talent.
Pauline Green, Head of Product Compliance & Programs at Intuit QuickBooks UK:
There are many valid responses to this question depending on the type of business. Whilst some may point to marketing or customer service first, for me, there is one vital, non-negotiable process that makes up the backbone of every business – financial management.
Automating financial processes can significantly impact how quickly a business reaches profitability, even though many new owners may not prioritise it initially.
Managing finances is often time-consuming and overwhelming, frequently pushed to the bottom of the to-do list, especially when balancing day-to-day operations. Take the Self Assessment season as an example. Despite having up to 10 months’ notice to file their tax return, nearly half (46%) of owners still hold off filing until 2-3 months before the January 31 deadline. In fact, a quarter (25%) of the millions of small business owners across the country will file in the last month.
Through automating financial management tasks, owners can free up significant time to focus on what really matters – growing their business and pursuing the passion that drove them to start their venture in the first place.
One critical advantage of automation is that it eliminates manual tracking of expenses and reconciling accounts and generating financial reports, which can consume hours each week. Automation accelerates these processes, allowing founders to focus on revenue-generating tasks like bookkeeping, invoicing and payroll management.
It’s crucial that businesses lean into securing their financial position, with the prospect of possible changes to dividend tax thresholds, corporation tax relief, employment allowances and other key tax policies.
Here are a few tips for business owners to consider, alongside automating their financial management:
- You may still be entitled to EU grants, but paperwork can be challenging. Speak to your accountant about applicable grants and seek their expert support in accessing them.
- Use automation tools to track grant deadlines and requirements, streamlining the paperwork process. Many financial management platforms can integrate with grant application systems to ensure all relevant data is organised and easily accessible, saving you from manual tracking.
- If you have spare cash, re-invest it into the business or other assets. If you pay corporation tax, take advantage of the tax breaks available under R&D and full expensing. You’d be surprised what purchases might be covered.
- Automated expense tracking can help identify purchases that qualify for tax breaks like R&D credits and full expensing. Financial software can categorise expenses in real-time, ensuring you don’t miss out on eligible deductions and helping you re-invest your cash wisely.
- Get money owed back into the business. Stick to the invoice terms you set out, and if customers aren’t adhering to them, you are legally entitled to add interest. If it’s a customer that’s late paying all the time, set dynamic pricing.
- Automated invoicing systems can send reminders to customers as due dates approach, track late payments and even automatically apply interest fees or penalties when terms are breached. Some systems also allow for dynamic pricing adjustments based on customer payment habits.
Karsten Smet, CEO, Oomph:
Let’s answer this question with a question. Why do you have to pick just one?
Confining all the benefits of automation to a one-process-at-a-time roll-out is like driving home in second gear. Ok, so you might get there eventually, but it’s hardly the best use of your most precious resource – your time. And SMEs don’t have enough of that as it is.
We’d recommend implementing a comprehensive system that enables you to automate multiple strands of your business at once. We know it’s possible, because we developed one! The more you can automate, the more time you can save, and the fewer human errors will creep into the system. If there’s a menial task you can automate, automate it.
Take financial admin for example. Do you really need to manually create invoices, quotes or credit notes every time you have to send them? Or could you save time and money by automating that? When you take on a project, do you need to manually track task progress and costs? Or could an automated system do that more efficiently and accurately? Automation can even be incorporated into your sales forecasting, removing the guesswork to calculate sales opportunity margins, forecasts and win probabilities.
Let’s not forget the HR departments who do so much in the background. Automation can be a lifesaver for them. Taking a work trip? Systems like Oomph let you calculate mileage and other expenses automatically. Got conflicting holiday requests? Oomph can resolve that for you automatically – no awkward conversations required.
All of this leaves staff with more time to add value elsewhere, pitching in with creative ideas, going the extra mile to nurture customer relationships and ensuring the sales pipeline keeps moving.
That’s not to say automation can’t help here too, complementing the work your staff put in. For example, Oomph can connect to your website’s contact form, automatically importing customer data into your system. From there, they can be added to your customisable sales stages and sent automated quotes, PDFs, marketing emails and more. But, because it’s all customisable, you’re always in control – you can step in with the human touch whenever it’s necessary.
Whoever said you can have too much of a good thing never used Oomph. We’ve made it our business to go beyond basic functionality to create a system that can automate tasks at every level of your business, from product portfolio management to supply chain administration, HR, marketing, project management and more.
So, when you’re looking at automating business processes, dream bigger. Be greedy. Because the only limits are the ones you put there yourself.
Alex Clansey, Co-Founder & CEO, Venture Planner:
The question isn’t whether to automate, but where to begin. The specific answer may vary depending on individual business needs. I believe that for most SMEs, the first process to automate should be client relationship management (CRM), followed closely by staff management. AI-powered marketing automation platforms have also emerged as a potentially valuable asset for expanding businesses.
Automated CRM systems significantly enhance the customer experience with timely follow-ups, personalised communication and efficient issue resolution. This translates directly to improved sales performance. If lead tracking, sales pipelines and follow-up tasks can all be automated, sales teams are also freed up to focus on high-value activities.
But perhaps most importantly, automated CRM systems offer scalability. As businesses grow, these systems can easily accommodate an expanding customer base without a proportional staffing increase, thereby saving on overhead costs. We managed to scale our traditional legal services business to handle 4-5 times as many customers with the same staff by automating the production of simple legal documents such as wills and trusts within our CRM.
Once customer relationships are streamlined, I believe the next focus area for automation should be staff management. Efficient recruitment and onboarding processes, enabled by automation, can dramatically reduce the time-to-productivity for new hires. Performance tracking is another area where automation shines. Automated systems can track KPIs, enabling regular performance reviews and identifying improvement or recognition opportunities. We automated audits of video calls and phone calls using AI to ensure processes are being followed. Pay compensation could then be adjusted accordingly, saving hundreds of manual review hours each month. Such innovations bring time savings and provide more objective and consistent performance evaluations.
The third key area for SMEs to consider is AI-powered marketing automation. The capabilities in this space are expanding rapidly. AI-powered tools are now able to generate content for various platforms, from LinkedIn to TikTok. So much so we’ve built a marketing platform that automates content production for different social media channels. This level of automation was a dream a few years ago, and now it’s become a reality.
CRM, staff management and AI-powered marketing offer significant potential for SMEs, but every business is unique. Before implementing any automation solution, SME leaders should conduct a thorough analysis of their specific business needs, pain points and growth objectives to ensure that automation efforts align with overall business strategy and provides the needed value.
With AI technology advancing at an unprecedented rate, we can expect even more sophisticated automation solutions to emerge across various business functions. The future of business is automated, and SMEs that embrace this automation revolution early stand to gain a significant competitive advantage in their respective markets.