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As we return to a sense of normalcy, we keep in mind a valuable lesson: Businesses must be prepared to pivot quickly to accommodate change. Many small and midsized businesses (SMBs) are adopting integration, automation, and cloud technology to become more resilient than ever.
Your business relies on multiple applications to stay organized, collaborate, and efficiently run your operations. But if those stand-alone applications can’t communicate, you’re wasting time, money, and manpower.
A lack of integration means you’re constantly rekeying information, which is tedious and error-prone. One application may require data in one format while another requires a different format, which will require workflows to fix. Your resources are better spent on the bigger picture.
And it’s possible. An integration platform as a service (iPaaS) solution seamlessly connects your mission-critical applications, converts your data between formats, and moves data between applications at lightning speed. Integration is a low-cost, low-risk solution that eliminates repetitive data entry and dramatically increases efficiency.
If core business processes like purchasing, expense management, AP invoicing, and sales orders take up too much of your day and involve a lot of paper, it’s time to simplify, streamline, and automate.
A browser-based automation solution can eliminate the paper, take your team away from the keyboard, and free up time to focus on innovation and growth. Most automation solutions are affordable, easy to use, and require little, if any, training.
In addition to simplifying your daily business activities, an automation solution integrates with your enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, eliminating data duplication and extending your ERP solution’s reach to your entire team—without the added cost of extra licenses.
Integration and automation are ideal first steps toward digital transformation, which means making your business run better by using technology to create—or modify existing—business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements.
Digital transformation need not involve large, disruptive changes to your business. It can start with identifying one pain point and adopting new technology—or changing existing technology—to make your business run better.
Embracing technology to integrate your applications and automate your critical processes makes your business more efficient. Technology also makes your business more agile and adaptable to sudden change. Beginning a digital transformation journey can uncover new business opportunities and foster a deeper level of customer engagement.
To learn more about integration, automation, cloud ERP, and taking the first step toward digital transformation, download our free Understanding Digital Transformation eBook below!
