Business automation has experienced a pandemic-fuelled growth surge in the last 12 months, in both its relevance as a topic for discussion, and the number of businesses investing in automation. If you search hard enough, you’ll find evidence for every possible prediction of what the impact of automation on jobs will be, from revolutionary to subtle.

But as to whether it’s catching on in the modern business landscape? The results are in on that.

What is business automation?

While setting up your email auto-responder before you head out for a weekend on the ski slopes is technically business automation, the term is most commonly used to refer to  business process automation (BPA). 

BPA means leveraging the increasingly-skynet-like abilities of modern tech to complete repetitive, systemic tasks in the workplace, like invoicing, data-entry, collections, service provisioning and lead nurturing. It’s highly likely that you perform some tasks every day that could be automated away, as this is true for 94% of workers in SMBs.

Trending…

Big things are happening in the business automation space of the 2020s, and not just bots hyping NYSE:GME.

• Supermarket chains around the world, like Woolworths are in Western Sydney, are building fully automated warehouses to compete with Amazon and respond to the explosion in demand for e-commerce.
  
• Good news for Mailchimp and Hubspot, the marketing automation industry is set to grow by $25B in 2023, and trends in other SaaS businesses will no doubt follow.
  
• App-agnostic automation kings Zapier reported that 66% of small businesses now say automation is now essential for running their business.
  
• Emersion Systems, the business automation platform for MSPs, telcos and utilities, is offering up to $2,000 off signup costs before June 30th as part of its EOFY sale! Learn more here.

Key tasks to automate

While there are certain activities that computers cannot yet execute at the same standard as human beings (or not as cost-efficiently) like analysing complex images, engaging in natural verbal communication and reading body language, there are many activities that can be automated by Emersion.

Billing automation

For businesses sending out complex invoices to their customers every month based on service usage, like in the SaaS or Telco spaces, the entire billing process can be automated.

The automation platform receives the usage data throughout the billing period, populates invoices with every product and service sold and then automatically sends them out at the end of the billing period, saving many hours of manual work and communication. Customisable invoice templates, automated collections notifications, and service provisioning, can further enhance these processes.

Customer engagement

Many customer interactions can be completely automated, without needing to sacrifice any of the personal connection and customer experience. One of the easiest ways to do this is with online customer portals.

Emersion features three different types of customer portals:

• End-User Portals – Where customers can view their latest invoices, make payments, update their account details and even report on usage (if enabled).
• Sign up portals – Enable zero-touch signup for products and services, such as NBN services sold through Vocus and AAPT.
• Activation portals – Used where a multi-step activation process is required (e.g. Mobile phone plans).

These portals work in tandem with Emersion’s other features, such as Service Desk Ticketing and automated notifications and helps to keep the entire customer experience within a controlled, consistent, automated ecosystem.

Why should I care about all this?

Business automation is more than just a buzzword, it has the power to create huge positive change in businesses, industries and economies worldwide. Here’s some quick facts to pique your interest in automation:

• Business automation can save mind-bending amounts of money, around 45% of all current paid activities, which is equivalent to USD $2T (trillion!) in annual wages.
  
• This pays off for businesses in a big way. Automation generates an estimated 30%-200% ROI in the first year alone, depending on the extent to which you allow the robots to take over the office.
  
• 65% of ‘knowledge workers’ (if you find yourself thinking a lot during weekdays, this is you) report that automation reduces their work-related stress.
  
• Automation allows 88% of SMBS to take on the bigger companies, who might have more brand power, but could be lagging behind in the quality of their business processes.
  
• Your business can step on the path to an automated business today by taking advantage of our EOFY sale at Emersion, and get $2,000 off signup fees!

More and more telcos, MSPs, utilities and IT businesses are leveraging enterprise-scale business automation platforms like Emersion to make their operations more profitable, reduce their overhead costs, and free up extremely valuable staff time and energy.

It’s time you levelled the playing field and joined them. To find out more about Emersion, click here.