Modern companies use automation in almost every facet of their business. From reducing costs to generating more insights from value-added work, automation offers several benefits. However, data underlies most automated sequences.
Specifically, data integrations power automated workflows by removing silos and giving companies a centralized platform from which they can execute their functions. Automated tasks usually replace rote manual tasks that call for workers to compare two or more datasets.
For example, cash application within finance departments calls for workers to match payment data with customer invoices, a task that is much better suited to a machine. By pulling those different datasets together, a machine can automatically scan and match information, highlighting the power of data integration behind an automated sequence.
Here are a few other business functions where automation is powered by critical data integrations.
Sales Pipelines
Sales teams rely heavily on prospecting and outreach to fill pipelines. These tasks are time-consuming when done manually. Sales teams would comb company directories to identify the right contact people, dig deeper to find phone numbers or emails, and spend time crafting the right message to engage these people.
Follow-ups were even more time-consuming since salespeople would lose context between communications, leading to them to start from scratch with every response or outreach message.
Automation has dramatically reduced outreach execution times thanks to data integration.
Outreach platforms scrape company social media data to build employee lists, giving sales teams a ready directory to choose from. They help salespeople craft engaging sequences by monitoring open and response rates of other users on the platform, giving sales teams data-backed templates to choose from.
Sales teams also automate responses based on triggers, giving them more time to focus on overall campaign performance. Modern sales enablement platforms also integrate RFP and RFQ data from databases, giving sales teams a picture of buyer intent.
By integrating all these datasets, salespeople can screen for prospects with the right title, in the right company demographic, exhibiting the right behavior, and craft engaging sequences automatically.
The result is a robust pipeline and shorter sales cycles.
Payroll Management
Payroll is every company's biggest expense, and HR integrations are pivotal to automatically executing these workflows. Automated payroll uses HR data to identify critical employee information and releases payments to the person's bank account.
These workflows also automatically create accounting and compliance records for filing purposes.
For instance, an automated job might use data from HR platforms to retrieve an employee's name, employment status, and payment details, pushing aggregate payment amounts to accounting platforms, and filing payroll records with regulators before deadlines.
By configuring a few variables and triggers, payroll administrators can withhold the right amounts from paychecks for taxes and calculate taxes owed correctly. The result is greater efficiency and lower costs. Best of all, companies don't have to worry about payroll compliance fines.
Strategic Financial Planning
Businesses face uncertain times, and data is helping them navigate these storms. Financial planning and analysis (FP&A) has become an integral part of modern finance departments. FP&A platforms rely on several data integrations to create revenue, budget, and efficiency projections.
For instance, FP&A professionals often model the revenue and cost impact of international expansion. To successfully build a model, the FP&A analyst draws existing revenue data, payroll information, industry salary benchmarks, and expense trends within the company.
The FP&A platform then automatically projects future costs, creating models based on different assumptions. While company executives see the extrapolated projections, analysts recognize the importance of connecting various data sources that power them.
As a result, companies can project their prospects with reasonable accuracy, leading them to make better decisions in the long run.
Inventory Management
Modern retail chains have online and physical storefronts, and this makes inventory management challenging. A customer might order a product online and expect to pick it up in-store. These omnichannel buying experiences make real-time inventory management a necessity, something only an automated job can execute.
Inventory management platforms maintain a global book of inventory across all channels, helping retailers manage orders easily. These platforms pull inventory data from warehouses and stores and update them with data feeds from order management systems in real-time.
These platforms also help customers locate products in alternative locations. For instance, a customer could order a product from a store in a different zip code if that product isn't available in the store closest to them.
Thanks to integrating order and inventory data from different sources, retail inventory management is simple and accurate.
Procurement
Procurement is an important supply chain function, and automation is helping companies connect sales and inventory data to reordering workflows. Procurement platforms monitor product sales and inventory levels, matching them with supplier lead times to ensure companies order raw materials at the right time.
This process can be tricky to execute manually and could lead to surplus or less inventory.
Thanks to automation and data integration, companies can carry lean inventories, reducing storage costs, and ensuring they have all the supplies they need to cater to customers.
Procurement platforms also integrate with broader supply chain systems to automate supplier management, logistics, and retail deliveries. The result is an efficient supply chain that runs like clockwork and accounts for seasonal variations in demand.
Data Integration Is the Key to Automation
A platform's ability to automate processes usually draws everyone's attention. However, data integration is the plumbing that keeps automation going. As these examples show, modern businesses need data integration to power several business functions.
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