Business Automation

Do you spend hours pulling together data to make a report? Does anyone on your payroll need to 'cut and paste' data from one system to another? Can you never find the information you need to make an important decision? You need a workflow and business automation review to get you away from the computer and back to running your business!

Even though computers are thousands of times faster than they were just a few years ago, it's still easy to find yourself and your staff mired in tedious, repetitive work. Collating responses from e-mails, digging through files to find the number you need for a report, or copying from one system and pasting data into another can make you feel like you're working for the computer instead of the other way around. A Business Automation expert can free you and your staff from most of the tedious, repetitive tasks and make your computer system a strategic asset for your business. Programming and automation features are built in to all Microsoft Office products, and it's not uncommon to take reports that used to take hours (or days) to produce and have them "automagically" produced in a matter of seconds. Transferring data between systems can be automated, saving time while also eliminating the risk of data errors associated with manual cutting and pasting.

Some examples of Business Automation options:

• Create complex reports in seconds rather than hours (or days)
• Build PowerPoint presentations with charts and graphs that automatically update
• Share data between systems without any manual effort

Case Study: ExxonMobil Planning and Budgeting

Background: ExxonMobil's global refining organization was preparing for their annual budget forecasting cycle. Projected budgets for over 50 countries were to be submitted to the US finance team for consolidation and review.

The Challenge: The budget forecast for each country was submitted as an Excel spreadsheet with 7 tabs of data. Data needed to be summarized and reviewed across several 'dimensions' (such as geographic region or function). Several finance team members would be consolidating and evaluating the data, leading to issues with file management.

The Solution: Created a Visual Basic program to automatically summarize data from among the 50 files received. Finance team members could select any criteria (such as geographic region), and only files matching the criteria were summarized.

If you (or anyone on your staff) find yourself doing repetitive activities on the computer, contact us for a free consultation to see if we can make your life easier.