Making Sense of Digital Transformation: How Automation Can Drive Small Business Growth

Apr 20

What role does automation play in the digital transformation of small businesses?

White this topic is fairly trendy right now, it’s still worth taking a second to review the basics.

Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to fundamentally change how a business operates and delivers value to customers. Automation is a crucial part of digital transformation because it enables businesses to automate manual and repetitive tasks using digital technologies such as software or even robotics.

Even more specifically, digital transformation for small businesses may look like something as simple as moving some manual processes to automated ones using technology to get things done. But it also could look quite different than that. Digital transformation in a small business could also be about establishing a stronger online presence with a better website or more automated marketing, adopting a cloud-based software solution for sales, marketing or operations. It also could look like automating repetitive tasks, implementing digital payment options, opening an online customer service ticketing system, or using analytics to make more informed decisions.

How digital transformations looks will vary from business to business, yet they all share one thing in common. By automating these and other tasks, businesses reduce the time and effort required to complete them, resulting in increased efficiency and productivity. Automation can also help businesses to provide better and faster service to customers by reducing the time it takes to complete a task, such as processing a customer order. And in case you’re wondering, automation doesn’t necessarily replace people either. It doe, however, free up their time to do higher-value and more strategic work.

Equally speaking, automation can help businesses to make better use of data and analytics by automating data collection and analysis processes. This can help business leaders to make more informed decisions based on data insights.

Overall, automation is a key part of digital transformation because it allows businesses to leverage digital technologies to automate processes, reduce costs, improve efficiency, and provide better service to customers.

The Synergy Between Business Process Mapping and Automation

Business process mapping and automation work together to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of business operations.

It involves identifying and documenting the steps in a business process, including inputs, outputs, tasks, and responsibilities. This helps to provide a clear understanding of how the process works, where inefficiencies may be present, and where improvements can be made.

Business process mapping is fully independent of the technology used to execute the process. In other words, business process mapping focuses on documenting and analyzing the current business processes and workflows, irrespective of the technology used to execute those processes.

The purpose of business process mapping is to identify inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and areas for improvement in a business process, which can then inform the selection and implementation of appropriate automation technology.

Automation involves using technology to perform tasks that were previously done manually, such as data entry, calculations, or communications. By automating these tasks, businesses can reduce the time and resources required to complete them, increase accuracy, and improve productivity.

When business process mapping and automation are combined, the result is a more streamlined and optimized process that can help businesses achieve their goals more efficiently. Business process mapping helps identify areas where automation can be most effective, allowing businesses to focus their efforts on tasks that provide the greatest value.

Additionally, automation can help ensure that business processes are consistently performed in the same way, reducing errors and increasing efficiency. By mapping business processes and automating tasks within those processes, businesses can reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction as well.

Exploring the Necessity of Business Process Mapping in Automation: Is it Worth the Investment?

Here are some of the pros and cons of investing the time to develop clear and thorough business process maps defined before you dive head first into automation.

The Pros

You’ll be better equipped to identify inefficiencies. Business process mapping helps businesses to identify inefficiencies and redundancies in their processes. By mapping out the steps involved in a particular process, businesses can identify any unnecessary steps or bottlenecks that can be eliminated, thus streamlining the process and saving time and money.
You’ll be better prepared to enhance productivity. By mapping out processes, businesses can identify areas where automation can be introduced. Automation doesn’t necessarily mean removing people entirely from the process. Instead, automation can be used to augment and support human workers in their tasks, making them more efficient and effective. Automation can significantly reduce the time and effort required to complete tasks, resulting in increased productivity and efficiency. This can help businesses to accomplish more in less time and improve their overall bottom line.
You’ll have fewer errors. Business process mapping helps to identify potential errors in a process. By identifying these errors, businesses can implement procedures to prevent them from occurring, resulting in improved quality control and customer satisfaction.

The Cons:

Truthfully, right upfront it can be time-consuming. Business process mapping can be a time-consuming process. It requires businesses to analyze and document every step of their processes, which can take a significant amount of time and resources and often requires the support of an external expert to facilitate the process.
You’ll likely encounter some internal resistance to change. Implementing changes to business processes can be met with resistance from employees who are comfortable with the current way of doing things. This can result in pushback and delays in implementing process changes.
There is an initial financial investment. Automation tools and software can require a significant initial investment. For some businesses, this investment may be difficult to justify, particularly if they have limited resources.

Overall, the benefits of business process mapping and automation outweigh the potential drawbacks.

While the initial investment required to make such a change in a small business should be considered, the long-term benefits of automation are likely a worthwhile investment for businesses looking to stay competitive.

Consider as well that the short-term investment required to introduce automation enables a business to protect their bottom line during a recession. Automation can ultimately help businesses become more resilient and better equipped to navigate challenging economic conditions.

Skipping Business Process Mapping in Automation: Risks and Consequences

If an automation project doesn't include thoughtfully led business process mapping, it can result in several risks, including:

Oops, you just automated your inefficiencies! Without business process mapping, automation can potentially automate inefficient or redundant processes. This can lead to wasting resources, time, and effort to automate something that doesn't add much value to the business, resulting in little or no return on investment.
You’ll likely have to make time to fix increased errors and rework. Without a clear understanding of the business processes, automation can potentially introduce new errors into the process. This can result in additional rework and increased costs to fix the errors.
You might accidentally automate unnecessary tasks. Without sufficient experience or thoughtfulness given to discern which tasks are best automated or not, businesses may also end up automating tasks that are unnecessary. This can result in wasted resources and a lack of focus on more critical tasks.
Here it is again. Prepare yourself for resistance from employees. Without involving employees in the process, automation can lead to resistance from employees who may feel that their jobs are at risk. This can lead to pushback and delays in the adoption of the new automation process.
By skipping the ground work, it becomes challenging to scale effectively. Without business process mapping, automation projects may not be scalable. This can result in difficulties in expanding the automation project to other areas of the business, which can limit the potential benefits of automation.
Last but not least, it will be more difficult to measure success. Without clear business process mapping, it can be difficult to measure the success of the automation project. This can result in difficulty in justifying the investment in the automation project to stakeholders and the management team.

Skipping business process mapping as part of an automation effort can exacerbate existing inefficiencies and increase risks in your business. Rather than skipping this critical step, it's important to recognize the benefits of mapping out your processes and identifying areas for improvement through automation.

By taking the time to do so, businesses can improve their overall efficiency, reduce errors, and protect their bottom line. Ultimately, the cost of skipping this step is simply too high to justify, and investing in process mapping and automation can help businesses achieve greater success and growth.

Lessons Learned: The Consequences of Automating Without Business Process Mapping

One company that suffered the consequences of not mapping their business processes before automation is a mid-sized financial institution that provides banking and financial services to small and medium-sized businesses. The company decided to implement a new system to streamline their loan processing, so they selected an off-the-shelf solution that promised to automate the entire process. The company decided not to take the time to map its existing processes, assuming the new system would adapt to their existing workflows.

The result was a mess. The new system wasn’t able to adapt to fit the company's existing processes. As a result, the employees still had to manually enter data into the system, causing a significant delay in loan processing. The bank also struggled with inconsistent data and errors, which further slowed down the process. The company eventually had to hire a consultant to map their business processes and make the necessary adjustments to the new system. If the company had taken the time to map their processes before implementation, they could have avoided these costly mistakes and streamlined their loan processing much sooner.

Is it possible to automate parts of your business that haven’t gone through process mapping?

While it is possible to implement an automation transformation in a business without conducting business process mapping, it can be challenging to achieve success within budget and on time.

Without business process mapping, there is a higher risk of automating inefficient or redundant processes that may not add value to the business. That means wasted resources, time, and effort. Automating an unclear and poorly defined process will result in costly errors and delays.

Business process mapping helps identify gaps, inefficiencies, and opportunities for improvement before implementing automation. It also helps to understand the impact of automation on the overall business process, identifying possible areas of resistance and the need for further training.

Not conducting business process mapping can lead to a missed opportunity to develop a deep understanding of the business process. Without it, the automation project may take longer than expected and go over the budget. This is because the team may spend time correcting errors or redesigning processes that were not identified before the automation project began.

While it is possible to implement an automation transformation without conducting business process mapping, it is just not a good practice. Conducting business process mapping helps to identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement, reducing the risk of automating an unclear and inefficient process, and ultimately leading to a more successful automation transformation.

Wrapping Up!

Hopefully, as you’ve made it this far, you’d agree with me that business process mapping and automation are vital for small businesses seeking to thrive in today's digital landscape. Driven by the the urgency to make progress towards automation, skipping business process mapping can lead to several risks, including inefficiencies, scalability issues, and difficulty measuring success that put the entire automation project at risk of going over time, over budget, and creating new challenges in implementing the changes with your team.

Thanks for reading! If you're interested in exploring how business process mapping and automation can benefit your business, you may find these resources of value:

If you’re looking for advice or tips customized to your specific business and journey or want to know how you can get started with business process automation in your small business, I’d love to discuss this further with you.

Grab a spot on my calendar here to schedule a call and let's discuss how we can take your business to the next level.

Jamie Jenkins https://www.jamie-jenkins.com