Coleman Technologies Blog

The Pros
There is more than one application and way to use automation. While the uses are more general than specific, they can be applied to several different kinds of goals or processes, whether it’s customer service or data processing. In this sense, automation can be used in a pretty universal way.

Efficiency
It’s obvious that certain processes take a considerable amount of time to complete, but if they are handled by automated systems, they can be completed much more efficiently than before. In other words, since you don’t have to focus on these tasks, you can instead devote the time to something else entirely. This effectively adds more time to the workday by removing routine tasks that can be handled by an automatic process.

Minimizing Repetition
If someone has to do the same task over and over again, they are doomed to lose interest and make mistakes. If these tasks don’t require focus, then the employees will likely let their mind wander, and productivity can suffer. This makes even a quick task more likely to be repeated multiple times, making it less likely to yield a return on the investment. Automation makes it more convenient and less risky to leave monotonous tasks to employees. Trust us when we say employees will thank you for taking these tasks off their plate and freeing up their schedule for others.

Convenience
When someone reaches out to your business, it’s likely they need your help with something, and they need it fast. If you can’t provide it on a convenient time frame, chances are they will take their needs elsewhere. Automation gives them the ability to get help from a chatbot or other similar automated system without the need to staff someone at all times to address immediate needs. This gives you a better chance at being able to respond to their needs when they reach out to your organization.

Potential Cons
Automation might be quite helpful for businesses, but there are some issues that should be addressed in order to ensure it doesn’t become a liability for your business. For example, some processes are simply too complex for a machine to handle in the same way a human brain can. Most automated systems are limited by design, thus ensuring that they will be limited to the task assigned to them. After all, an automated system’s purpose isn’t being fulfilled if you have to provide constant feedback to it. Here are some ways you can make sure the faults of automation sting less:

• Use automation sparingly: Some of the services that could be automated likely don’t need to be. This is particularly true for more complex issues. Consider that many of the people who contact your business have a point of contact within your organization and regular requests, meaning that working with a human might not be such a bad thing if they are available at that time. In this way, automation supplements human contact rather than replaces it.
• Have employees direct the automation: If an automation system can’t perform a task on its own, having employees direct it during more complex tasks can work to mitigate the issue. A complicated request can be made, but still processed and understood with the right direction.
• Ingrate your automation: You don’t want to stop processes midway. As long as your automation is well-designed and thought-out, tasks can be integrated with automation to ensure they are handled in the most complete way possible.

What are some ways your organization can benefit from automation? Let us know in the comments.

Business Automation

As businesses have strict cost considerations to take into account, it is likely that automation will grow in popularity. While perhaps more expensive to initially implement, automated solutions can easily provide a return on investment by clearing schedules of the annoying (if necessary) repetitive tasks that otherwise eat up your human employees’ time. This combination of machine learning and artificial intelligence is known as Robotic Process Automation and enables businesses to greatly reduce how often human employees need to interfere in these tasks.

Some professionals have been hesitant to invest in AI-driven solutions, primarily due to incomplete algorithms and the negative opinion towards “replacing human jobs with robots.” However, artificial intelligence has seen some success in reducing HR costs through its inclusion in some software, and so RPA is experiencing considerable growth.

Furthermore, many of the solutions available today can be used in more simple applications, including the improvement of communications, reducing process inefficiency, and eliminating redundancy.

The Internet of Things

“Smart” devices are quickly becoming the new norm, even in the business environment. Many establishments are directing their budgets toward devices meant to improve security, evaluate utility usage, manage supply chains, and other operations.

The prevailing motivation behind implementing and integrating these devices is simple: better cost control. If a business has the tools to track and manage their costs, the entirety of the business can be better optimized. When fewer resources are expended on a business’ crucial interactions and processes, the business inherently becomes more sustainable.

Various Cloud Services

While it may seem like there has been ample time to take advantage of every aspect of the cloud’s capabilities, new services and utilities are still emerging. Sure, most businesses have adopted the cloud to support their email and file sharing needs, but this is the relative tip of the iceberg as far as the cloud’s potential is concerned. Businesses can now consider options like Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Security as a Service (SECaaS), and even AI as a Service (AIaaS), confident in the reliability of these increasingly popular utilities and others.

Cloud vendors are also creating new services to see to a business’ needs. The largest cloud vendors can effectively fill any requirement a business has through increasingly specific services. As a result, SMBs definitely have options to help resolve their operational hurdles.

Cybersecurity Awareness

At this point, there is plenty of precedent to establish -- without any doubt -- that businesses of every size, industry, and resource level need to have a cybersecurity strategy in place. While many may argue that enterprise-grade security solutions are above their means, the aforementioned precedent makes this argument untenable. 66 percent of all SMBs were targeted by some kind of cyberattack in 2019, and 2020 is already projected to be just as bad, if not worse.

Fortunately, there are ways that a business can improve their cybersecurity preparedness, such as:

• Staff training - It is a simple concept: the more able your employees are to spot and properly handle a potential cyberattack (like phishing), the less likely your organization is to be victimized. Security has improved greatly, thanks to methods like encryption, rendering your employees your most vulnerable point. Properly training your staff to identify and report suspected threats, the safer your network will be.
• Threat intelligence - If you know how you are most likely to be attacked, based on the vulnerabilities that cybercriminals usually target, you will be better prepared to handle these attacks. Think of this as the practical application of “knowledge is power.”
• Multi-layering - With all the potential security issues that businesses face today, businesses of all sizes need to have a strategy in place to reduce all risks that face them. Therefore, all businesses and especially small businesses, need to have redundant file backup, DNS protection strategies, and AI/machine learning-enabled security features in place.

Improved Mobility

For the past decade, businesses have struggled with mobilizing their workforce. As a result, with today’s emphasis on remote work and other mobility-related concerns, solutions that enable a mobile workforce while eliminating risk have increased in importance. Now, increased connectivity, improved data security, and data protection policies like Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) allow your operations to be completed from inside and outside of your workplace, with resources safely delivered to your employees as they need them.

Coleman Technologies can help businesses around British Columbia adopt these approaches, or improve their use of them, to assist their operations and boost profitable productivity. To learn more, give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

Automation Isn’t the First Threat

Human resources cover a lot of ground in any business. In fact, many smaller businesses extend the human resources role past the seven core functions of HR. These are:

1. Recruitment
2. Payroll Administration
3. Benefits Administration
4. Training and Professional Development
5. Performance Reviews
6. Labor Relations
7. Managing Compliance

Over the past several years, the company human resources department, especially at small and medium-sized businesses, has been encroached upon by outsourcing. Like many other outsourced platforms Human-Resources-as-a-Service (HRaaS) services use technology to fill in the gaps left by not having dedicated HR professionals on staff. For the business, it reduces the cost, while fulfilling virtually the same roles through remote help desk and software. 

The Relationship Between Automation and HR

Technology changes things. Does it make it better? That’s a matter of opinion, but for the business owner, not having the human resources department means that they are on the hook to complete the tasks that the human resources department undertakes; and, there is a mountain of it.

That is, unless they can automate them.

The benefits of automation are the same no matter where it is put to use. It opens the way for staff to focus on being more productive, by leaving behind a lot of menial (yet time-consuming) tasks. Aside from enhancing efficiency and productivity, there are many key benefits to automating HR. They include:

• Reduced employee turnover through improved employee engagement
• Reduced storage and printing costs
• Improved risk management and properly managed compliance
• Improved document management
• Enhanced business decision making with comprehensive reports
• Optimized business growth through efficient onboarding

Today, there are plenty of software-based solutions that can keep any business running effectively, but when you get a look at them, these solutions aren’t really human resources platforms, they are human capital managers. 

What is Human Capital Management?

Human capital management is a platform that encourages businesses to treat their workforce as they would any other asset. Its goal is to get the human resources of the business to work as effectively and efficiently as possible. While human resources do more to deal with the individual needs and motivations of workers, human capital management seeks to look for metrics that can be quantifiable and strategically improved upon. It basically aims to change an organization’s view of their workforce from a commodity to an investment. 

What Strategy Is Best for Your Business?

There are multiple ways that automation can be implemented in the HR/HCM process, but depending on what strategy is used, you could be setting your company up for problems from your actual human resources. Most workers don’t like being treated like numbers on a spreadsheet after all. On the other hand, divorcing business decision-making away from typical workforce considerations that aim to sap overall productivity will benefit your organization’s bottom line. 

HR is always a balancing act. 

If you would like to know how automation could help you keep your organization balanced and productive, reach out to the IT professionals at Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428.

1.  Use the Best Tool for the Job

Your contacts should never find it difficult to reach you, so you need to make sure you’re providing them with plenty of options for them to make contact. Don’t pick between a phone number or an email address, give them both, along with a live chat feature, conferencing options, and other forms of communication. Making use of things like a blog and social media give you a great way to reach out to them first, starting the conversation.

With all of the options you can now give to your clients, they will feel much more confident about getting an answer to their questions and having their concerns addressed. They’re also apt to pay more attention to you as well.

2.  Automate as You Communicate

Of course, in doing so, you may make it more challenging for you and your team members to keep the conversation going with your clients while also accomplishing what needs to be done each day. After all, if your whole day is spent answering questions on the phone, it’s going to be a little difficult to do anything else. Fortunately, there are solutions that you can use to better manage all these communications. Automated phone systems can keep your whole team from being interrupted as a client plays phone tag, while following up with emails and other communications can help minimize the questions that clients ultimately reach out with and simplify their experience.

3.  Coordinate Your Team

For your business to provide a good experience for your customers and clients, your team all needs to work together as they deal with them to avoid repeating or contradicting messages. Improving your internal communications will only make your external communications stronger. Tools also exist to facilitate this, including instant messaging and customer relationship management (CRM) software.

For assistance in implementing this technology (and others), reach out to our team here at Coleman Technologies. We can discuss the tools that will suit your needs the most, as well as figure out how we can optimize them to your needs. To learn more, give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

It’s no secret that automation is one of the major trends that most businesses have tried to incorporate into their business plans, most with some middling success. The problem becomes that many businesses don’t really have a strategy for building out automated tools for their business, so they may not be able to take advantage of the benefits automation can bring. 

What Do Businesses Automate?

Most businesses operate in a fashion where they assign people to do tasks and expect that they accomplish them for the betterment of the company. For businesses that embrace automation, however, many tasks that would have to be scheduled and carried out by humans, can now be done in a fraction of the time by a computer. The more a business can automate those tasks, the more they can spend their time and money on focusing their workforce on revenue generating tasks and providing clients with better experiences. 

These days, there are more options to automate business processes than ever before. Let’s go through the functions your business can address through automation:

Marketing

Today’s business has to have a plan to get their brand out in front of prospective customers. Here are three ways you can automate some of your marketing tasks:

• Social media posts - Social media has become a major benefit for businesses looking to enhance their reach. There are several platforms available that allow you to automate your posting to social media. One of the best ways is to have a plan on your message and use a content management platform to push out social media posts (to several social media platforms) over time. This way you can plan your message and then let the software handle the release of these messages. 
• Website traffic analysis - If you use Google Analytics, it’s relatively easy to set up reports with specific metrics that are delivered to people that need to know weekly. This tool keeps people from wasting time trying to pore over all the data. 
• E-commerce or event registration - One of the best automated tools a business can use is the tool that sends registered users materials they find useful. If you sell products or have events, customers and attendees can get all the information they need to consider new offerings and get event information without having to take the time to send individual messages to every recipient. 

Finance

Obviously, the financial aspect of any business is crucial to its health. Here are two ways you can set up automations to help with your organization’s finances:

• Payroll - Payroll is one of the costliest and more crucial parts of your business. There are automated tools that take payroll off your HR department’s plate and ensure that everyone that needs to get paid does. 
• Accounts Receivable - Your hope when you run a business is that everyone pays when they are supposed to, this doesn’t always happen, unfortunately. Today, there are tools that handle invoicing automatically to ensure that clients know where they stand, what they owe, and get messages in regular intervals to make it easier to collect revenue. 

Administration

Finally, automation makes it simpler and more efficient to run a business by doing the things that need to be done regularly to effectively run a business. These include:

• Data backup - We often talk about how important it is to have backups of your data available to restore from should something go wrong. Today, tools, like our BDR service, allow for automated backups at predefined intervals to protect your business from data loss. 
• Cut down on email fatigue - Chances are if you are using email as a communication tool for your business, that your staff thinks they get too many emails. Maybe they do. Today’s enterprise email solutions often separate emails into folders that can help people get the information they need without the massive time sink that is involved managing their emails.
• Task management - There are platforms today that help keep everything organized and moving efficiently by sorting tasks by priority and time. This makes scheduling much, much easier. 

Automation is helping small businesses grow. If you would like to talk about how to get the automated tools you should be using to make your business more effective, give the IT professionals at Coleman Technologies a call today at (604) 513-9428.

Efficiency is extremely important for any business to maintain consistent revenue generation. Technology is a big part of that. Today, we’ll discuss two ways that technology can help build a more efficient business. 

Outdated Software and Hardware

Many small businesses rely on old or outdated technology, either due to budget constraints or a lack of awareness of more efficient alternatives. These legacy systems may seem functional but often lead to slow performance, frequent crashes, and an inability to keep up with modern software or customer expectations.

Older hardware is prone to breaking down or running slower, which can frustrate employees and significantly reduce productivity, and can complicate things if it were to break down. Outdated software is another major problem. Older software sometimes can’t be updated or patched meaning these systems have to operate offline or become a major source of expense trying to secure them. Antiquated systems also don’t integrate well with newer tools, making it difficult to build efficient processes because people have to work around your technology instead of with it. 

In order to keep this technology-based inefficiency from affecting your organization, you will need to keep all of your systems updated with patches and updates. This reduces the chances that vulnerabilities from unpatched software will be exploited. You will also need to make a decision about old or poorly-functioning hardware. The more proactive you are about making sure your technology doesn’t fail, the less likely you will have to deal with large swaths of downtime. 

One other solution is to look into cloud-based tools where you can. The cloud now has reliable and secure solutions available for any business and can bring a load of benefits. You gain financial flexibility since you only have to pay for the technology your business needs, you also can scale pretty quickly to meet increased or decreased demands your business has. Options in the cloud also have the benefit to be available from anywhere with an Internet connection, significantly reducing any access-related downtime you would be subject to.

A Lack of Automation

Employee-driven processes remain a significant burden for many small businesses. Some are simple, but some are more complex and can be costly and inefficient if you rely solely on humans to do them. Automating some tasks of your business can be a real game changer. There are things like invoicing, payroll, inventory tracking, and more that can be automated, removing the increased chance of human error.

Some business owners stick to the “that’s how we’ve always done it” method that has worked in the past. The problem is that the world has changed and doing things that take more time can really put a business behind. Think about simple data entry: what a human can do in a normal 8 hour shift, software with AI can do in seconds. All that saved time saves money. What’s more, human operators make more mistakes with any data entry than do automation platforms. Finally, the slower your business is to make connections, the more revenue you miss out on. Automation can give you answers about your business in real time that can make a huge difference on the bottom line. 

To combat this lack of automation, we suggest first finding a robust Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution. Many options will also integrate with accounting and invoicing tools, payroll tools, and more. CRMs can help even the smallest business get the added automation and data analytics to improve efficiency across the board. Implementing a  comprehensive project management solution is also a good plan as it gives your team a robust system in which to run projects through. By focusing on automation when you are considering your next technology investment, you can significantly build better organizational efficiency.

At Coleman Technologies, our team of IT professionals specialize on helping businesses build the type of operational efficiency that is both functional and sustainable. If you would like to have a conversation about it, give us a call today at (604) 513-9428.