Learn about the basic digital tools to automate your business processes

Retailers have had to adapt to a new reality marked by digitalisation. Growing concerns about profit margins and the search for new market opportunities have led small businesses to begin a process of digital transformation in order to meet the challenges that are emerging.

In this context, the automation of different business processes stands out as one of the main tools that drive business growth. This automation will allow you to save time and costs, as you will be able to streamline and optimise the activity of your business.

Here are the benefits of automating different areas of your business and several tools to help you implement it.

1. E-commerce

Many businesses have turned to e-commerce to boost their sales. Managing multi-channel activity can be a challenge for your SME. To facilitate this control, you can introduce a tool to help you coordinate your physical and online shop. You can automate the receipt of orders, the preparation and sending of invoices, and the communication with your customer in case of doubts through chatbots or when the purchase process is finished, with e-mails summarising the order. All this will help you to improve the image and performance of your business.

There are many tools on the market that provide you with these benefits. If you need to boost your invoicing, you can use programmes such as Holded and Zoho Invoice. If you want to boost email communications, with SendingBlue and Mailchimp you can generate and schedule emails. Finally, if you are looking to improve communication and customer service, Zendesk and Service Hub de Hubspot are some of the many alternatives.

2. Logistics

Logistics is a process that needs more control and monitoring to ensure its proper functioning, so many companies have already begun to incorporate automation tools in these areas of their business. In this way, you can easily manage your stock, both on the shelves and in the warehouses, keep track of products, even if they are no longer in your establishment, and automate orders to suppliers.

If your business needs to digitalise its relationship with suppliers and have continuous stock control, Quickbooks and Esker software can be a good option for your SME. If you want to learn more about how you can digitise your stock and discover more tools, we recommend you to access the post How to have a better control of your stock in the Digital era (link to the post).

3. Financial area

In companies, having a continuous control of accounts is a fundamental aspect. Therefore, having programmes that automate routine activities and generate alerts and reminders for important transactions becomes an almost essential variable. In order for your business to manage these actions optimally, you can introduce financial management software such as Sage 50 and Visionwin.

4. Área de marketing

Maintaining and strengthening relationships with your customers often involves a high investment of time and resources. Automating marketing actions will provide you with benefits such as greater personalisation, improved follow-up analysis, an increase in the ROI of your marketing actions and the option to make predictions about your customer's behaviour. One of the most widely used tools in this area is CRM or customer relationship management.

Some of the options on the market are Hubspot CRM Platform, Zoho CRM and Marketo Engage, with which you will be able to carry out marketing actions in an easier way. If you want to know in depth what a CRM is, its benefits and applications, we recommend you to read the CRM monographic (link to the monographic) where you will find all the details.

5. Human resources

Introducing automation in your human resources department will allow you to schedule the sending of payrolls, increase staff productivity, control schedules and carry out selection and training processes more efficiently. Some of the tools that provide you with these benefits are Bizneo and Factorial HR.

In addition to these applications, there are programmes such as ERPs that integrate many of these functions in a single system. In this way, your business will enjoy the benefits mentioned above, while also improving interdepartmental communication in your SME, as all employees will have access to the same information. Some of the ERPs most highly rated by users themselves in the latest study conducted by Software Reviews are Sage Intacct, Oracle ERP Cloud and Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP. If you want to know more about ERP, we recommend that you read the ERP Monograph (link to the monograph).

All these tools will help you to optimise your business, allowing you to focus your efforts and resources on those activities that are essential. In addition, many companies are already starting to introduce advanced technological elements in their software that are able to analyse the current situation, learn from it and make predictions for the future. Stay tuned for all the updates and tools that will help you grow and take your business to the next level!