Automation is a word that can sound intimidating in an age where A.I. almost feels like it’s taking over.

But automations using A.I. are nothing to be afraid of; they’re simply algorithms that can collect and analyze data in seconds rather than hours, or processes that allow us to utilize that data (without having to do the difficult, complicated, and time-consuming parts ourselves).

Here automation doesn’t mean robots instead of employees – or any of those other fears going around – but simply saving our employees a few hours a day and giving them new ways to do their job more effectively.

Below are some of the most common types of automations and A.I. used in business.

Sales Enablement

For software which aims to help a business use its data to increase sales and efficiency, automations are often in the form of sales enablement tools. For example, automatic alerts that tell you when you should call a client, when a customer is shopping online, or even when an account may be at risk. There’s also automated appointment and activity scheduling, or even auto-generated reports to help you keep track of your business.

Sales Recommendations

Some AI-powered systems can even provide you with product recommendations to sell your customers. Different systems offer different algorithms for this, but these recommendations might be bestseller lists, previously purchased items, items frequently purchased together, or others. These automatic suggestions let your sales reps can take advantage of every cross-selling and upselling opportunity available, and make it easy for all of them to do so with every single sale.

Workflows

Workflow automations can automatically schedule activities and send invoices or other messages to customers so information never gets lost and manual effort doesn’t get in the way of vital information getting out.

Emails

Marketing email automations are another very useful one, and allow you to automatically send emails based on specific customer and product criteria. Sometimes these can also be set for internal emails that notify your team members of things such as products going out of stock or coming back in stock.

License Checks

Automated compliance tracking can be very useful for industries with strict regulations, like pharmaceutical, alcohol, or tobacco distribution. Regular automatic checks of licenses – especially with alerts for expired ones – can remove the tedious work of manually checking and looking up each individual license to make sure it’s up to date, and can help avoid any costly fines or penalties.  

Whether it’s increasing sales, saving time, or understanding and utilizing all of your data, automations are the way to go. And as more and more businesses optimize their processes with them, those who don’t may get left behind. Have you added automations to your business?

P.S. SupplyMover has all of these automations (we go above and beyond for our distributors), make sure to see a free demo below if you want to learn more!