With the advent of OpenAI and ChatGPT, artificial intelligence has shifted its base from academia to the business world. In just a few years businesses have started adopting AI in some way or the other. 

This revolution has once again highlighted the importance of business automation. The buzz word these days is automation is AI and AI agents. For a typical business owner all this can appear like too much tech jargon couples with an expensive invoice. 

It is important for business owners to stay on top of the trends that disrupt the way we do business.

Automation and Automation with Artificial Intelligence are two different things. This article helps you in cutting through this fluff to understand the main differences and what you should do as a business owner. 

What is Business Automation? 

Business automation is the process of using automation solutions to manage repetitive tasks, so businesses can streamline workflows, drive revenue and thrive in challenging markets. 

To understand this better let’s consider a use case. 

In AxionTech we have customers who hire us on a monthly retainer basis. We have to send invoices to them every month. As the company grew, creating and sending invoices became a laborious process and was consuming too many man hours. 

We decided to automate the whole process. 

 

Use Case

We wrote a cronjob in Php that will run on the 1st of every month and generate invoices with appropriate information and send them out via email. To make this simple we integrated this Cronjob with our CRM.

In addition to that we also automated payment follow ups. We wrote another cronjob that runs every five days and sends out payment follow up emails to all those who did not make the payment. 

This simple automation saved us 12 man hours every month and 144 man hours a year.

 

 

Automation or Automation with AI

Speculation of automation with AI is all over us. You login into any social media platform and you can see posts that claim that AI is going to take over everything from humans and the human race is in danger and so on. 

In reality automation has been around even before the AI revolution. Businesses which have adopted automation earlier are finding it easy to adopt AI today as AI is only making their existing automation much smarter and efficient. 

If you are a business standing at the cusp of this technology trying to figure out what to do, then my suggestion would be to go with automation first. 

Don't break the bank in order to implement something that an influencer talked about online. 

Instead analyse what's your budget and what's right for you. 

If you are a business that has too many manual processes then you should first focus on automating them instead of thinking about AI. Sit with a consultant and decide what to automate and automate then first. Not much AI is required here. 

Once your business has adopted automation then think about adding the AI layer to supercharge your automation. 

 

Which Tasks to Automate?

Any task in your organization that is manual and monotonous can be automated first. 

Secondly any task where automation increases the organization's efficiency can be automated. 

As a business leader you can sit with your team and identify all manual time consuming activities and jot them down in a spreadsheet. 

Identifying what to automate is the first step towards automating tasks. 

Not Just for Tech Businesses

Business automation or business process automation is not just for tech companies or big enterprises. It is also for small and mid sized businesses. 

Automation ensures that precious man hours which could be used to push the business forward does not get wasted in repetitive inefficient admin tasks. 

It also makes businesses very competitive and empowers them to be nimble and agile which is very much required in current business scenarios. 

Why Businesses Are Turning to Automation

Running a business is hard. You wear multiple hats — sales , customer support, accounting, operations, marketing — and there’s never enough time.

Automation don’t magically fix everything. But they can take a lot off your plate.

Here’s why businesses — big and small — are embracing them:

 

To Save Time

Imagine if your invoices were sent automatically, and your leads followed up with — without you having to remember or do it manually.

 

To Cut Costs

You don’t need to hire 5 people for repetitive work. One smart automation can often do the job of a small team, freeing your actual team to focus on what matters.

 

To Reduce Mistakes

Humans get tired, distracted, or bored. Machines don’t. Once set up right, they just keep doing their job — consistently.

 

To Serve Customers Better

From faster replies on chat to personalized emails, businesses are using AI to make their customers feel heard — even if no human was involved in the first step.

 

Does This Mean Fewer Jobs?

Yes automation will reduce the need to have more employees doing more manual work. It will allow businesses to let go of some of their employees. 

Some routine roles will change or disappear, yes. But new roles are also being created — ones that require thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and emotional intelligence.

However it will also create new jobs and new business opportunities. So the smart move here is to adapt.

You Don’t Need to Be a Tech Wizard

For a non tech business owner technology and automation appear to be a tech jargon often thrown by the IT folks. 

Automation is like new age computers. 

Before the age of computers, invoices and bills were all written by hand. Since the advent of computers businesses have adopted it and are now churning out bills and invoices in just a few clicks. 

Think of business automation as the next revolution. So accept it instead of resisting.

Though it's an undeniable fact that automation can cost upfront capital expenditure. But if you look at the ROI of capital expenditure on automating tasks over a period of five years, it will be evident that you would have earned and saved more.  

The Future Is Now — But You’re Not Late

You don’t have to overhaul your business overnight.

Start small.

Pick one area that takes too much time or is too repetitive. Look for a tool that can automate it. Test it. Learn from it. Then move to the next.

That’s how transformation happens — one smart decision at a time.

For example, posting content on your social media pages can be automated with the help of Buffer. With Buffer your team can schedule social media content in bulk on Buffer and it will take care of publishing the content at the scheduled time. This saves a lot of time compared to publishing content manually on each social media.

Final Thoughts

AI and automation are not about robots taking over. They’re about helping you do better work, make smarter decisions, and focus on the things that truly matter in your business instead of getting stuck with manual processes. 

The future of business isn’t about working harder. It’s about working smarter — with the right tools by your side.

That future is already here. You just have to start using it.

 

Related Articles

1. Practical AI for Small Businesses: Lessons from Real Projects
2. Open Sourcing Hilfedesk - A web based helpdesk/customer support system

 

 

Subscribe to my newsletter

Subscribe