When you think of automation, you may think it is only for large companies with fat budgets, but that is not true. Now, it is true that automation can be expensive, but only if you are looking for a large, complex solution. The reality is that all businesses can benefit from automation, even solopreneurs. What is more important is that the solution doesn’t have to be complex or expensive. My goal of this series is to show you everyday examples of how automation can be used to eliminate unproductive and unprofitable tasks and free up employees to work on the tasks that really benefit the company.
Let’s jump into a recent example from one of my clients. They needed a way to capture inventory on a monthly basis. In the past, they had used paper forms for this, but they could get lost or were hard to read. Since they depended on this inventory to be exact to ensure they could complete jobs without delay, this was not sustainable. They needed a way to simplify this and ensure all of the management had the right information when they needed it.
Enter JotForms and Google Sheets. Rather than build some expensive website or mobile app, we created a JotForm for the different inventories and updated a central Google Sheet every time an inventory was conducted. The employees could then use the form on their mobile phone, so that simplified entering data. Even better was that now that all of the inventory submissions were in one spreadsheet, we could create a dashboard, which consolidated everything into an easy-to-read format and updated all the information automatically. Now management doesn’t have to look all over the place for this information and they know how recent it is.
The best part is that this took very little time to set up and it is rather inexpensive. JotForm costs $24 a month per user and GSuite is $6 a month per user. Certainly not in the tens of thousands that I think most people think it would cost. What’s even better is the time saved and the reduction of human errors.
The goal of automation is to use the power of technology to enable businesses to be more productive. Let technology handle the dull work that it excels at and free you to do your best work. Start asking yourself whenever you work on a task if a computer could do it. If the answer is “yes,” then start looking for that everyday automation that can handle it. If you need help in this process, then reach out to me at 207-740-5709 or email me at wwade@dirigosoftwaresolutions.com. I have years of experience helping businesses to find these everyday automations and I know I can help you as well.
