As a UK custom software company, we spend a lot of our time outlining the benefits of business process automation in general terms. You might expect us to make that argument, given the business we’re in, but statistics from around the world help to underline the massive impact which automating routine, repetitive and time consuming tasks can have on the place where it matters the most – the bottom line.

Automation Benefits

According to consultants McKinsey 60% of occupations could save 30% of their time through the automation of tasks such as generating sales leads, approving paperwork, and processing documents. At the same time a survey from Deloitte stated that investment in business process automation would not only pay for itself in less than 12 months, it would also produce the following benefits:

• Improved compliance – 92%

• Improved quality/accuracy – 90%

• Improved productivity – 86%

• Cost reduction – 59%

Custom Software: 

Any UK bespoke software company would recommend the use of automation software as being both a technological and business inevitability. From a technological perspective, if the systems exist to streamline repetitive tasks, then it falls upon any forward-thinking business to explore how these systems could help. According to independent global research the average office worker spends 552 hours a year performing repetitive or administrative tasks, which equates to 69 working days. If you’re someone who runs a business then it probably doesn’t take too long to calculate exactly how much 69 wasted days are costing your business every year. In addition to this is the simple fact that, of those businesses which already make use of business process automation, 78% fully expect to increase their investment in the next 3 years. In other words, if your business doesn’t take advantage of the efficiencies driven by custom software automation then it is likely to be left behind by competitors who have opted to do so.

Fewer Staff in the Office

As stated, these are the general arguments for the take-up of automation and they can be firmly applied against what might be called the standard operational backdrop of the average business. That backdrop has been anything but standard since 2020, the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had and the accompanying waves of lockdown have, if anything, strengthened the case for investing in automation. Businesses across the UK had to adapt to the reality of their employees working from home. Indeed, many of the largest companies in the world, such as Amazon and Google, took to making the shift to home working at least semi-permanent, so the issues around staff working remotely that affected businesses in 2020 are pretty much here to stay now, with hybrid or even fully remote work patterns now in place.

The fact that the systems we create are bespoke and tailored for the individual business in question is a vital aspect of their effectiveness. Many businesses purchase "off the shelf" software solutions that are misaligned with existing processes and impossible to scale up in the future as requirements change as a business grows and evolves. Issues such as these aren’t going to impact on those businesses which work with Solweb, because our bespoke software solutions are designed and installed with integration and future-proofing built in.