Successful Steps to Digitally Transform your Business

Successful Steps to Digitally Transform your Business

The volume of paper documents received and used in business processes is extremely high, and can lead to loss of data, inefficient time management, and increased costs. As your business, employee size, and documents grow you need to have a plan to manage scalability for the future.

Digitally transforming your business has been a hot topic lately, but what does it really mean? Essentially, it refers to optimizing your business processes through advanced, paperless technologies—this may include image capture of documents from multiple sources and formats (e.g. paper, fax, email attachments, etc.) and streamlining business processes through improved data management, access and automation.

In order to take on such a transformation, the first step includes creating a plan to discover your processing pain points and needs, where the heavy lifting is, and areas for growth in order to find a solution as well as measure its success after implementation.

Here are some steps to think about when creating your plan.
1. Ask yourself and your team some general questions:
How many documents do we typically deal with monthly?
How is the data currently stored?
Typically, how long does it take to process one document?
How many errors are made per month?
What works in your current processing and what does not?
How long does it typically take to process one document?
Map/draw out your workflow
2. Map or Draw out your Current and Ideal Workflow Where does a document/the data come from, and what steps occur subsequently?
3. Determine the amount of users needed in the process, and their roles/capbailities 4. Determine unique aspects of your process(es) What components of a solution do you need?
5. Track the before and after change to see your results in efficiency and ROI

It’s easy to say that digital is better and automation easily relieves pain points for any business process, however the proper effort must be put forth prior to choosing the best solution. Understanding workflows and how automation can improve processes is key.

It is important to involve the whole team in planning out the current pain points of your processing in order to ensure each perspective is considered. This will help identify past bottlenecks, allowing your team to recognize and apply new, more efficient ways of doing things. Make sure the whole team understands what their new roles will be within the new processing solution, so that each team member can contribute exactly what is expected avoiding confusion, loss of time and errors.
Following this prescription before implementing a solution will pave the way for a smoother transition, sustained success and an ROI that achieves real business transformation.