Ahead of the Curve: Digitizing Your Workflow for the Pandemic Age
The global pandemic means that individuals and organizations alike must take on enormous changes in a ridiculously small amount of time. Simply put, the line between home and office has blurred as people move businesses online—and this impacts their workflows.
A workflow is defined as interconnecting tasks where you turn raw data into a finished product. It can apply to a single person or to a company with hundreds of members. For copywriters, a workflow can consist of getting an order, writing the copy, sending it to an editor for review, and turning it over to the client for final approval. Another example in terms of businesses would be a purchase requisition workflow, which would entail multiple checks and approvals before a final request can be sent.
Going digital with your own workflows may seem daunting at first, especially for companies used to the familiarity of paperwork and face-to-face meetings. But provided it’s done properly, a digitized workflow gives several immediate benefits. In a nutshell, digitization:
- Lowers the number of steps to complete tasks
- Raises collaboration between workers
- Collates and centralizes data, reducing the hassle of having to look for it
- Removes the need for paper documentation
- Allows for automation, which saves time and removes repetitive tasks
- Tracks results and performance
Here are four steps towards digitizing your processes:
Assess Your Workflows
Nobody likes the word “audit”, but it’s a critical step to review your existing manual processes prior to digitization. Firstly, it lets you identify which processes need improvements and what should be prioritized for digital migration. Examples include:
- Workflows that must be shared with several people
- Workflows that can be combined or summarized
- Workflows that are prone to error, such as those needing manual computation
- Workflows that need approval from multiple authorities
- Undocumented or wrongly documented processes
Secondly, an assessment also helps you identify what digitization tools best suit your organization’s needs.
Choose a Workflow to Digitize
After reviewing your processes, select the first workflow to undergo digitization. It would help to choose one that isn’t too difficult to migrate, but will generate a dramatic improvement on the process itself.
Let’s use our earlier example of purchase requisition. In this workflow, a purchase request needs a series of approvals from managers to be completed. Pre-quarantine, you probably would have to approach these higher-ups one by one to get them to sign off on some paperwork. In a digital approach, that process would be automated, with managers being notified through their mobile device that a step needs their approval in order to proceed. This would immediately cut down waiting time and streamline your workflow. Not only is digitizing this process taking the low-hanging fruit, but it will also convince hold-outs in your organization that digitization is the way to go.
Choose with the Right Tools
By now, your audit would have revealed indicators as to what digital tool would best suit your needs. You could look at cloud-powered tools provided by Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure.
You may venture into collaboration tools like Trello or Slack to track progress and keep everyone involved updated. Finally, you may also employ meeting software such as Zoom and WebEx to hold virtual meetings where necessary.
Reassess, Optimize, Repeat
Once you have completed digitizing your first workflow, review your changes to see what else can be improved with your digital process. Can you find a way to further simplify or even eliminate certain steps? If you can identify areas that can be automated, all the better! You save your team some extra time that they may use in other areas.
Once you have optimized your first workflow, you may expand to others, applying what you learned from adapting the first process. Continue to monitor your digitized workflows to look for ways to improve.
In time, as more of your workflows become digitized, your company will reap the benefits of streamlined, centralized, and automated processes.