Suppose your sales team spends too much valuable time tracking down data on spreadsheets instead of making contacts. What if co-workers feel overwhelmed by their workload and departments function more like productivity black holes?

Is it time to invest in new staff or new automation?

When time means money, your company may pour a lion’s share down a manual process money pit. A breakthrough IDC study found that some companies use up to 30% of their annual revenue to cover manual inefficiencies, and modernizing those processes is a natural reaction.

Let’s face it: Automation is the future of business growth. Experts predict that 80% of companies have plans to adopt intelligent automation by 2025. However, timing is a huge part of ensuring that you get the most value from your implementation. The other part is knowing what you need.

According to author and speaker Doug Tedder, the term “automate” tends to simplify a process beyond password reset or updating a single task. He calls it service orchestration.

“Orchestration refers to automating multi-step processes to create streamlined, end-to-end (and often interdepartmental) workflows,” Tedder said. “When determining your automation needs, be clear on whether your goal is only to automate or orchestrate.”

Automation is no small investment, so understanding the goal and expectations as well as the impact automation may have on interdepartmental performance is crucial.

“Every organization has plenty of workflows and tasks from which to choose to automate,” Tedder said. “But just because you can automate something doesn’t mean that you should, especially in the first stage of your automation initiatives.”

Before you turn your IT team loose on across-the-board updates, here are three questions to ask:

What is the goal?

Identify the reasons why stakeholders are starting this conversation. Is the company facing stagnant revenue growth? Are teams siloed? Is sales missing out on opportunities because of clunky processes or bad data?

“Before stakeholders talk about automation, they should ask if existing systems are being fully utilized,” said Megan Ross, director of SEO at Fullcast. “Sometimes, the solutions are simply a matter of leveraging existing subscriptions and functionality. But if these features aren’t helpful, will automation eliminate the obstacles?”

How much time will automation save?

True or false? If a task requires manual updates, it must be wrong, right? Well, not exactly.

Though surveys show 72% of employees think inefficient processes impact their jobs, it’s important to be clear on the measurable impact of automation on some of these tasks.

For instance, albeit redundant, a task that requires organizing a specific dataset may take two hours per week to complete. Will investing in automating the task beat that time? Review department processes to determine how much time automation can give back to employees.

Will automation truly simplify the process?

If the journey lengthens or complicates the distance to the destination, this decision may require more thought. Your IT team may love the idea of modernizing systems, but if employees have no intention of adopting the changes, that’s a problem.

Ross agrees that user adoption is a significant contributor to implementation success: “If an employee doesn’t see the value in changing their job requirements, two things will happen. First, they won’t want to take the time to learn it.” This attitude negates investment in innovative capabilities.

“And, then,” added Ross, “they’re not going to show it in a good light for the customer, either.”

The inevitable ripple effect of any new implementation will go smoother when partnering with an advisory team. By utilizing this expertise, workers can understand what to expect by seeing the whole picture and their role in it, and stakeholders can make better decisions to determine if the company will benefit from automation and the best time to invest.

While automation can bring significant benefits — such as increased efficiency, reduced errors and cost savings — it is not a one-size-fits-all solution. By carefully weighing these factors, organizations can make informed decisions that align with their strategic goals and maximize the value of automation.

J’Nel Wright is a content writer at Fullcast, a Silicon Slopes-based, end-to-end RevOps platform that allows companies to design, manage and track the performance of their revenue-generating teams.

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