Business leaders are currently facing intense pressure to deliver results amidst various market challenges. Automation offers an immediate solution to enhance efficiency and productivity across all departments. This technology is no longer merely advantageous; it is essential, as automation tools significantly improve both business operations and employee performance. Furthermore, automation can help combat burnout and foster a better work-life balance, which are crucial strategies for retaining talent in a dynamic labor market.

The C-suite is experiencing increased pressure to achieve strong outcomes. Persistent inflation, supply chain disruptions, market volatility, and recessionary concerns are compelling business leaders to reduce costs and boost efficiency. Simultaneously, the need to provide superior customer and employee experiences remains paramount. Consequently, every company and organization must now strive to maximize the potential of their available tools and resources.

Investing in business process automation is one of the most rapid ways to enhance efficiency and productivity across every department, including sales, service, marketing, commerce, IT, human resources, and finance. Automation reduces the need for humans to perform repetitive and monotonous tasks by delegating them to software. This typically results in improved customer experiences, lower error rates, enhanced compliance, and reduced stress for teams.

Prioritizing automation allows business leaders to concentrate on increasing efficiency, improving results, and delivering greater value.

The Benefits of Automation

Automation has evolved from a desirable feature to a fundamental necessity. Adopting automation is particularly beneficial during challenging economic periods.

Leveraging real-time data, automation technology can now trigger immediate actions based on instantaneous changes in customer behavior or market conditions. When combined with artificial intelligence (AI), companies can deploy more advanced systems that not only perform repetitive tasks but also utilize AI to learn, adapt, and make decisions informed by real-time data. Together, real-time data, automation, and AI empower organizations to deliver highly personalized customer experiences at scale, while simultaneously driving higher levels of productivity and efficiency.

Today, many employees and leaders perceive automation as a complementary tool. More than 90% of recently surveyed workers reported that automation solutions increased their productivity, and 85% stated these tools enhanced collaboration across their teams. Nearly 90% also expressed trust in automation solutions to achieve more tasks accurately and facilitate quicker decision-making.

Beyond the business advantages, the human benefits of automation are often underestimated. This technology handles tedious tasks that few people enjoy, such as completing multiple forms to replace a lost credit card, thereby helping to alleviate employees’ workloads.

Vonage, a global leader in cloud communications, aimed to unify and automate how its workforce and systems collaborate to accelerate growth. Vonage implemented automation technologies to consolidate customer data, making it simpler and faster for sales teams to comprehend the needs of both current and prospective customers.

Automation technologies enabled Vonage to streamline quote creation and management, reducing account/phone provisioning time from four days to mere minutes, while also mitigating the risk of human error.

Business Results and Growth

In a recent survey, nearly 80% of employees reported that automation provided them with more time to deepen relationships with customers and other stakeholders, undertake challenging new projects, and acquire new skills.

Automation tools also enhance the overall employee experience: nearly 90% reported greater job satisfaction since adopting the technology, and 84% expressed more satisfaction with their employer. Addressing burnout and improving work-life balance through automation are crucial retention strategies for companies navigating a changing labor market.

As a seasoned CIO, I have identified best practices for initiating automation. Here’s how to adopt and scale automation tools to foster growth in any economic climate:

1. Listen to business partners across the company and work on automation initiatives that will generate the most business value.

   Achieving success with automation begins with what I term “business intimacy.” Developing an automation strategy in isolation, without consulting stakeholders throughout the business, makes it challenging to select the appropriate technology and prioritize automation efforts.

   Instead, technology leaders must genuinely understand the needs and strategic objectives of every segment of the company, including sales, service, marketing, commerce, and IT. By collaborating closely with key business leaders, CIOs can help elevate core priorities amidst budget constraints and deploy the right technology to achieve teams’ most pressing goals.

   With efficiency and customer success as our primary objectives, we apply business intimacy internally to support Salesforce’s ongoing transformation. We are leveraging automation and AI to boost efficiency and deliver transformative automated capabilities across the company. For instance, we are exploring how Slack can be utilized to increase sales productivity and facilitate faster deal closures by automatically providing real-time insights to connect sellers, account teams, and cross-functional stakeholders. We employ automation to drive quicker decision-making, streamline internal processes, enhance customer interactions, and improve overall performance, productivity, and profitability throughout the company.

2. Unlock and unify data to deliver personalized experiences.

   A crucial step in automating business processes and extracting valuable insights from enterprise data involves consolidating information stored in disparate systems. Seek out technologies capable of connecting and harmonizing data from various sources into a single platform that offers a comprehensive view of the business. Funneling all this vital data into a unified source of truth for each individual customer is what enables automation to enhance the customer experience by acting on intelligent insights to personalize every interaction.

3. Scale complex business processes quickly for faster time to value.

   Traditionally, building complex, multi-departmental workflows required substantial investments in development and tooling. With operational efficiency as a top priority, companies need low-code solutions that empower anyone — not just administrators — to build and deploy automation rapidly.

   Opt for solutions with a wide array of off-the-shelf components that allow business teams and end users to automate any business process swiftly. Solutions should also provide IT with the tools to develop customized automation components that the entire business can utilize. The ability to quickly and easily automate workflows helps companies achieve faster time to value, whether through reducing case handle time, boosting conversion rates, providing quicker quotes, expediting client onboarding, or streamlining order processing.

   Once an organization has implemented these solutions, it can consistently quantify, track, and publish the results to demonstrate value; secure investment for additional automation initiatives; generate new ideas; and discontinue projects yielding minimal or no return.

4. Create an environment that welcomes automation and sharing of ideas.

   Automation is frequently perceived as a mechanism to eliminate jobs and reduce costs. However, humans are indispensable because they are uniquely capable of managing more strategic, relationship-building work. While the inherent purpose of automation is operational efficiency, the health of a business is truly the driving force behind its adoption. An inefficient organization will eventually need to adapt to business pressures or cease operations. Automation helps safeguard companies from the burdens of inefficiency.

   Encouraging team members to contemplate and share ideas on how to eliminate inefficiencies and repetitive manual processes can foster an environment where employees feel integral to the automation strategy.

A Game Changer

Automation is a critical capability for any company seeking digital transformation. As organizations adapt to an unpredictable landscape, those that invest in automation are well-positioned to achieve significant cost savings and productivity benefits, while also enhancing job satisfaction, work-life balance, and employee retention. Automation that enables companies to optimize processes and deliver personalized engagement at scale is a transformative force for both employee and customer experience.