Things every business should automate to enhance productivity

Businesses can get extremely daunting sometimes taking a toll on your schedule and sometimes even health. If you are a business owner, I am sure you will second me on that.

All of us want to see our workforce achieve high levels of productivity along with the company’s well-being. But you can’t expect it anytime soon if you keep your human power engaged in menial tasks that can be otherwise automated.

We are blessed to live in an era where technology has reached such heights that it can render us help in our daily tasks saving time, money and energy. It wouldn’t be wrong to call yourself a fool if you don’t utilize the full potential of automation.

Below, I have enlisted 5 tasks that you MUST automate today if you want to climb the ladder of success without compromising on efficiency.

Accounting

Accounting is one of the most important aspects of small and medium-sized enterprises. But the hours of strenuous work leave most of the owners in jitters.

Accounting is a part of your everyday schedule. Manual operations will not just cost you a reasonable part of your day but also risk your efficiency. Humans are not perfect, so it is practically impossible to avoid silly errors and ensure 100% accuracy.

Imagine the dreadful day when you have just submitted your year-end financial accounts and your accountant calls you up to say that your balances are not matching! Scary, isn’t it? These errors can be avoided by machine intelligence, or in simple terms, technology. There is a list of tools accountancy tools available on the internet that automates the process and reduces the workload drastically. Here are a few examples, I find helpful:

• Intuit QuickBooks
• Xero
• Oracle Netsuite
• Microsoft Dynamics GP

Screenshots

This is one aspect that hasn’t been given the kind of attention it deserves. From backing up data to help you run a comparison check with your competitors, screenshots serve various purposes.

But if you are asked to take a screenshot every fifteen minutes of the day, wouldn’t it be frustrating? Automation can save you from the torture. Tools like Stilio help you schedule the frequency of the screenshots for a website. It then takes the snapshots at the given time and automatically saves it in the given location. Believe me, it’s a savior from the long hours of organizing the innumerable number of screenshots. Stillio works as a great Wayback Machine alternative to helps you keep your own archive. Know more about it here.

Data Backup

Data is the most valuable asset for every organization. They strive to save it everywhere possible – on their computers, hard drives, and every other medium.

But as it’s said, mishaps don’t come knocking at your door. You will not be pre-informed when your database in the computer crashes, or hard drive gets stolen or a virus creeps in. This, precaution is always better than cure.

So keep your data back up somewhere else, other than your computer. However, backing up your data daily can be a very time-consuming process. Automating it will reduce the workload and reduce the errors of missing out on days. Cloud-based services automatically save your data to your personal space in the cloud, which makes your files inaccessible by any outsider.

Data Check: 3 billion accounts on Yahoo was hacked back in August 2013, and again in 2014, with 500 million.

Email Marketing

Arguably, email marketing is one of the best forms of marketing with a return of $44 on every dollar spent!

What could be better than directly communicating with your customers, by sending well-crafted emails? But here is the catch, it is not only time consuming, but also really difficult.

So the next thing on my list is the automation of email marketing. There are innumerable platforms on the internet that offer these services. Some of the well-established names are MailChimp and Mailjet.

Social Media

Well, it is 2019, and if you are not on social media, you practically don’t exist. Apart from the luxury, it’s more like a necessity – but let’s not undermine the amount of time and dedication to social media marketing demands.

Unlike others, you can only partially automate this. But believe me, it’s still a relief. There are various tools that guide you with different aspects of social media. For instance, Buffer or Hootsuite helps you schedule your posts beforehand. On the other hand, Commun.it and Paper.li helps you identify new leads and keep them engaged.

Automation of tasks is a win-win for your business, irrespective of the scale of operation. Some tools might cost you some bucks but the returns are always worth it!