Companies making the decision to invest time and money to automate their customer sales order process often have more than one motivation for finally ditching their manual processes. Often, the defining event is the decision whether to hire an additional staff member just to administer documents and data entry. Other times, it’s driven by executives who arrive from firms where automation already sets the standard for speed, cost and efficiency. However a company arrives at the decision to automate, defining goals and setting benchmarks for performance is key for ongoing success and process improvement.
When looking at metrics, either to built a business case or measure ongoing results, here are a few things to consider.
When it comes to automation, speed is the name of the game. Studies show that companies leveraging automated sales order processing are 80% faster than their peers, empowering them to decrease order delivery times by several days.
Companies that automate customer sales orders often focus on speed, but speed means very little without accuracy. The great thing about process automation is that it has the potential to increase speed and reduce cycle times while improving accuracy and reducing errors. Data from the APQC shows that organizations that measure, track and reward data accuracy are 2.8 times more likely to improve order fill rates and on-time delivery, compared with organizations that do not measure results and incentivize accuracy.
Companies that benchmark data accuracy also experience much shorter sales order cycle times. On average, their cycle time is one week shorter than their peers—much of which can be attributed to a reduction in exception handling and rework.
Automation, by definition, focuses on reducing manual, human intervention. Studies show that companies that reduce manual intervention and exception handling perform better on customer order cycle time and error-free orders. Organizations with the LEAST manual intervention experience an average cycle time of just two days, compared to eight days for semi-automated/mostly manual processes.
If you’d like to discuss your company’s current sales order processing performance and learn more about setting standards and benchmarks for process improvement through automation, contact your Artsyl account executive.