At this time we are all convinced that innovation is the most important tool for the survival of our companies. It is absolutely crucial for achieving sustainable success for your business. Yet, somehow so many organizations are just too busy to innovate?
Eisenhower said, “What’s important is seldom urgent, and what’s urgent is seldom
important.” In any active business, there are urgent things demanding our attention. Business
owners or leaders have never ending to-do lists filled with things that need to get done immediately, leaving no time for strategic reflections.
The Eisenhower Decision Matrix organizes these to-do’s on the axes of importance and urgency.
Organization structures that allow our collaborators to innovate have to be put in place. Getting the right people to help is a game changer influencing huge new revenue growth for the long term.
If our time goes to the “urgent but not important” quadrant, your business is condemned to die.
Big innovative companies like Apple or Tesla have two “not very well kept” secrets: Planning and challenging assumptions.
They schedule time for innovation since it won’t happen organically – the influence to engage in the “Urgent, not important” quadrant is endearingly seductive, however leaders of successful organizations discipline their focus to not engage. They prefer to challenge the “Status Quo” by analyzing and understanding how users interact with their products and processes.
When your daily work tasks conflict with attaining your goals, it’s time to take action, re-tune, and plan more time for the important long-term projects. Those projects are the ones that will assure your company remains relevant in an ever-changing world.
Ever pay attention to how students adopt or adapt to new products? They’re the ones along with the semi-employed who start using the latest APPs or Technology simply because they have the time and the exposure necessary to discover all the features and benefits of digital innovation. The busy executives are still trying to figure out how to use the new Iphone while reminiscing about the days where Blackberry was the preferred business tool.
How much time do employees in your company have for creativity and strategic thinking? Do you have a vision on transforming ‘busy-ness’ into business? Or are you too busy pulling a cart on square wheels?
How can leaders innovate their business, when they’re uncertain of where to start?
Automate to innovate
Automation is taking over the business world, thanks to new technologies that are becoming
available for every company to use. Now, companies of all sizes can create a custom automated process unique to their specific needs, and transform their business into a more productive and efficient organization. We will glance over which tasks should be prioritized for automation next.
What processes should you automate?
Business process automation is open to all kinds of solutions and is not restricted. To
easily identify factors that can indicate the need for automation we’ve created a short list to consider:
- High-volume of time spent in a task (Time management)
- Low ROI from a specific task (Cost analysis)
- Multiple people required to execute tasks (Resources revision)
- Significant impact on other processes and systems (Ripple effect)
- Need for compliance and audit trails (Regulation logistics)
If a business activity meets any or all of the factors listed above, it’s evident your business requires and will benefit from automating your business process.
To help you brainstorm where your business could start automating, the following are examples of the most common automated processes in businesses today:
- Invoice processing
- Purchasing and sales orders
- Account reconciliation
- Helpdesk support
- Data aggregation and migration
- Backup and restoration
- Employee requests
- Call center processes
- Time and attendance tracking
- Collections/account management
- Lead nurturing/funneling
Contact us today and take advantage of our free consultation. Our team of experts will gladly help you find which one of your business processes qualifies for digital transformation.