Maximize the Efficiency, Scalability, and Nimbleness of Your Enterprise and Be Ready For What’s Coming Next.
Automation is a powerful tool for OOH business owners who want to reduce their labor costs and increase efficiency. There’s never been an easier or better time to automate your workflows, but knowing where to start can take time and effort.
In this guide, we’ll discuss the basics of automation, how it works, and why you should incorporate it as a minimum baseline for your daily operations. We’ll also look at the four levels of automation and how each level creates more power and efficiency for your OOH business.
By the end of this guide, you’ll understand the advantages of automating tasks within your company, which level of automation you’re currently operating at, and how to progress to adaptive automation. Let’s dive in!
What is automation?
Automation means different things depending on the industry, but for out-of-home, it is software that enables you to more easily perform tasks that are critical to your business.
Why automate?
Automation is essential for businesses that want to stay competitive in today’s fast-paced and technology-driven business environment. In short, automation allows companies to:
- Eliminate errors and improve consistency
- Create more efficient and streamlined operations
- Save time and money through this efficiency
- Take advantage of future innovations
- Grow rapidly as opportunities are presented
- Adapt quickly to various industry changes
LEVEL 1 – FOR INDIVIDUALS
Focuses on personal computers and basic software tools to help track and improve quality and consistency of work for individual performers.
LEVEL 2 – SHARED ACCESS
Focuses on shared access to information and processes through use of databases and interconnected systems. This results in greater elimination of errors, improved process consistency, and better scalability.
LEVEL 3 – ELIMINATE TASKS
Focuses on the elimination of tasks and efforts requiring significant knowledge and brain power. This results in the highest levels of efficiency and scalability possible.
LEVEL 4 – ADAPTIVE
Focuses on the adaptability of your business and systems through agile, nimble systems. This results in the greatest level of future-proofing to seize new opportunities, adopt new innovations, and counter emerging threats.
Current trend:
In the out-of-home industry, most system solutions provide varying degrees of Level 1 and Level 2 automation.
Level 1 – For Individuals
Personal computers and basic software tools to help track and improve quality and consistency of work for individual performers.
Example: Sales team members use CRM software to stay on top of their sales pipeline, or Microsoft Excel and Word are used to track available inventory and create contracts.
Advantages:
- Features like spell check, notifications, and alerts improve quality of work.
- Tracking and task management features allow individual team members to stay organized and keep track of their responsibilities.
- Templates allow for easy creation of new files and documents to improve efficiency and consistency.
Disadvantages:
- Files and related information are not readily shared so other team members are not easily made aware of others’ activities, pipeline status, and demand on inventory levels.
- Multiple points of data entry result in significant inefficiencies and opportunities for error.
- New technologies and tools are not easily introduced into the business workflow.
- Consistency of results is highly dependent on individual productivity.
Level 2 – Shared Access
Shared access to information and processes through use of databases and interconnected systems.
Example: Team members easily collaborate on shared files in Google Drive or other centralized data tools, and others can be quickly brought in to provide administrative support.
Advantages:
- Files and other data are shared to centralized data storehouses that multiple team members can access. This improves efficiencies for everyone who touches the same business processes.
- Data entry is typically done only once and shared with other departments. This reduces errors, improves consistency and adds to overall business efficiency and scalability.
- New technologies can often be integrated into existing systems to improve capabilities more quickly and allow companies to adapt while minimizing capital investments.
Disadvantages:
- Integrations may increase functionality but they may also create “software sprawl” (where you are managing a web of 3rd party tools all at once) which can be expensive and difficult to adapt as system growth expands.
- Scalability is consistent but tends to be linear so that if one full-time person is needed to manage 100 tasks, increasing tasks to 1000 would result in increased staffing needs to approximately 10 full-time people.
Level 3 – Eliminate Tasks
Elimination of tasks and efforts requiring significant knowledge and brainpower.
Example: Team members easily take on new responsibilities and initiatives because they not only have capacity, but there is no fear of workload ebb-and-flow impacts on their time.
Advantages:
- Many tasks currently performed by team members can be delegated to the software which produces the highest degree of efficiency and consistency possible.
- Team members have extra time and mental energy to pursue other profit-enhancing activities.
- Scalability is both consistent and exponential so that if one person manages 100 tasks, increasing the number of tasks to 1000 would typically have no discernible increase in work effort.
Disadvantages:
- Level 3 automation provides highly scalable systems but because the different parts of the system depend on each other, it can be difficult to change the system quickly to take advantage of new ideas and practices. Such loss of adaptability can prevent rapid adjustments to the business as needed for new opportunities and threats.
Level 4 – Adaptive
Making your business and systems adaptible by separating data processing responsibilities and system automation. This is the ultimate level of automation.
Example: Sales management wants to introduce a new sales strategy. The invoicing team, lease accounting team, and operations have no concerns as their systems are not impacted by changes in any other part of the system.
Advantages:
- In addition to exponential scalability, systems can be adapted more quickly to seize opportunities, incorporate new innovations, and counter emerging threats. This is because the different parts of the system don’t rely on each other as much, so changes in one area don’t cause problems in other areas of the business.
- Business analytics can provide accurate views of the business from every angle based on the desired context, such as accounting principles, lease-payment attribution, sales performance, and revenue-yield metrics.
- New technologies and third-party systems (e.g., programmatic mediation, attribution, artificial intelligence, yield-management metrics, automated RFPs) can be incorporated based on your business practices and goals.
Self-Assessment - How Automated Are You?
This quick questionnaire will help you to gauge your current level of automation, and highlight areas where your systems and processes could be more automated than they are.
The Future of OOH is Level 4 – Adaptive Automation
In order to take advantage of the future of OOH, you must have (and fully implement) a system nimble enough to meet complex and creative customer needs without negatively impacting other areas such as billing, lease payments, and scheduling.
- Automatically sell digital space to the highest bidder.
- Sell any type of ad, not just OOH.
- Calculate campaign impact
- Deliver targeted demographics
- Adjust rates with artificial intelligence
- Turn around RFPs instantly
Apparatix is Your Level 3 & 4 Solution Provider
- Apparatix is the only software in the industry that offers comprehensive Level 3 and Level 4 capabilities.
- Apparatix is exclusively for out-of-home operators, based on years of industry knowledge and experience.
- Our product roadmap places you on the cutting edge of innovations in the industry, and our software puts you in the driver seat to implement and profit on those opportunities immediately.
Our team is here to help you maximize your current Apparatix environment, or to discuss the onboarding process. Reach out to us today!