It is absolutely true that many of your business processes are indispensable, but some processes also expose your organisation to a number of potential problems that you may not be aware of. Especially when documents are involved in the process.

Automated processes versus manual processes

A company's service or product is made up of several, if not countless, processes. Some of those processes are performed by people and between people. Processes performed by a person are also called manual processes.

Any manual process performed by any of the employees leaves open the possibility of bottlenecks in productivity. These processes are handled, but does this happen as quickly as possible? A manual process is also a source of miscommunication, it gives malicious employees more opportunities or simply leads to mistakes that happen by accident.

Either way, manual processes do not provide the grip that you as an organisation would prefer. But the good news is that workflow automation offers the solution. 

What is workflow automation?

At its core, workflow automation is about both the digitisation and automation of business processes, all in an effort to minimise the amount of manual work done by your employees.

There are a large number of different types of workflows that are great for automation. Some examples of workflows you can automate:

• Archiving or making changes to documents with a consistent structure
• Review and approve changes made to documents
• Notifying people (such as team leaders) when an employee has made a change to a document
• Processing accounts payable or similar administrative processes
• Managing records retention and document storage.
• Running process management reports.
• Read more about document workflows

For example, with an intelligent information platform like M-Files, you can ensure that documents are always routed to the right person when they are created or when certain status changes have been made. For example, if you have one document that needs to be approved by 10 team leaders before it can go to a customer, the employee who created that document should not have to waste time chasing those reviews. With automated workflows, each of those team leaders can be immediately notified that there is a document that needs to be approved. And once they have done so, the document is progressively moved through the process.

M-Files allows you to monitor, report and even analyse your current business processes to continuously benefit from improvement opportunities. Consider, for example, reporting dashboards that allow process managers to track every step of a given business workflow in detail. This puts them in a better position to eliminate performance bottlenecks that cost time and money, thus improving processes in a meaningful way.

The platform allows users to see a complete history of all steps in the business process. Something that is seemingly impossible when there are exclusively manual processes.

Workflow automation also makes it easier for employees to communicate with each other and collaborate better. M-Files includes built-in communication tools that make sharing documents and other important project-related data easier than ever. 

Workflow automation is an opportunity to optimise processes across all departments in a way that eliminates human error, removes performance bottlenecks and improves the quality of work. It increases the speed at which your organisation can move, as it frees up employees' valuable time so they can focus on those things that cannot be done without their attention.

In doing so, it is a means of improving both internal and external transparency, which is perhaps the most important benefit of all for many companies.

Automating processes and workflows yourself? Download M-Files for free and try it out!