When security and data sovereignty is top priority, integrating automation initiatives can be challenging.  Choosing an automation platform that will meet enterprise security and governance standards is paramount. 

In a survey conducted by Forrester last year, just under half of respondents said they plan to up their automation investments in the coming year to increase agility, resilience and efficiency. 

Russell Glover, MD of leading workflow automation services provider, Linxus, explains: “The accelerated effort of securing process automation solutions to meet new ways of work due to COVID brings some unseen challenges.  

“Line of business leaders seeking out solutions to solve efficiency challenges and are finding that although automation is achievable, corporate and IT governance requirements can stand in the way.  This is one of the areas where line of business leaders and IT governance must come together to prevent these hurdles. It is imperative that alignment between pre-determined IT governance principles and line of business automation requirements are aligned and don’t slow the continuous improvement process.” 

The linking of ad-hoc and unstructured processes with business apps and fully automated workflows can deliver significant benefits that span an enterprise’s end-to-end business processes. 

Glover advises that service providers should form collaborative partnerships with business and IT, to help align governance and / or security requirements for automation integration.  Workflow automation platforms can in fact be used to assist in this process, he points out. 

”Many organisations require safeguards be put in place to prevent process changes being made, or new processes being implemented without following an internal approval. Workflow automation platforms can be used to sort, move, and set permissions requirements on files, on a regular basis, without the need for intervention. When used to aid finance and HR departments, for example, administrators can safely access, update, and store sensitive financial and employee data using a secure platform. 

“This level of automation helps ensure confidential employee and client information cannot be seen and accessed by unauthorized individuals,” he adds. 

Turning paper into a digital document is only the first step. By considering security levels and adhering to corporate IT governance principles, workflow automation can assist in driving work efficiencies and enhance organisational security levels. 

“Improving access to data elevates the level of intelligent automation and maximises the benefits in transforming an organisation’s business operations. The more structured data is available, the more valuable these systems become,” concludes Glover. 

Linxus provides workflow automations from global low-code / no-code vendors including Nintex, K2, and the full Microsoft Power Platform suite of solutions and rapid application development skills in many different environments. 

For further information about the Linxus digital process automation service offerings, please contact one of our automation experts.

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Companies are finding a faster way to resolve cost optimization through business automation – by leveraging digital process automation as a service.  Digital process automation (DPA) has grown in stature over the past year as the pandemic has called for many to review their IT budgets and align with the demands for accelerated flexibility and remote work offerings from line of business leaders.

DPA helps companies create completely automated process solutions. With the right digital process automation, applications replace human or manual requirements to manage processes and digital workflow.

Switching to a DPA service offering allays any fears of long-term licensing and upgrade requirements, integration complications and searching for skilled developers who can manage and integrate business requirements. It provides the technology, skills and support required, at a set monthly rate and considerable cost savings. Customers no longer need to make expensive investments in tools, skills or license maintenance to realise returns.

Linxus MD, Russell Glover, comments: “As a digital process automation company, we find that our clients are seeking immediate solutions in the current trading environment.  Automation has often been a lengthy process, complicated by the need to orchestrate change throughout the business.  By employing DPA as a service, our clients no longer have the hassle of identifying the right technology or knowing the coding intricacies to automate their specific workflow process.  In short, they outsource the challenge to us, and we manage it for them, from beginning to end.”

Multiple technologies

Linxus established itself in the market over seven years ago as a solution provider of workflow automation. Working across multiple technologies and platforms, the company offers leading technology expertise including K2, Nintex, Microsoft Power Platform and rapid application development skills in many different environments.

“Ultimately, heads of department are those that are now calling for change and wanting to optimize and respond quickly to the changing business environment.  Being able to offer business-driven solutions greatly assists in creating efficiencies through automation at speed,” adds Russell.

Other key benefits that using digital automation as a service are:

• Enhanced digital experiences for across customer, employee and supplier environments
• Alignment of LOB and IT budgets to business strategy
• Fixed monthly expense, removing any capex liabilities and freeing up infrastructure and storage resource
• Immediate access to skilled professionals for support and technical expertise

For further information about the Linxus digital process automation service offerings, please contact info@linxus.co.za or visit www.linxus.co.za.

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­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Automation is so often discussed in tandem with efficiency – finding better ways of working.  To automate something is commonly said to make that thing more efficient, whether it’s people and how they do their jobs, processes and their outcomes, or an overall business and its day-to-day operations.  After the seismic shifts of 2020 moving digital transformation into the fast lane, automation has found a new partner: simplicity. 

We looked to the year ahead to see how linking people and processes will be taking the front row in many technology trend predictions.  Our work is simplifying the way that work is done, how processes produce intended outcomes, and how a business runs.  Here are four of the trends we’ll be focusing on to assist businesses tackle 2021:

1.            Addressing the complexities of IT

In 2021, automation will be applied to remove complexity wherever possible.  This is, in part, to address the realities of remote work and a great deal of ongoing uncertainty.  However, it is also as a result of IT having become fundamentally more complex than ever.  The old computer science adage that “we are always just moving complexity around” seems to have caught up with IT teams over the pandemic.  The complexity has been exposed. The search for simplicity is no longer about shifting complexity to another stack. Simplicity, repeatability, and automation will win over being “bleeding edge” simply for the sake of it.

Investing in high-value automation with the least complexity will be the focus for most infrastructure and ops teams in 2021. Automating tomorrow’s growth is the focus for the future.

2.            An orchestrated view

Orchestration will be the overseer in 2021 for forward-thinking digital businesses.  Orchestration demands a high level of decision making based on changing conditions and requirements. Automation forms part of the strategy by helping to reduce or replace human interaction to perform tasks in order to reduce cost, complexity, and errors.  It can be enabled through a full digital ecosystem, when the two are partnered, creating cross-domain automated workflows and a more strategic level of digital transformation.

3.            Customers will dictate workflows

More organisations will accelerate their digital transformation efforts to facilitate more flexibility and agility. As customer interactions shift further to digital in the new normal, the digitisation of customer and supply-chain interactions will become more commonplace.  Industry must meet changing customer demands by digitising business processes and workflows.

The impact of digital transactions, payment innovations, and online interfaces will radically transform how we view digital transformation strategies and frameworks across the customer and supplier experience spectra. 

4.            LOB need for speed

More than half of Line of Business (LoB) tech users are frustrated at the speed their organisations’ IT department can deliver digital projects.  This ‘need for speed’ will drive low-code / no-code adoption at a faster pace than ever before. According to Gartner, 75% of large enterprises will be using at least four low-code development tools for both IT application development and citizen development initiatives, by 2024. And 65%+ of application development activity will be because of low-code application development, by 2024. These trends will enable tech savviness, demand and ability across LoB.

We have seen so much change this year.  The acceleration of digital transformation projects, remote work infrastructure, cloud adoption and more.  Our view is that this is the slowest it will get. Change will only come faster with the snowball of automation picking up momentum.

Accelerated delivery is going to be the order of the day for 2021.

Increasing pressure on costs, and renewed expectations for speed will demand that. To streamline processes in the digital ecosystem of your business, ask us about the many workflow applications and digitization solutions we have created. We do this at unprecedented speed and drastically reduced cost, both for the cloud and on-premise environments.

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Creating, participating in, and exploiting digital ecosystems is at the heart of digital transformation strategy. If anything, COVID has taught us that we need to be even more aggressive about digitization to adapt and meet the needs of employees, suppliers and customers in the value chain. And with digital transformation accelerating at a rapid pace because of this, it’s no surprise that the impact of harnessing these digital ecosystems brings some challenges. 

A recent poll by K2 and The Harris Poll proves that process automation is key to thriving in the post-COVID world.  With nearly 6 in 10 business facing challenges maintaining operational efficiencies in a distributed environment, there is a heavy reliance on developing new processes and automating legacy ones. 

Right information at the right time

A key factor is ensuring that remote workers can view and modify data applicable to their role, and have tasks assigned to them based on their responsibilities.   Having access to the right information at the right time could be the difference between success and failure for an automated process and ultimately, the business. With vast quantities of data now available, obtaining the ‘right’ information by the ‘right’ person is pivotal.  

Data, both structured and unstructured, plays an integral role in almost every business process, from onboarding clients at a bank to providing healthcare services to patients in a hospital.  People have been separated from paper files, person-to-person processes have been disrupted, and companies have had to take on new automation priorities. There are new loads on back-office systems that simply cannot be supported with current technologies. 

To automate at scale, business first need to think about technology governance. They need to ensure that the right people are making decisions and executing change, from technology experts to business experts to change managers, and people who inform their decisions, like customer experience and GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance) professionals. 

Easy and secure access to information is critical in any business environment. As data is easily accessed and distributed, it’s equally important to ensure it is secure, and only accessed by authorised users.  

The bottom line is that to enable a swift and efficient digital ecosystem, users must be able to access and process the correct data, in a secure and compliant way, as swiftly as possible.   

Until recently, most businesses used on-premises enterprise content management (ECM) systems to capture, organize, store and manage company documents and other information required for day-to-day processes and decision-making. 

Many of these systems also supported risk management and compliance, by meeting internal data policies and regulatory obligations. By assigning user permissions and privileges, content was kept secure and designated users had access to relevant, up-to-date content. Also, with all information housed on one platform, managers had clear visibility over the lifecycle of content – from creation through every edit and interaction by identified users. 

Distributed workforce demands more

But in a digital ecosystem, data streams in from multiple sources, in diverse formats and new technologies are applied to help organise and distribute this overwhelming influx. And with a more distributed workforce, users want increased access to collaborate in shared digital workspaces via mobile devices or online platforms. 

Automated workflow platforms, and integrated email access, makes it possible to track how content is being used from any system across workflows, which makes it easier to monitor compliance with internal rules and regulatory obligations. Data trails support evidence of compliance, should this ever be required by auditors or regulatory authorities.  Finally, IT can maintain all regulatory and compliance standards, no matter whether people are working remotely or not. 

To find out more about how we are helping our clients manage the shift to digital using low-code / no-code application development platforms like K2 and Microsoft Power Platform, and adhering to governance and security regulations, contact us on info@linxus.co.za. 

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Harnessing customer expectations to drive business transformation has never happened so fast.  As customer interactions shift further to digital in the new normal, leaders have accelerated the digitisation of customer and supply-chain interactions by years.  Industry is leaping ahead to meet changing customer demands by digitising business processes and workflows.

The impact of digital transactions, payment innovations, and online interfaces are assisting to radically transform how we view digital transformation strategies and frameworks.  This new-found digital enthusiasm translates directly into workflow efficiencies and the end-to-end integration of processes. 

Consumers live in micro-moments

In financial services, for example, consumers live in micro-moments, with ease of access and exposure to a large and diverse set of digital services.  They are no longer satisfied with just getting what they want. Today’s consumer demands flexibility in how and where they engage financial services to get what they want. FinTech has leapfrogged legacy systems by reshaping financial services at a rapid pace. EY’s Global FinTech Adoption Index 2019 shows 82% consumer FinTech adoption in South Africa and is expected to increase even further, with the country ranking third in future growth behind only China and India and sharing the position with Russia.  

Legacy workflows and manual systems can take years to transform.  Embedded in cultural, technological, and systemic complexities, change has often been expensive and time-consuming to execute. Driven by changing trading environments over the past year, including remote work, contactless delivery, and online transactions, among many other factors, companies report that their technology strategies have now been “pushed over the tipping point.”

Automation and digitization workflows

Central to this is the automation and digitization of workflows.  Understanding customer touchpoints and tailoring each step in the customer journey can shape efficiencies and accelerate the integration of processes, technologies, and competencies across the board.  The micro-moments in a customer journey translate into micro-processes and workflows that can be automated, accelerated and innovated. 

The hidden success factor in this speed to market is the advent of low-code / no-code development platforms.  Visual software development environments have brought much-needed agility to change mission-critical and sophisticated applications at the core of the ecosystem, without costly investments of the past.

If you are looking to streamline processes in the digital ecosystem of your business, reach out to us. Linxus has created many workflow applications and digitization solutions at unprecedented speed and drastically reduced cost, both for the cloud and on-premise environments.

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Recent Gartner predictions say South Africa will finish 2020 as the 4th fastest-growing major IT market in the world – mainly due to increasing cloud adoption.  Added to that, McKinsey advises business that the journey to the cloud needs to be accelerated to digitise quickly and effectively in the wake of COVID-19.  

New digital experiences

What is clear when considering cloud adoption, is that cloud platforms can help deploy new digital experiences in days, rather than months.  It goes without saying that digital transformation would be nearly impossible if left to traditional technology platforms. 

However, selecting the wrong approach for cloud migration is one of the top pitfalls that leaders cite recently.  The work involved is often underestimated and too often, costs exceed initial projections.  Added to this complexity is the risk of security in an unfamiliar offsite environment.    

The accelerated impact of COVID-19 on digital transformation has meant cracking the code to swift and selective migration of legacy data and documents without draining scarce technical or financial resources.  Shifting, storing and accessing data in the cloud has never been more important. 

What if you could?

Linxus recently introduced a custom integration for bulk migration to Microsoft Azure blob storage.  It has been expressly designed to shift legacy storage to a more efficient, secure and accessible platform.  

Organisations looking to shift from legacy online storage solutions or business record management to Microsoft Azure blob storage have found this migration toolset invaluable.  In the financial services sector, they have already migrated legacy document storage solutions comprising terabytes of data and millions of documents, all within less than a week.  

Considering the volumes of data that we consume, store and access on a daily basis within business, it’s important that a modern enterprise document management solution makes it easy to lift and shift legacy content from traditional storage systems to the cloud.   

Low-code automation

The data migration solution is a low-code solution offering an automated approach to connect people with data, wherever they may be.  It provides simpler, safer, quicker ways to automate and achieve enterprise cloud document storage. 

To learn more about our cloud data migration solution, reach out directly to us on info@linxus.co.za. 

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Onerous, manual procurement tasks could soon to be a thing of the past, and modernizing could be the key to unlocking savings across the enterprise.  

eProcurement provides suppliers of all sizes access to opportunities and the ability to receive standardised electronic orders, manage complex bidding opportunities, and migrate supplier self-service functions online.  It is proven to reduce the overall cost of sales.  

eProcurement also reduces much of the manual work associated with offline processes and paper-based orders, giving procurement professionals more time to spend on building valuable relationships with their suppliers. 

Could eProcurement help enterprises find the efficiencies they seek? 

Since the 1980’s business ecosystems were driven towards digitisation and automation, resulting in sweeping changes in business behaviours and operating models. The onset of The 4th Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital change as never before. As a result, enterprises are increasingly turning to digital service providers to help them navigate through the complexities of the digital economy. 

How does it work? 

The digitisation of procurement processes brings efficiency and helps stave off losses due to poor sourcing and ineffective and bureaucratic procurement and payment processes.   By automating the supplier onboarding process, cycle times are reduced and the opportunity for maverick spend is all but eliminated.  The accuracy gained by automated mapping and matching of supplier documents within the procurement process also helps rule out opportunity for inconsistencies.   

Using pre-defined rules, enterprises can avoid unforeseen spend and have peace of mind that governance and compliance remain intact.   Moreover, a digital solution will provide far greater insights into transactions and process-related data for improved transparency, auditing, and reporting. 

With Linxus eProcurement, built on K2, we cover all facets of digitising and automating the procurement process. We believe that a holistic system that meets both internal and external compliance and requirements is critical for success.  To learn more about our digital procurement automation solution, visit our website or reach out directly to one of our consultants. 

Linxus eProcurement – built on K2 – gives you the power to transform the way you source what you need, when you need it. 

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If you are shifting to a remote workforce, your work is probably nearly done.  You’ve checked security, locked down VPN, made sure your teams have the devices and virtual platforms to communicate and collaborate. HR has issued a new remote working policy. You’ve probably even renegotiated your office rentals with a reluctant landlord. 

Although focused on shifting the workplace into the virtual realm, many are still seeking the efficiencies that workforce agility could bring.  Remote work is here to stay and the more efficiencies you can harness, the better your prospects are of a more profitable future.

We may have shifted ‘where’ work is done, now it is about ‘how’ it is done.

Automation has long been at the heart of conversations around work efficiencies and productivity. However, it wasn’t until the pandemic that many began to scrutinize business processes that could be automated in their true sense.

Automating low-value, repetitive tasks frees up teams and empowers employees with greater productivity and higher job satisfaction, removing the mundane and enhancing employee well-being.

Let’s look at some examples:

Data handling

Empower your employees with productivity tools that help handle data automatically through electronic signatures or automated authorization processes.  These simple, daily interaction tasks can remove wasted time and resource chasing process bottlenecks.  Governed by a set of pre-determined rules and counter-checks, automating data handling results in improved productivity, risk management and governance.

Process automation

Introducing digital solutions across time-intensive business processes can change overburdened administrative teams into strategic resources. Take the procure-to-pay process, for example.  By automating the entire process from need identification through to invoice approval and payment, businesses can free up their procurement team to add value to the process rather than being burdened with the manual tasks  of the past.

In both examples, seamless collaboration is integral. This relies to a large extent on connectivity and cloud platforms.   In a remote environment, it’s important to find the shortest path to access information and complete a task.  Cloud-based productivity tools and solutions are increasingly prevalent in today’s workplace for this purpose.  This includes third-party access, for example through a supplier portal in the procure-to-pay process.

Once digital processes and human interaction are integrated, and orchestrated, there are enormous benefits.  And the results keep scaling. The more you automate, the more your team is available to innovate.

If you’d like to find out how you can connect and automate your business processes to achieve this new world of remote work, call us or reach out on info@linxus.co.za.

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The sheer pace that organisations are demanding of their transformation projects calls for swift and agile change.  There is no room for onerous implementation.  It really does feel like we are in a “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it” moment.

Sprint for digital automation

In fact, there is a school of thought that DX should really be called Digital Automation.  The adoption of machine learning algorithms and use of artificial intelligence in digital experiences, for example virtual assistants or chatbots, is personifying this next phase of DX.  As companies sprint to thrive the new normal, automated processes and workflows are at the fore of their strategy.

Business process automation is, consequently, one of the best ways to accelerate and evolve processes—particularly in areas where automated processes can spread across the breadth of the business.  Tasks are shifted from being siloed, department-specific and manual to being streamlined, universally accessible and automated.

Increased demand and expectations for automation have been created by the remote worker environment, initially set up to cope with the pandemic but seemingly here to stay.  It is estimated that nearly 40 per cent of employee productivity is lost due to unorganised task-switching.  That does not take into account the 30 per cent of their day* that they spend manually looking for misplaced paperwork. Although we often think of automation primarily affecting low-skill, low-wage roles, we see that even the highest-paid occupations in the economy, such as financial managers, doctors, and senior executives, including CEOs, have a significant amount of activity that can be automated.

Licensed to automate

The hidden reality is that the tools (and licences) are often already available to the organisation.  Most medium to large organisations purchase the ability to automate their processes in enterprise licence agreements that cover the breadth of the organisation.  Most work activities are covered by licensed technology platforms. A study from McKinsey estimates that up to 45% of work activities could be automated using technology that already exists.  

The challenge, therefore, is not the technology but rather the skills to perform the transformation accurately and effectively.  At Linxus, we link people and processes by architecting, designing, building, and delivering automation to help transform businesses.  We set out to automate and reinvent how work is done – faster and at a reduced cost.  We are dedicated to modernizing processes and systems and helping to create efficiencies and profitability through improved digital experiences.

Over the years, we have built up an experienced team of professionals and an extensive network of partners, providing a rich source of expertise and skills to our customers. This makes a powerful and extensive set of technology solutions available to our customers seeking to embrace digital transformation, using what they have to create what they need. 

We are reinventing work, and there could not be a better time for it.  Our digital automation skills, technology and solutions are setting the scene to link people, process and technology and ultimately improve productivity and efficiency for the ‘new normal’.

Source: *IDC

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Most procurement departments realise the need to automate the source-to-pay processes to attain fundamental economic efficiencies.  The cost of IT upkeep, downtime and processing time spent on manual tasks and data organisation is taking its toll. However, achieving the full benefits of digital transformation can be daunting.  

The large and growing market of suppliers vying for services has created more pressure.  Selecting suppliers requires due diligence and hands-on testing of potential services.  There are governance and compliance standards to uphold.  Organisations are back to zero-based budgeting where nothing is guaranteed – from contractual terms to pricing. Everything is up for debate. 

While there is much hype around digital transformation with new technologies, many companies lack the basic digital infrastructure and data integration to implement them successfully.  

In a world where procurement is central to the success of business continuity, what will help accelerate success? 

Digital supply chains, linked by a secure, global platform for buyers and suppliers to collaborate on business transactions, and manage purchase orders, invoices, catalogues, and payments, are leading the way. 

Supplier communications are being improved and accelerated by implementing portals or online communications platforms.  These facilitate all aspects of supplier relations – onboarding, requisitions, purchase orders and invoice submission.   Suppliers use the portal to retrieve purchase orders, submit proof of deliveries and invoices online and view information on payments, queries or exceptions that may be preventing payment. 

The three key advantages of a supplier portal encompassing an automated procurement process are: 

Quicker processing 

Invoices are electronically captured, processed faster, and exception handling is simplified, making the payments process easier.

Better communications 

Suppliers can view the status of purchase orders and invoices online at any time and, with the addition of simple chatbots, can minimise human requirements for handling queries.

Information accuracy 

Suppliers can maintain their own company information, ensuring the most up to date and accurate invoice, payment, and supplier information. 

This is procurement gold.  With an accurate and efficient supplier communication process set up, businesses can accurately preserve their credit lines, maintain discount levels and effectively monitor account balances.   

The reduction in administrative workload impacts multiple areas across the supplier signup process, including pre-qualifying potential suppliers and capturing necessary compliance documents.  Non-compliance is automated through automatic alerts and notifications.

A robust supplier portal makes communicating with suppliers simple. It takes away the manual workload of notifications, reminders, check points, enquiries and follow ups. 

It’s a vital tool for running an efficient, productive supply chain – more so now than ever. If you haven’t yet automated your procurement tasks, speak to us and we’ll help you get your suppliers talking to you. 

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