{"id":8022,"date":"2023-01-17T07:18:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-06T07:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=8022"},"modified":"2023-07-13T03:35:46","modified_gmt":"2023-07-13T03:35:46","slug":"reasons-why-automation-is-gaining-traction-in-smbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/in\/blog\/reasons-why-automation-is-gaining-traction-in-smbs\/","title":{"rendered":"SMBs: Save Time, Money & Wow Your Customers With Automation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the present challenging business landscape, the only constant is disruption. This makes agility a critical differentiator for SMBs, so they can respond quickly to changes in market trends and customer demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In achieving the right mix of agility and operational efficiency, Business Process Automation<\/a> (BPA) can be your key business ally. BPA enables organisations to automate and streamline repetitive tasks, resulting in error-free processes and a productive staff that has more time for high-value, strategic, and creative work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SMBs can leverage automation solutions to level the playing field, strengthening their capabilities to offer quality products and services and achieve cost-efficiency like their larger counterparts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, automation constitutes a significant portion of the rising IT budgets of SMBs in India. According to a report published in Fortune India<\/a>, more than 75% of the 97,000 SMBs registered with the India SME Forum have adopted digitisation. Furthermore, these SMBs are expected to spend almost 2% of their revenue on new technology, up from 1% in 2020. Automation will constitute a bulk of this investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Automating for operational efficiency, cost savings, and seamless customer experiences <\/span> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Widespread use of patchwork tech solutions and constrained resources mean that Indian SMBs frequently depend on their employees to manually manage a variety of tasks (such as manually creating reports or matching invoices with payments) to keep the company going. While employees may feel overworked and unable to concentrate on their primary responsibilities, this also increases the possibility of errors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s where automation can positively impact the functioning of SMBs. From increasing productivity and profitability to helping unlock greater efficiency and economies of scale, automation is helping small and medium-sized businesses achieve more with less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brings down the cost of day-to-day operations<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The right automation tool lets you manage repetitive administrative and operational tasks swiftly and efficiently across functions \u2013 sales, marketing, customer support, IT, finance, and logistics. Automation frees up experienced talent to invest their time in more valuable tasks. This, in turn, significantly brings down your operational costs and lets you achieve your targets even with smaller teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reduces manual dependencies<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the new data economy, SMBs must move from a people-focused approach to a process-oriented one to unlock efficiency and scale. An automation tool designed for SMBs – such as the Salesforce automation everywhere solution<\/a> – helps make processes people-agnostic, letting SMBs drive change faster. Creating detailed customer profiles, sending out email reminders, integrating data from different sources, generating leads, tracking employee performance- the list of tasks that can be automated is endless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reduces errors<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Automation enables consistency. Critical but routine tasks can be performed in a standardised manner, making processes and operations more accurate and ensuring consistent, high-quality output. From data entry to report creation and invoice management \u2013 automation helps you eliminate costly mistakes, even when your key team members are unavailable or are being replaced by new hires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Encourages cross-functional collaboration and engagement<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By investing in automation, you can consolidate fragmented, siloed workflows and achieve end-to-end visibility. An automation platform like Salesforce Customer 360<\/a> to consolidate data from across functions and teams, easily monitor project progress, remember important dates and milestones, and share information, documents, or project status with all employees, enabling complete visibility and swift progress on priority tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Improves employee satisfaction<\/b> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Automating critical but routine business tasks enables employees to focus more on high-value tasks, improving their productivity and satisfaction… Additionally, automating administrative processes (leave management, travel reimbursement, hiring, and onboarding, etc) helps SMBs provide a positive experience to both existing and new employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enables delivery of seamless customer experiences:<\/b> Automation could be an extremely useful tool when organisations are looking to offer personalised interactions at every customer touchpoint: Here\u2019s how:<\/p>\n\n\n\n