How to successfully introduce automation into your business

How to automate a small business

Many European businesses have embraced automation over the last 18 months despite having little interest in it before the pandemic. And it’s clear to see why when considering the benefits automation offers to companies looking to accommodate different types of work setups, such as remote and hybrid working which have become the norm for many small businesses.

If you’re thinking about introducing automation into your workplace, read on for five simple steps for small businesses to follow including guidance from the world of farming and agriculture – and discover why these industries lead the way when it comes to transforming a business into intelligent operations:

1. Identify repetitive tasks in your workflow: To find opportunities for automation, start by looking for routine manual processes that take up a considerable amount of time and resources. The more frequent the task, the more you gain by automating it. In agriculture, farmers usually have to deal with repetitive tasks in the field, and this work is primarily labour-intensive. Agricultural robots (“agrobots”) or automated tractors, cope with a wide range of repetitive tasks: harvesting, watering, seeding, etc. and they are increasingly becoming the norm. Robs4Crops is one example of projects that are accelerating the shift towards large-scale robotics and automation in farms across Europe.

With two-thirds of global office workers claiming to waste four and a half hours a week on repetitive and time consuming tasks, automated project management systems like Asana are becoming more popular. Not only do they help teams organise, track and manage their work, they also reduce hours spent on mundane admin, freeing up valuable time for more important work such as creative thinking, strategy and financial planning to help grow the business. Whether your business would benefit from streamlining the hiring process, customer service, marketing campaigns or tracking team hours, the options of online systems to choose from are plentiful. As technology improves, we can expect to see more and more tasks, particularly administrative ones, becoming available for automation.

2. Understand it before you automate it: Prior to automating any task, take a minute to check you fully understand every part of the process you’re looking to overhaul. This way you can easily break down the work into smaller steps that are simple to programme and iterate. We’ve seen this in farm automation where the human element is still key for managing a farm – crucial both upfront for getting the intelligent processes in place – and ongoing to fully utilise technical equipment. Human knowledge and experience needs to be combined with automation, not excluded by it. In the workplace setting, synergy between human input and automation is equally important. Commonplace machine-assistance examples such as spell-checker are becoming increasingly sophisticated with apps like Grammarly that not only identify spelling and grammatical errors but pick up on more stylistic problems.

Get tools to speed up the process: There is a wealth of online tools that enable you to program anything from data entry to social media posting. Hootsuite for example allows you to schedule your social posts and you can even code tools to work specifically for your business. While this will cost you more, the investment can quickly pay for itself. Smart farming is embracing an array of automated tech from autonomous tractors and drones to robotic harvesters and seeding robots. Robots for planting are focused on the field’s specific area, and they work with great precision. This type of farming robot uses artificial intelligence and computer vision, which allows for a reduction of pesticides in the field and, subsequently, the production of high-quality food. The biggest names in technology are playing a huge part in influencing how the land is farmed including Google whose X-Development project has unveiled a ‘plant buggy’ that uses AI to analyse crops so farmers can improve their yield and save money.

Integrate software with larger capabilities: If you haven’t already, it pays to get your business on a cloud computing service like Google Cloud. These platforms offer many advantages like built-in tools for automation, regular updates and the ability to grow with your company as you scale up. Farmers can rely on IoT solutions to provide software instruments that stand behind and support their farm, no matter how complex it is. Every drone or automated tractor needs a brain to make the right decision about the plants in the field.

Use any time gained for growing your business: Introducing automation processes for time consuming elements such as employee onboarding, timesheet management, and purchase orders, frees up time to focus on ways to help your business thrive in your market. A global study from automation software company UiPath revealed that 60% of executives believed automation enabled employees to focus on more strategic work, with 57% saying it increased employee engagement – important factors for achieving business objectives. For many farmers, embracing smart farming has meant less time out in the fields and more time to manage and grow their business. Making time for networking, marketing, analysing accounts and profits and business planning is crucial for success for any business leader, including farmers.

For businesses that don’t know where to start when it comes to introducing automation into the workplace, getting going is key – small steps can go a long way in the journey of streamlining your business into an intelligent operation. But this transition doesn’t have to mean that employees no longer have a key part to play in the growth and output of the business. Just as we’ve seen in the farming world, automation is about both enhancing the human element of a business and freeing up valuable time to concentrate on more rewarding tasks. Humans and automation should work side by side for the best chance of success.

Looking for more information on how to integrate automation into your business? Speak to one of our V-Hub Digital Business Advisors by phone.