The digital workflow: How does the company fit into the digital transformation process?
Firstly, it must be understood that workflow is a fundamental tool in the process of planning business activities. By reducing the likelihood of uncertainty, tasks become more effective, efficient and controllable, making it possible to better manage and realise objectives. It is also intended, through the workflow tool, to increase and maximise subsequent functions that allow for greater dynamics of the processes that form part of a roadmap, the purpose of which is to improve production processes.
Describing and characterising the existing inputs, i.e. personnel, materials, equipment and other resources; developing the capacity and ingenuity to transform these inputs into products; and specifying the elements to be delivered, whose recipients are the clients, who ultimately contribute to a large extent to the satisfaction of the objectives set, essentially translate the elements that make up the workflow.
A closer approach allows us to understand that workflows serve as diagrams to determine the main components of any process, ordering the activities, selecting the precise symbols or references for each activity, establishing concomitances between tasks and indicating the beginning and end of the whole process. The aim is to establish structural improvements in order to achieve a more comprehensive division of labour from the point of view of departmental functioning. Also, to contribute to the delimitation of the responsibilities of each employee, making decision-making more effective and increasing the levels of internal communication.
Other elements such as: raising the levels of communication between work areas, saving time and money for future investment processes and integrating business processes to support the required coordination are only possible through the design of a business workflow.
Now, how important is the digitisation of this important tool? The answer lies in the advantages that new technologies offer today, allowing a greater streamlining of processes, by virtue of reducing the slowing down of activities and objectives. Greater automation eliminates the delays inherent in work based on manual processes and paperwork, making every business organisation an entity capable of maximising its efficiency, saving time and money. Having said this, the way in which the company enters the process of digital transformation, shows a challenge and a decision related to leadership, in order not to be left behind in a scenario of great global competitiveness.
The training of all company personnel in the use of new technologies, an essential step in the implementation of the digitalisation of work, favours the logistics that are deployed to achieve strategic objectives. The aim is to speed up the processes of change, maximising productivity levels.
If we look back a little, we must remember that the era of the digital transformation of the company began last century, back in the 60s when the first large enterprise-scale computer (Mainframe), an IBM, whose 360 system, allowed the digitisation of information flows that boosted decision-making at the corporate level. Subsequent inventions such as PCs, MS Windows, Client/Server, the Web, Mobile, among others, were of great importance to allow the change in working relationships known until then: invoicing systems, inventory control, accounts payable and payroll, transcended enormously, substantially modifying the way of doing business. At the same time, the creation of electronic mail (1970s) and the appearance of the web (1990s) modified the form of communication up to the present day, observing that technologies have been evolving by leaps and bounds, coexisting with each other and producing quantum leaps (third wave of the techno-scientific revolution) that have accelerated production, distribution and consumption relations in recent years.
Some examples are given of the current technological shift and how it is contributing to the further digitalisation of the company, deepening the logistical processes that are used in today's market relations:
The internet of things IOT (Internet of Things)This is a technological process that makes it possible to connect in real time through sensor systems consisting of chips, actuators, counters, cameras and other advanced elements related to robotics. The fact that objects interact in processes of detection, quantification, image transmission and data compilation is not just a matter of imagination, they are already being used today in the business world.
Big Data: Creating and multiplying data massively, achieving inference processes to predict changes at organisational level, efficiently developing stock and inventory control, increasing controls to prevent possible fraud and, facilitating product innovation by analysing in detail the behaviour of demand through the analysis of web pages, are just some examples of the benefits offered by this technology.
Paperless Office: The possibility of digitising the documentation generated at a business level is another advantage offered by new technologies. The basic objective is to eliminate unnecessary versions of documents, thus reducing the likelihood of human errors that could hinder the work of organising information. The reduction of time and space is striking when it is decided to digitise information that was in physical form.
Mobile App: applications designed and adapted to mobile phones make it possible to carry out any transaction, speeding up the supply and demand processes for goods and services, and facilitating relations between companies, customers and users.
Finally, it can be seen that the digital transformation process essentially translates the leadership of any company that intends to be broadly competitive in the current stage of the global economy. Its stability, evolution and even survival is inextricably linked to the technological innovation processes that are currently strengthening and driving the business world.