3pm already and you’re still doing the same data entry? Let the robot handle it
Remember that feeling? It’s 4:45 PM Friday right? You wanted to head home early but you are still doing work transferring customer data from WhatsApp to Excel. It is just copying and pasting over and over again. Maybe you are sending the same “Thank you for your payment” email to every customer in your emails. It’s not that the work is difficult; it’s just taking up too much of your precious time. When people her about “AI,” many end up getting really panicked about it. They think that they will be replaced or that you need to be a tech geek to use one. The fact is that the best form of automation will not force you to change everything about your life, but instead simply sits in the background. We’ve spoken to friends who have retail stores in Petaling Jaya, small agencies from Penang and even a few freight companies in Johore and everyone says that they are tired and frustrated. For the “smart ones” though, they’re implementing software to take care of the repetitive stuff. So… before you pull your laptop out the window, let’s go through this AI automation software guide as if we were just chilling over a mamak meal.
Why does your team feel like you’re running on a hamster wheel?
There are many Malaysians that are hard at work, so it’s not laziness that causes the issue. It’s that in order to move data from one program to another program for example to take a name from Google Sheets and copy it into an email. In order to move from an invoice to a tracking system, you have to re-type the address into the system and that requires both human intelligence and creativity. For example, when you are transferring data, such as a name from cell A of an Excel spreadsheet to an email message, you must individually enter the data from A to B and from B to C being three times the number of entries and with no communication made between those applications.
I saw this first hand observing a small bakery owner in SS15. Where she spent a lot of her evening typing in the orders from the day after to her staff on WhatsApp . Then retyping those same orders onto a kitchen list and again sending those same orders to the customer via text message.
So for each order she had to enter the same information three times into the three different applications. When she finished all of her order processing she had no energy from her baking, but 100% exhausted from all the copy and pasting. This is one of the best reasons for implementing AI workflow automation tools into your business. Because they work between applications to eliminate the need for you to do this repetitive work. You don’t have to be a programmer or developer to use these tools to do this repetitive work.
Wait, isn’t setting this up very leceh?
I understand that the term “Automation” can create the impression. That you should employ an Bangladesh Indian worker to manage your servers and build Python scripts. The fantastic thing about the AI automation software guide is that there are a number of different platforms out there for you to pick from. For example, no-code AI automation platforms. “Low-code” or “No-code” just means… Drag and drop! Think of it like arranging your icons on your phone screen. You don’t have to write code, you simply provide the AI platform with, “When this occurs (New email received) perform that (Save attachment to Google Drive).”
For example, I helped a small insurance agent from Melaka set this up. He was manually moving the names of his clients from their email signature into his CRM every week which would take about 8 hours a week. We used a no-code AI automation platform. It took us about 20 minutes to connect his Gmail to his Excel Spreadsheet. With this connection in place, the AI now just monitors the agent’s inbox. When it sees any email containing the word “Policy” it takes the Email sender’s name and adds it to the Excel spreadsheet list. The agent does not need to touch the workbook, the Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) is doing all the work for him. It is not Skynet. It is simply a very compliant digital intern who does not require EPF or SOCSO to work for you.
Can this really handle the messy way we work in Malaysia?
You may say, “but my SOP is not perfect and my employees use 3 different chat applications (WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.) and even sometimes just yell across the room.” You are not wrong. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) found in Asia are very un-organised; therefore, we do not have “enterprise” solutions. However, Business Process Automation (BPA) AI is designed to handle disorganisation and has been able to do so for a while. To elaborate; when you consider marketing automation AI tools, if a cafe in Penang wants to send a birthday voucher, normally it would take the staff an extended period of time to scroll through Facebook. They would find the birthday of the customer, write out a message and then send it.
But using a cloud-based automation platform, the AI checks the customer list for you every morning at 8:00 am, if the birthday is today then it will trigger an SMS to be sent to the customer; done. It runs behind-the-scenes like an air conditioning; you cannot see it, but you can tell the difference. Also, using AI Task Automation Software to automate the invoicing process. You take a picture of a receipt, the AI reads the text using OCR, extracts the total from the receipt and enters it into your accounting book. This is how AI digital transformation tools comply with their own definitions of removing friction. For the companies that are growing but do not want to hire 5 additional admin employees, an enterprise automation software solution is a huge benefit for them by helping them handle both the volume of work as well as ensuring that their quality remains high.
Is it expensive to get started?
The good news is that a lot of different automation platforms have no cost for entry or are in the same price range as a couple of cups of coffee each day. They also come in many shapes and forms. For example, many of the productivity tools use AI as an auto-completion suggestion tool that learns your typing patterns. They provide suggestions to auto-complete sentences and also to provide responses to customer inquiries (for example, sending a follow-up email). The AI software uses the following logic: “If I notice you’ve spent 10 hours each week on report generation, I can provide that report after you’ve finished typing in two minutes.”
You can use workflow integration tools (such as Zapier and Make (formerly Integromat)) to automate tasks between your applications. These tools are the king of creating connections between your applications. Additionally, AI system integration tools will help your legacy application to communicate with your new website. Without these tools, there will be a “data island” between the two applications. With them, data moves. You can also use AI operations optimization tools to help you identify areas where time is leaking out of your operation. Which allowing you to implement an AI business automation guide without having to automate everything on Day 1. The best place to start is with the most annoying task you do.
Where do I start without breaking my existing workflow?
Leave your current systems that are functioning well alone. If you have an existing SQL database or if you still use an Excel spreadsheet from decades ago, hang onto them since you won’t do a digital transformation by throwing everything away. Start with one bridge. What do you dislike the most about your current workflow? The “sigh” you make when you sit at your desk early in the morning at 9 a.m. Do you have to manually enter information? Use an AI task automation application that will read PDFs for you. Do you need to follow up with customers via email? Use an AI marketing automation program to automatically send them a “We Miss You” email.
I know one logistics coordinator located in Klang who used to manually input 50 shipments into 50 different websites every hour to see if they had been delivered. When the package arrived, he had to open all 50 tabs in his web browser. He found an AI-based workflow automation that checks all 50 tracking numbers every 30 minutes. When one of them changes status to “Delivered”, he is notified. This means he no longer has to check the websites for delivery updates. The websites check in with him now without his checking them. By using this AI solution, he was able to set it up in approximately one hour but saved 10 hours each week in time spent tracking shipments. There are local companies, including BidaTech AI. They are working to help businesses similar to this, however for simple processes. You don’t need to spend the money and time on a consultant. All you need is the confidence to have the machine perform 5 percent of your day-to-day operations. Start small. Let the robot do the copying and pasting, you do the thinking.