Can’t believe how fast time goes by! It is already 1 year, since we launched KiSSFLOW . It as been a very eventful year and at the end of it we thought of doing some aggregate analysis to understand what kind of business process automation our users are performing on KiSSFLOW. Just to give you some background, KiSSFLOW has a few thousand companies using, piloting, and trialing our product. This together constitutes a few hundred thousand users. All our users have created and automated some business process or the other, we have here tried to consolidate these business process automation. So with no further adieu we present to you the top 7 business processes automated by our users. #7 Purchase Management / Vendor Related At the seventh place we have a category of processes related to various “Purchase” functions involved in an organization. These processes start from employees making a “Purchase Request ” (PR). The PR then results in “Purchase Order” process being issued to “Vendors”. “Vendors” seem to be usually managed as a “Master” list. There are also supplementary processes involved in adding a new Vendor to these masters. And, finally there are processes to track payment made towards the POs. There seem to be around 4 – 5 process working together to help automate the “Purchase” function of a Small & Medium Business (SMB).
- Purchase Requisition
- Purchase Order
- Payments
- Vendor / Supplier Master Management
#6 Order Management / Customer Related These processes start kicking in as a result of a “deal closure” in sales. Typical processes that get automated under this category are:
- Sales Order
- Sales Invoice
- Sales Receipts (i.e collections from customers)
- Customer / Client Master Management
#5 Finance Related Finance is linked to money and that calls for checks and balances to enforce control. That probably explains why most of the financial processes automated in KiSSFLOW involve a lot of conditions and checks. Most finance processes automated, seem to require explicit approval from business heads, department heads and C-Suite executives. The below mentioned processes would give you an idea of what finance folks are automating using KiSSFLOW. 
- Budget Approval
- Cheque Requests
- CapEx Approval
- Credit Note & Debit Note Approval
- Investment Approval
#4 IT Related IT teams are one of the dominant groups using KiSSFLOW that probably explains why there seem to be a lot of IT Related processes created in KiSSFLOW. It is also interesting how the kinda processes implemented in this category show the least variance as compared to processes automated in other categories.The processes that are automated in this category include.
- Issue Tracking
- IT Asset Tracking
- Change Request
- Network, Email, Firewall provisioning / access request
#3 Sales & Marketing Related Processes Sales and Marketing is of-course the lifeline of any company and it is no surprise to see this in the top 5 list. The processes that are commonly automated in this category are:
- Campaign Management
- Deal Registration
- Quotes & Proposals
- Leads & Inquiry Management
- Lost Sales
#2 Unique Processes This is what we would probably call the “Long Tail of Business Processes Automation”. There a number of unique processes created and automated in KiSSFLOW that are specific to their line of business and geography. And which just cannot be generalized into any particular category. Looking at the following examples will give you some idea on what we are talking about: 
- Find a Mentor
- Fire Drill
- Congestion Management
- Home Tutoring
- Land Acquisition
#1 Employee (HR) Related Processes The #1 process category that tops our list is “Employee Related Processes”. These are simple processes that are unique to the company, yet that follow a generalized pattern. These processes are predominantly employee focused and help in solving requests made by employees for things that are trivial to things that are vital. Some example processes that are being automated that fall under this category are: 
- Travel Request and Expense Claim Approval
- Vacation , Leave, Paid Time Off (PTO) Request cum Approval
- Appraisal Management
- Hiring and Recruiting
- Time logging, Time Tracking, Timesheet
I guess it makes a lot of sense – right?! For any company employees are the biggest assets and their needs have to be taken care as top most priority and no wonder “Employee Related Processes” top the list !
So what are the kind of business processes that you automate at work?
The post Top 7 focus areas in SMB business process automation appeared first on .