Technology has come leaps and bounds since the dawn of business, and what once required manpower, can these days often be automated. There are various benefits to this – you’re freeing up valuable skill sets, given the room to innovate, pursue new ventures; the possibilities, without sounding cliche (hopefully) can often be endless. But, perhaps you aren’t quite aware of what actually can be automated in-house; or, maybe, you don’t want to fix what isn’t broken.
Down to the most seemingly minor task, you could be freeing up staff resources with nothing more than a little bit of research and some implementation. The G Suite, now known as Google Workplace, is a great place to start. The live collaboration abilities as well as the chance to automate tasks securely and on a large scale make these intelligent apps a must-have for any organization. Plus, if you’d prefer, G Suite alternatives, like Slack and Zoho, are just as effective for optimizing your company’s efforts and saving time and money.
Read on for other ways you can automate your daily tasks.
Table of Contents
Backing Up The Important Stuff
We all dread the day that the system goes down and the important data we count on, whether it be confidential client information or that that belongs to our own companies, is lost. But this can easily be avoided, and it doesn’t require manpower to ensure it.
All you need to do is automate backups and set them to take place as regularly as you need them. Really, these should be made every day; or, at the very least, more frequently than you think you need them. Setting up scheduled backups is simple and removes the issue of human error. Should something go wrong on a Monday morning, you don’t need to count on the team member you’ve assigned this task to have performed it on his busy, perhaps lazy, Friday afternoon. Get your data backups automated and always save to the cloud.
Social Media Posting
Making your posts as per your schedule is a good thing. As we all know, there are certain times in the day, even on certain days in the week, where your posts will reach a wider audience. But that doesn’t mean you have to write them there and then. If you have important announcements or simply want to keep on your customers’ minds, you can schedule your posts well in advance, and there are multiple services out there to achieve this with; and many of them are free. You may see Jarvee review for more learning.
Again, it boils down to human error, and rather than counting on someone to deliver it right on time, you can get this ready and out the way, ensuring that all team members can focus on more pressing tasks, or even monitoring the feedback that comes with what you’re putting out there.
Replenish Those Supplies
If you’re blessed to have found the rhythm that comes with replenishing supplies, there’s no need to be handling this yourself. It could be stationery, new products, parts, or even something as simple as printer ink. Making this just one of many tasks on your pile can lead to potential mistakes, ultimately leaving your employees without the basic tools they need to complete their jobs effectively.
Having a good relationship with your suppliers, or at least using the same supplier for certain items means you can negate the need for constantly placing individual orders and setting up a schedule to have these products delivered when you need them. Or, better yet, before you actually need them, so there’s never a loss of stock and you can maintain your optimum output. You owe it to your employees for them to deliver their best work and you owe it to your bottom line.
Bills, Bills, Bills
We all hate them but we all need to pay them. Plenty of bills are automated, like rental costs, utilities, things like that. But when it comes to variable costs, like raw materials and packaging, for example, something you need but in often differing quantities, you could save a lot of time and effort by creating a rolling order.
Sure, needs may change, and there’s nothing stopping you from adjusting your orders week in week out. But placing individual orders to anticipate what you might need next week will certainly see you wasting time and effort better spent elsewhere.
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