How document automation fits into a digital transformation strategy
As technology advances, how do you keep your company’s digital transformation strategy ahead of the curve? It’s a simple but necessary consideration that every forward-thinking business needs to make when mapping out its digital transformation journey. Staying competitive means staying informed on new technology and being able to efficiently vet the vast number of new technologies that can potentially benefit your business is no small task. However, if you’re not thinking carefully about how you generate, manage, and send your documents, you’re missing out on a big opportunity to drive productivity and profitability.
As you look to add to your technology roster, a document automation system should be one of the first things you look at. It’s a high-impact item that supports consistency and productivity, and significantly reduces risks associated with large-scale document output.
An overreliance on paper
From invoices to work orders, and contracts to compliance documents, the need for a paper trail is an essential step in ensuring smooth and manageable business. However, digitizing and automating document generation is often an afterthought on the digital transformation journey – even as digital technologies evolve. According to Gartner, 80% of business processes carried out today are document-centric.
Digitization is not a new topic in the invoicing space. About 20 years ago, the term ‘digitization’ came into our vocabulary, and it implied the promise of automation, cost savings, and productivity. So, if this has been around for decades, why aren’t we there yet? What is restricting companies from going digital? The reality is that shifting from paper to digital documents still isn’t as simple as organizations would like. Few businesses can fully claim they have reached a state of digital transformation, let alone define what it takes.
However, innovation and technology are addressing these gaps – things like document automation software take the work out of manual document creation processes. Rather than creating, printing, and sending your business documents by hand, these solutions provide an end-to-end automated process that is tamperproof, with all edits logged for easy auditing and regulatory compliance purposes.
Why prioritize document automation solutions
Document automation software combines automation and document management to modernize document creation, mitigate risks, and simplify manual processes. This is a beneficial process for industries across the board like legal, financial, and insurance – truly any organization can benefit from document automation to accelerate digital transformation efforts.
As your business develops new or improved strategies to improve efficiency, profitability, and productivity, you’ll likely direct your focus on the most common silos: accounts payable, customer operations, and field services and management — all of which can be document-heavy. Processes within these three areas are often repetitive and lack efficiency but can become collaborative and productive with the right tools. Eliminating manual document work via automation software allows your employees to focus on the work that matters rather than the documents along the way.
Paper, manual and repetitive processes can cause a reduction in productivity, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, compliance, and ultimately, revenue.
Top considerations for your document automation decisions
Digital transformations can look different for every organization, and so will the way you use document automation. However, what remains consistent is the fact that digital transformation is essential to maintaining business continuity and increasing agility in our ever-evolving environment.
Let’s say you’re ready to make the shift to a digital document automation solution. Where do you begin?
- Identify the business needs that should be served by the solution. Make sure you know what you want from your document automation solution. Is your main goal to eliminate manual processes as much as possible? Do you want to improve customer experience by simplifying their access and retrieval of documents? What is your ideal outcome for any key document-based business process?
- Determine the extent of your document-based processes that need automation. Review all your processes involving critical documents before making any attempt to automate them. The generation of both internal and client-facing documents should be understood as an end-to-end process, with every inefficiency and potential area for improvement outlined by the members of your team who deal with them daily. Let them weigh in on how the automation solution should improve the process, and what specific problems it needs to address.
- Find a solution provider capable of servicing your needs. Truly effective document automation solutions are not ‘off the shelf’ products that slot perfectly into your organization. Partner with an expert in intelligent document automation who can help you assess where your document process is today and map the best route for your desired future state. They need to suit your business needs, overcome your current and future problems, and satisfy your unique customers. That’s why you need to be sure that you are choosing a tailored solution that has the flexibility to fit your ongoing digital transformation efforts.
No matter the challenges and complexities involved, document automation shouldn’t be an afterthought – it’s an integral part of any digital transformation journey. Businesses that are looking to fast-track their digital transformation journey must prioritize document automation solutions to not only increase productivity across the board but also to ultimately remain profitable.
If you’re thinking about how document automation can benefit you, get in touch and let us help you assess where your document process is today, and map the best route for your desired future state.
