Business automation will be the foundation of every successful business in the near future, the current business landscape is shifting at a rapid pace as the evolution of technology has had a major impact on our day-to-day operations. The use of technology in business processes helps drive business efficiency and optimisation.

The advancements in technology have enabled organisations of all sizes to integrate technology to streamline business processes. The world is already in the digital age, we can manage and keep track of an enterprise’s business operations from smartphones and accessibility to solutions is constantly evolving. Maturing digital businesses are focussed on the integration of digital technologies in order to automate operations for growth, efficiency and business intelligence.

In the coming time, organisations need to be primed to embrace data analytics and use real time data in their decision making and workflow. Many businesses are unable to transform due to the lack of time and resources to grow efficiently, another reason is moving away from their core practice as a business is a daunting task. The ability to transform a business digitally requires planning and following a digital strategy to transition from the current state to the desired future state.

Benefits of implementing technology-driven solutions that drive business automation in organisations:

• Shorter Planning Cycles: can help shorten planning cycles by providing a robust repository of online information regarding current and future processes and resources. It would not replace the planning or the strategy that will be employed but instead enhance thp through the contribution of useful information which would drive business intelligence.
• Improved Communication: Organisations have different structures and communication plans this is where these systems come in, they can be tailored to meet your organisation's requirements. Keeping track of operations can be made easy as you can communicate with the mpbers of your organisation on one platform, get constant updates, access a visual representation of progress and facilitate client engagement.
• Transparency: Using technology in an organisation enables complete transparency and increases accountability, this ensures continuous process improvement as well. The flow of information can be streamlined across all divisions of the organisation, and the accessibility helps in improved decision making and quality control.
• Improves Decision-Making processes: When business strategy and technology infrastructure are in sync with a central database that stores business data. It is easy to access this information to help in planning and decision making. Rich analytics of real time data provide several methods to track and measure workflow business performance, this allows you to engage with your employees better and make the right choices based on the business data.
• Reduced Redundancy: One of the greatest contributions a solution can make to an organisation is aiding the visualization of the value that current resources provide, where those value areas overlap, and identifying gaps that exist in operations. Significant time is wasted during various stages of the workflow due to this as there are certain tasks and roles that are being repeated, these key issues need to be identified and streamlined using technology. Business intelligence is the foundation for moving towards an efficient future state and grow the business.
• Cost and Time Efficiency: The ability to view all aspects of your business at your fingertips saves time which can be utilised in growing the business. Software solutions reduce the time it takes to plan, develop, implement, and retire resources within its business and technology operating environment, allows good asset management. Also, streamlined processes use resources efficiently which equate to a reduced number of resources required for task completion.
• Quality Control: Organisations use field management software to drive a quality management culture organisation wide which leads to customer-driven quality, business intelligence, reduced redundancy and increased employee participation. An effective solution can provide operational support while offering strategic management by integrating various aspects of an organisation.
• Customer Engagement: The ability to interact and engage a customer is something many businesses lack, customer relationship management is essential to keep quality control in the processes and services/products offered. Clients should be able to receive information and provide feedback to the organisation.

Analysing the current state of an organisation is essential to enable a transition to the desired future state. Solution architects analyse the organisation as a whole, its people, processes and the existing technology that helps achieve the strategic goals of the organisation. Establishing a technology infrastructure requires identifying the gaps that exist in an organisation's business processes, and how the implementation of technology can help bridge that gap. The bridging of this gap is called Strategic Business and Technology Alignment, when business processes and the technology that drives the operations are in sync with the business strategy, it optimises the operational efficiency of the organisation. Technology is a type of resource that enables information and other resource flows to support the creation and delivery of business products and services, which in turn enables the achievement of strategic goals. Bottom-up planning should be used in strategic planning is where technology is a catalyst for change.

Considering how far technology has come in the past ten years, it is not far fetched to expect things to move forward even faster. These modern technologies can be scaled according to the requirements of the organisations, these do not require new systps to be created instead they can be easily integrated into existing infrastructures. We are living in an era of constant technological change that is only getting speeding up, there will be several opportunities to integrate the new trends when organisations have solid technological foundations. In the coming years, more and more organisations will start to adopt digital strategies to ride the wave of digital transformation.