Many businesses are buying new technology to revamp efficiency. They want to help their employees focus more on value-adding jobs. They are counting on basic automation to cut down repetitive tasks.
Digital transformation has become a top trend you need to consider. It involves:
- Mobile apps
- UI tests
- Sales automation software
- Test automation tools
- Scripting languages
- Programming languages
- Social media platforms
- Other online social networks
With so many elements to digital transformation it creates many new opportunities for you to convert into a business idea.
Now companies are looking at a wider range. They want to match their business automation plan with strategic goals.
It offers a big opportunity for you as a Managed Service provider (MSP) and an IT service provider. It allows you to utilize a wide range of automation software. Such as combining hyperautomation, RPA, OCR, artificial intelligence, and many more.
There are many advantages of RPA, AI, and machine learning models especially when used together. For example, when you deal with unlabelled data.
Still wondering whether you can start your business, automating business processes for others and make money with it? This article explains how you can do that. Here we talk about how you can make money by automating your clients’ processes. We’ll also explain how you can start your own automation business.
How can I make money from automation?
Automation is a technology used to define your processes and customize your bots. It focuses on performing a manual task in a logical order. In fact, the hyperautomation market share reached 175 billion US dollars in 2020. It is estimated to grow and reach 265 billion US dollars in 2025. The tech world is developing so fast giving you immense chances to thrive in this setting.
Hyperautomation is the intelligent orchestration of many of your tasks. It is the integration of automation technologies such as :
- Machine Learning algorithms
- Deep learning
- Software robots
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
All of which are powered to handle multiple of your automated systems and processes.
What is the backbone a firm looks for to stay competitive now? The implementation of business process automation.
An IT service provider or MSP can reap heavily by offering a range of automation solutions. Such tools include:
- Robotic process automation (RPA)
- Intelligent Automation
- Hyperautomation tools
What are Gartner's insights? businesses now need more than a few automation tools to survive in a highly competitive business environment. Such a worldwide demand will push the hyperautomation software market to reach $600 billion by 2022. Rising up from $481.6 billion in 2020.
By adopting automation you can reap these benefits:
- Better use of time:
Freeing up time for valuable and interesting tasks instead of only on your boring and low-value jobs. Examples of such processes include:
- Document automation
- Data entry
- Reporting
- Marketing and sales tasks
- Customer touchpoints improvements:
Improve client-facing processes, offer the best customer service, and foster loyalty. You can automate multiple processes as part of your broader sales and marketing automation strategy. It also includes:
- Email automation
- Prospecting
- Lead enrichment
- Behavioral targeting.
Example: Marketing automation
It effectively makes your marketing activities engage customers. Such activities include:
- Personalized advertising campaigns,
- Social media marketing and posts
- Email marketing.
Automating supports your digital marketing strategy. It helps you leverage customer data for better targeting, and makes life easier for your marketing teams. It will help improve customer experiences as well.
Example: Sales automation
Sales automation tools take care of your non-core activities to help your sales reps focus more on sales generation. Typically, your sales team members spend only 35% of their time (ITFocus, 2020) on selling. And the rest on tasks unrelated to direct revenue. Your sales teams can make the most of their time and talents with automation tools.
- Scalability:
It is easy to program and duplicate bots to perform similar steps. You can duplicate a bot to enter data in the accounts department. You can even use it for your other data based departments such as HR, billing, and operations.
- Ensure consistency:
You can rely on bots to perform tasks repeatedly and get the same results. Automation also helps you ensure:
- Compliance
- Procedures are followed
- Increased security
- Overall improved visibility
No matter the industry, size, or function, you can easily make money from automating business processes for your clients. Let’s discuss how you can start your own automation business.
How do I start my own automation business?
You may have just found out about the automation business or have been planning to start it for a while. It is a time consuming process, leading you to ask yourself - where do I begin?
We’ll explain this process in simple steps for you:
- Planning:
Identify your target market, competitors, market needs, and decide on the automation service you want to offer. Also get to know what business insurances, financial services, and other permits you need.
- Research:
Automation constantly changes. With new software and companies created all the time. It is a good strategy for you to know the names of reputed automation vendors. This way you can partner with a reliable vendor.
This step helps build your:
- Overall business plan
- Know what administrative tasks are involved, and
- Gain customer satisfaction.
- Try the automation software:
Once you narrow down to one or two names, start gaining information about;
- Products
- Training
- Support
You may want to experiment with a few products by downloading their trials if available before deciding on one name.
- Understand the product:
Experimenting with the product(s) will help you get familiarized with the software. You understand how to use it and how it is different from other automation tools. Such a tactic helps get to know about vendors. This step is crucial before you make a final selection of the vendor.
- Decide and optimize your resources:
Experimenting will help you decide on which vendor to partner with. You also need to analyze how to train your team to gain hands-on experience with the tool. Do you need to hire more resources and perform one or two product assessments with the new software? Plan and optimize all such questions related to resources.
2 Key factors to consider when setting up an automation business
- Assembling your automation team:
It is important to build a team who have the technical skills needed to ensure things run smoothly. Building a team that succeeds involves more than just coding skills. It requires you to have a workforce that is Innovative and well disciplined to make sure workflow automations last in the long term. A few things you need to keep in mind here:
- Find a strong team lead
- Get the right specialists
- Keep the team small
- Find a dynamic team
- Finding a good automation vendor:
You need to understand which automation services you plan to deliver to your clients and use for your own business. Once you have a plan, you can research and decide which vendor would be right for you. The vendor’s capacity, services, and support all play a big role. A few things to look for:
- Vendors’ experience
- Strong hyperautomation ecosystem
- Supporting your initial automation projects.
Can small businesses automate?
A small business may be reluctant to invest in automation software unlike an enterprise. Their willingness to join the automation race is low. Even today they remain hesitant. One of the main reasons is the high cost associated with the typical automation models.
Here rises a great entrepreneurship opportunity for you to automate SMBs. By automating you can gain a greater market share by targeting them with the right proposition.
By offering, ElectroNeek automation as a service. You can present a budget friendly proposition your Clients would surely not want to miss.
For instance, they could save a lot of money in infrastructure costs, bots licensing fees, and process costs. They will also get a fitting automation strategy to make a smooth transition. It also provides an assurance that deployment is up and running within hours or days. Such a method is a great way of increasing your business growth.
ElectroNeek offers a dedicated, no-code development environment. It is very useful when you don’t have the experience to handle complicated automation functions. Take your time and start small to build a good business strategy.
Make automation services your competitive advantage
Automation can be daunting at the start. We hope this article clears any confusion you might have regarding starting an automation business and making money from it.
There are also great vendors in the market to help out with establishing your automation business. ElectroNeek is one such vendor with vast knowledge and a deep understanding of the market.
If interested, our team can help you with more information and support.