As businesses double down on promoting a work-from-home strategy to allow workers to be productive — and safe — as COVID-19 continues, they are taking a closer look at the tools they need to make this shift successful.
One tool that stands out has been a notable buzzword in the business industry for the past several years — workflows. As a term of art, it sounds daunting, but a workflow, simply defined, is a method put in place to allow specific tasks to get done more efficiently.
Workflows can be created for a single task or be designed to facilitate collaboration on a larger project. In general, workflows comprise a sequence of processes that move a task from inception to completion.
Workflows are an increasingly important tool as business becomes more complex and companies shift to take post-COVID challenges such as an increasingly remote workforce into consideration.
Which brings us to a new generation of workflows: smart digital workflows.
With the current workforce increasingly scattered, colleagues and clients are divided by geography and time.
Digital workflows narrow that divide by bringing communication and collaboration to the forefront, regardless of location and time zone, allowing for seamless performance of critical project tasks.
The Importance of Digital Workflows to Optimize Business Processes
Digital workflows can assist any size company — from small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to enterprise-level organizations —in streamlining their business processes for maximum utility and results that drive revenue.
Smart reasons to consider bringing the power of digital workflows to your business include:
- Time Savings
For most companies, labor represents a huge chunk of their outgoing expenses. And employees can spend a lot of time hunting for the correct files, sharing paper documents among appropriate team members, and making copies for everyone on the team that needs them.
When this process is digitized and staff has fast access to critical information on all their devices — computer, smartphone, or tablet — they turn the time they spent hunting for files into high-quality productivity.
Plus, virtual access allows employees to work at full capacity from anywhere they are located.
- Money Savings
Companies spend a lot of money on office supplies and especially paper.
In fact, one study showed that even small companies spent up to $1,106 per employee on office supplies every year. Yet, when digital workflows were utilized, another statistic showed an up to two-thirds savings on paper budgets.
- Intangible Savings
Intangible costs are those things that can be identified but can’t accurately be quantified. Some examples include employee morale, customer goodwill, and damage to your company’s reputation.
Using digital workflows, with their ability to speed up processes, means your company can provide faster, more efficient service to customers, increasing trust and loyalty. It also means fewer errors, which bolsters customer goodwill even further.
A digital workflow can also help reduce staff frustration and boost morale by reducing dependence on time-consuming manual processes, coordinating teams efficiently for better communication and less misunderstanding, and eliminating repetitive tasks.
These intangibles may seem small, but they pack a powerful punch by providing your business with a significant advantage over those still tied to paper-based processes.
Let James Imaging Help Your Business Get Digital
We know how difficult the ongoing pandemic has been for our business customers. Many are struggling to define and work with a remote workforce or hybrid in-house/virtual teams. Others are trying to find new ways to achieve a competitive advantage as revenue grows scarce.
At James Imaging, we are uniquely qualified to help lead our clients toward a revenue-positive position through the advantage of smart digital workflows.
Our team of document software and content management experts can assess your current workflows alongside business needs and challenges. Then, we can design the perfect smart workflow system to help you centralize your data for increased efficiencies.
More seamless processes not only reduce error and staff frustration but provide valuable insights that can help you make better business decisions over time.
Not only will our team design hard-hitting digital processes that directly address your goals, but we ensure that your critical data is available when and where your employees need it while being securely protected by state-of-the-art protocols.
Discover how smart digital workflows can transform the way you do business. Reach out to a professional at James Imaging Systems and get started workflow automation today.