Using Cloud Office Automation to Align Business and IT

Cloud office automation is the core building block for both departmental process improvement initiatives and for broader, organization-wide transformation. Without automation of core office processes, most digital transformation efforts rest on a foundation of sand.

Of course, an employee’s view of office automation varies depending on their role. Organizations need to incorporate these different perspectives in their change management strategies when “selling” a new enterprise software solution.

The Worker Perspective

For example, when I speak with individual knowledge workers, I hear things like, “Stop wasting my time on the same thing over and over” and “I just need the right document at the right time -- how can I tell whether this is the latest version?”

They don’t care HOW this is done. If the organization can’t provide a way to do it, they’ll find their own consumer solutions.

The Line-of-Business Manager Perspective

Line-of-business manager or process owners want to improve the speed, clarity and accuracy of decision making. They want to eliminate manual shuffling and disorganized storage of documents. They want to assume ownership of improving their own processes.

Most importantly, they don’t want to wait in a long IT development queue laden with complex policies and delayed decision-making. If they can’t get what they want from IT, they’ll likely go find a single process SaaS solution.

IT Leadership Perspective

IT leaders don’t want to be left holding the bag for a bunch of disconnected consumer solutions adopted by individual knowledge workers. They don’t want LOB executives to grab single purpose SaaS solutions without regard to how these solutions fit together across departments.

They want to build and extend corporate technology stacks with fewer integration challenges and more predictability.

Cloud Office Automation Brings Them Together

Cloud office automation is central to addressing all three sets of expectations. It works best in document-centric business workflows where time spent by knowledge workers needs to shift from tedious, manual tasks to more strategic “deep work” that provides meaningful value to your organization.

These workflows are often found in the business office of an organization. Departments like human resources, accounting, legal, procurement and others use repeatable processes that break down into steps, assignments and decisions.

At the heart of these processes are documents, and cloud office automation is key to bringing together knowledge workers, process owners, and IT into a single information management strategy.