Where there’s a will, there’s a way—or, these days, a workflow. When it comes to completing tasks fast, workflow automation is a business’s best friend. Designed to streamline manual processes and bring structure to otherwise time-consuming, unstructured activities, this tool allows teams to get more done in less time.
Instead of logging into three different platforms, you might use an automated workflow to open just one. Twenty steps are condensed to five, emails are substituted by automatic alerts, and manual data entry is replaced by integrations. It can be a very reliable way to simplify business processes and improve your bottom line. Because when routine work flows, there's more time to focus on the things that really matter.
Introduction
What if there was a single solution you could use to run your business operations profitably and keep your employees actively engaged?
There is. It’s called workflow automation. A solid workflow management system provides a reliable way to unite different teams and departments as they work to get things done—whether that means onboarding new customers, approving new projects, accepting budget proposals, or accomplishing any number of mission-critical activities that must be completed day after day and week after week. These are just a few examples among thousands of repetitive tasks that can be replaced by automated workflows. In fact, when you consider all that can be automated, the opportunities are seemingly endless.
And therein lies the challenge. With the average business using 10 to 16 apps, creating a workflow management system to connect them all may prove to be problematic.
Amid the mountain of potential workflow management systems offered, we couldn’t help but wonder: What’s the true state of workflow automation today, and is it keeping pace with business needs?
Are companies embracing the power of workflow automation, or becoming overwhelmed by a never-ending array of options? Are managers harnessing the full power of workflow tools to effectively automate tasks? Or are outdated, disjointed business processes still causing issues?
We decided to find out.
Enter Formstack’s State of Workflow Automation Report
We surveyed hundreds of administrators and managers like you across a variety of industries in 2018. This survey was used to learn how workflows are being automated, identify common challenges, and find out what issues need to be addressed. In this report, you’ll find answers to questions such as:
What mediums and methods are managers relying on to automate workflows?
What are the biggest challenges affecting managers and administrators?
What are the top workflow automation problems that must be solved?
How to Use This Report
Managers and administrators at all experience levels will find value in this report.
First, take a look at the Key Findings and Key Insights to see how your current automated workflows (or lack of them) compare to those of your peers.
Next, by delving into the more in-depth Current State of Workflow Automation, you can get a better sense of what challenges may be standing in the way of greater productivity at your company.
Lastly, we recommend reviewing Workflow Automation Opportunities for ideas on what you can start doing today to better automate your own workflows.
Executive Summary and Major Findings
Methodology
To gain new insights on the current state of workflow automation in the U.S., we surveyed over 280 managers, directors, vice presidents, and C-level executives at small (10-99), medium (100-499), mid-sized (500-999), and enterprise (1000+) businesses. Here’s a snapshot of participants:
Key Industries and Departments
68% work in education and healthcare
34% work in marketing or sales
22% work in IT or technology
17% work in operations
16% work in finance, HR, or support
74% make administrative and/or process decisions for their companies
Key Findings
Among the business administrators we surveyed:
62% are using workflow automation tools
44% say their businesses have made a significant investment in workflow automation tools in the last 12-24 months
In what ways are these businesses using workflow automation?
76% use it for standardizing or automating daily workflows
58% use it for data/reporting for planning
36% use it for regulation or compliance purposes
How much time do these businesses spend on unstructured, manual data entry such as email and spreadsheet updates?
42% spend less than one hour per day
33% spend two to three hours a day
25% devote four or more hours per day
In addition:
62% have identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes that could potentially be solved with effective workflow automation:
54% cite poor communication as their organization’s most pressing challenge
44% cite repetitive errors
42% cite delays in project deployment
24% cite compliance
17% cite growing costs
When it comes to measuring the success of workflow automation tools, here’s how businesses gauge effectiveness:
59% look at overall improvement in their systems
33% look at improvements in employee or customer satisfaction
3% look at specific cost savings
Key Insights
Managers spend 8 hours a week on manual tasks. Managers say, on average, that they spend at least eight hours a week—one full work day’s worth of time—on manual data tasks, while 25% devote 20 or more weekly hours to these tasks. (That’s an average of four hours per workday!)
Those tasks are draining managers of valuable time that could otherwise be spent focusing on driving more strategic, high-value initiatives. The time and cost impacts of administrative work are significant.
4 in 10 organizations—both large and small—still use manual tools. Even with the evolution of cloud-based tools, we have not seen a dramatic increase in productivity and efficiency. In fact, many managers report that these new tools have the propensity to increase the number of information silos in a business and create more unnecessary manual tasks.
Poor communication tops managers’ workflow challenges. Managers say the top workflow challenge they face is poor communication (54%) followed by repetitive errors (44%) and delays in project deployment (42%). This overall lack of communication can increase the risk for mistakes and ultimately lead to a loss of stakeholder trust and less positive growth.
Automating workflows allows managers to focus on high-value initiatives. When workflows are automated, it leads to greater efficiency and allows managers to focus on high-value work that drives the organization forward. This, in turn, can lead to improved employee empowerment and happiness.
Workflow automation saves organizations thousands of dollars. Most respondents weren't able to cite a specific dollar amount saved by workflow automation tools, citing it was hard to measure or that they didn't have access to the information. However, those that could estimated anywhere from $10,000 to millions of dollars. On average, though, organizations are saving $46,000 annually.
What’s happening in education? Sixty-three percent of respondents working in education say their institution uses workflow automation tools. Within this industry, 30% spend two to three hours a day on manual data entry. Twenty-five percent devote four or more hours per day to these tasks.
What’s happening in healthcare? Although 63% of healthcare respondents use workflow automation tools, 67% spend eight or more hours a week on manual data entry. Meanwhile, 68% have identified as many as four inefficiencies in their business processes; 12% have identified five or more.
The Current State of Workflow Automation
How are administrators and managers currently using workflow automation tools?
First, we wanted to understand how many administrators or managers are using workflow automation tools, and why.
Are you currently using workflow automation tools?
Why does your organization use workflow automation tools?
Of those who use workflow automation tools:
76% use these tools to standardize or automate daily workflows
58% use workflow automation tools for data/reporting and planning
36% use workflow automation for regulation or compliance purposes
Next, we wanted to understand the top workflow automation challenges and bottlenecks in current business processes.
What workflow challenges does your organization most face?
How many inefficiencies or bottlenecks have you identified in your business processes?
A majority identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes. More than half (54%) of managers cite poor communication as their business’s most pressing challenge that needs to be addressed with workflow automation.
Workflow Automation Success Spotlight: See how PATLive brought in 240 new accounts after automating customer onboarding.
Top 3 Workflow Automation Challenges You Can Easily Solve
The managers represented in our study face several challenges that businesses need to address if they want to create more productive, profitable business environments through the use of workflow automation tools:
The challenge: Too much time spent on manual repetitive tasks
The solution: Improve automated workflows to free up time for more high-value initiatives
Based on the insights above, it’s evident that managers and administrators are still spending far too much time on mundane, manual work. By automating more workflows—and strengthening those that are already in place—companies can shift more hours to strategic initiatives that lead to growth.
The challenge: Unproductive, inefficient business processes
The solution: Seek out more intuitive, user-friendly tools
If current workflow automation tools aren’t intuitive and easy to use, it’s time to create tools that are. How? By streamlining multiple systems to a minimal number of platforms: The fewer apps you have to open to get something done, the better. Find tools that allow nontechnical users to build and update processes with ease, and steer clear of software that requires advanced coding knowledge and reliance on developers or IT.
The challenge: Information that’s divided and poorly communicated
The solution: Workflows that are flexible and easy to customize
When managers report that new cloud-based tools are increasing complexity and causing more work, that’s a sure sign it’s time to simplify. Businesses that succeed with workflow management will develop solutions that can be easily scaled to add new employees, extend to more departments, or enhance functionality.
Where Are Managers Most Struggling?
Managers are spending a substantial amount of time on repetitive, day-to-day tasks that don’t drive the business forward. Of those surveyed, 55% regularly spend time on administrative tasks that consume at least a full day of their work week, and 25% said they spend more than two days per week on these tasks.
We also asked managers about their level of confidence in the metrics they report to their bosses.
Are you confident in the accuracy of metrics you report?
In identifying some of their biggest obstacles to gathering reliable metrics, 65% of respondents said poor tracking parameters and too many reporting systems keep them from reporting more accurate data to their bosses. Another 10% had no clearly defined reporting requirements.
Key Takeaways
The abundance of manual tasks, often not part of a respondent’s core job function, is increasingly taking time away from managers’ abilities to focus on strategic initiatives that drive the organization forward.
This is often due to inefficient business processes and workflows that are difficult to track and measure.
What Are Their Biggest Roadblocks?
While much of managers’ time is being devoted to unstructured manual tasks, the current state of workflow automation within their organizations—often fraught with an overabundance of apps, tools, processes, and systems—isn’t solving this problem.
What is your top challenge in adopting workflow automation tools?
The bulk of managers in our survey cited poor communication, delays in project deployment, and repetitive errors as big roadblocks to creating effective workflows. When it comes to adoption of workflow automation tools, the biggest obstacles are not cost or buy-in from leadership, but rather ease of use and deciding which tool is best for the company.
Key Takeaways
Despite the numerous workflow automation tools available today, many managers at small and mid-sized businesses struggle to streamline the many administrative tasks they’re still handling manually. Without a standardized platform that streamlines processes, employees are forced to continuously shift between disparate dashboards, logins, and other sources of information. The result? Less productivity and more disengagement.
Future success will depend on finding an intuitive, uncomplicated system that lets managers “set and forget” the kind of dynamic workflows that are easy to build and simple to use.
3 Steps to Effective Workflow Automation
1. Conduct a time management audit How much time is currently going to manual tasks that could be automated?
2. Identify workflows in need of attention Are there any workflows employees avoid because they’re too cumbersome or require too many steps?
3. Choose a tool that’s easy to use Which tools are difficult or time-consuming to use—and which ones allow you to set up or tweak automated workflows within minutes?
Conclusion
Given this data, it’s no wonder businesses are increasingly turning to workflow automation to streamline routine workflow processes across departments—whether it’s employee reviews, project approvals, reimbursement requests, budget approvals, or any of the hundreds of other activities that take place day in and day out.
But not just any solution will work. To be effective, workflow automation must be intuitive, easy to use, and—most of all—flexible.
With the availability of online workflow management solutions, there’s simply no reason to continue spending valuable hours on repetitive tasks. It’s time to focus on aligning goals with the workflow automation tools that can empower managers and administrators to create more efficiency and save more time and money.
The Team Behind This Report
The State of Workflow Automation Report was prepared by Formstack, a secure workplace productivity platform built to produce ingenious solutions to the everyday tasks that slow your organization down. From eliminating paper forms to breaking digital silos, Formstack empowers anyone to quickly and easily build custom forms, create documents, and collect eSignatures—all without any specialized skills or coding. Our users live and work all over the world and use a wide array of robust tools to solve their most challenging data management issues.
An intuitive, drag-and-drop form and workflow builder that allows businesses to collect information that matters and automate processes. Accept payments, gather customer data, and automate your day-to-day tasks in just a few clicks.
A seamless document generator that puts an end to manual data entry by automatically populating documents with data from central business systems, like CRMs and form builders. Easily create custom PDFs, Word docs, Excel sheets, and PowerPoint presentations with your data in minutes.
A simple, drag-and-drop eSignature solution that empowers businesses to collect secure digital signatures for their documents and forms from any device. Simply upload your document and add your signer's information to send an email or text with the document to be signed.
A seamless, drag-and-drop Salesforce form builder that allows businesses to dynamically collect data and update information in their Salesforce org. The leading native form and survey builder on the Salesforce AppExchange.
Report
The State of Workflow Automation Report
Report
The State of Workflow Automation Report
Workflow automation is the key to greater productivity and efficiency. This report identifies common workflow challenges and how you can overcome them.
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Report
The State of Workflow Automation Report
If you're like many managers, inefficient workflows can plague your daily routine and keep you from focusing on the tasks that really matter. Workflow automation is an easy solution that can help you profitably run your business and keep your employees engaged.
To help you take advantage of automation, we've put together a report packed with recommendations for your team. Jump in to learn how well you're keeping up with current trends, and discover easy strategies that can help you overcome common roadblocks.
This free research report will show you how to:
Identify bottlenecks in your organization
Create a workflow management system that streamlines repetitive tasks
Improve employee engagement through workflow automation tools
Panelists
No items found.
Introduction
If you're like many managers, inefficient workflows can plague your daily routine and keep you from focusing on the tasks that really matter. Workflow automation is an easy solution that can help you profitably run your business and keep your employees engaged.
To help you take advantage of automation, we've put together a report packed with recommendations for your team. Jump in to learn how well you're keeping up with current trends, and discover easy strategies that can help you overcome common roadblocks.
This free research report will show you how to:
Identify bottlenecks in your organization
Create a workflow management system that streamlines repetitive tasks
Improve employee engagement through workflow automation tools
Introduction
If you're like many managers, inefficient workflows can plague your daily routine and keep you from focusing on the tasks that really matter. Workflow automation is an easy solution that can help you profitably run your business and keep your employees engaged.
To help you take advantage of automation, we've put together a report packed with recommendations for your team. Jump in to learn how well you're keeping up with current trends, and discover easy strategies that can help you overcome common roadblocks.
This free research report will show you how to:
Identify bottlenecks in your organization
Create a workflow management system that streamlines repetitive tasks
Improve employee engagement through workflow automation tools
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
What is Workflow Automation?
Where there’s a will, there’s a way—or, these days, a workflow. When it comes to completing tasks fast, workflow automation is a business’s best friend. Designed to streamline manual processes and bring structure to otherwise time-consuming, unstructured activities, this tool allows teams to get more done in less time.
Instead of logging into three different platforms, you might use an automated workflow to open just one. Twenty steps are condensed to five, emails are substituted by automatic alerts, and manual data entry is replaced by integrations. It can be a very reliable way to simplify business processes and improve your bottom line. Because when routine work flows, there's more time to focus on the things that really matter.
Introduction
What if there was a single solution you could use to run your business operations profitably and keep your employees actively engaged?
There is. It’s called workflow automation. A solid workflow management system provides a reliable way to unite different teams and departments as they work to get things done—whether that means onboarding new customers, approving new projects, accepting budget proposals, or accomplishing any number of mission-critical activities that must be completed day after day and week after week. These are just a few examples among thousands of repetitive tasks that can be replaced by automated workflows. In fact, when you consider all that can be automated, the opportunities are seemingly endless.
And therein lies the challenge. With the average business using 10 to 16 apps, creating a workflow management system to connect them all may prove to be problematic.
Amid the mountain of potential workflow management systems offered, we couldn’t help but wonder: What’s the true state of workflow automation today, and is it keeping pace with business needs?
Are companies embracing the power of workflow automation, or becoming overwhelmed by a never-ending array of options? Are managers harnessing the full power of workflow tools to effectively automate tasks? Or are outdated, disjointed business processes still causing issues?
We decided to find out.
Enter Formstack’s State of Workflow Automation Report
We surveyed hundreds of administrators and managers like you across a variety of industries in 2018. This survey was used to learn how workflows are being automated, identify common challenges, and find out what issues need to be addressed. In this report, you’ll find answers to questions such as:
What mediums and methods are managers relying on to automate workflows?
What are the biggest challenges affecting managers and administrators?
What are the top workflow automation problems that must be solved?
How to Use This Report
Managers and administrators at all experience levels will find value in this report.
First, take a look at the Key Findings and Key Insights to see how your current automated workflows (or lack of them) compare to those of your peers.
Next, by delving into the more in-depth Current State of Workflow Automation, you can get a better sense of what challenges may be standing in the way of greater productivity at your company.
Lastly, we recommend reviewing Workflow Automation Opportunities for ideas on what you can start doing today to better automate your own workflows.
Executive Summary and Major Findings
Methodology
To gain new insights on the current state of workflow automation in the U.S., we surveyed over 280 managers, directors, vice presidents, and C-level executives at small (10-99), medium (100-499), mid-sized (500-999), and enterprise (1000+) businesses. Here’s a snapshot of participants:
Key Industries and Departments
68% work in education and healthcare
34% work in marketing or sales
22% work in IT or technology
17% work in operations
16% work in finance, HR, or support
74% make administrative and/or process decisions for their companies
Key Findings
Among the business administrators we surveyed:
62% are using workflow automation tools
44% say their businesses have made a significant investment in workflow automation tools in the last 12-24 months
In what ways are these businesses using workflow automation?
76% use it for standardizing or automating daily workflows
58% use it for data/reporting for planning
36% use it for regulation or compliance purposes
How much time do these businesses spend on unstructured, manual data entry such as email and spreadsheet updates?
42% spend less than one hour per day
33% spend two to three hours a day
25% devote four or more hours per day
In addition:
62% have identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes that could potentially be solved with effective workflow automation:
54% cite poor communication as their organization’s most pressing challenge
44% cite repetitive errors
42% cite delays in project deployment
24% cite compliance
17% cite growing costs
When it comes to measuring the success of workflow automation tools, here’s how businesses gauge effectiveness:
59% look at overall improvement in their systems
33% look at improvements in employee or customer satisfaction
3% look at specific cost savings
Key Insights
Managers spend 8 hours a week on manual tasks. Managers say, on average, that they spend at least eight hours a week—one full work day’s worth of time—on manual data tasks, while 25% devote 20 or more weekly hours to these tasks. (That’s an average of four hours per workday!)
Those tasks are draining managers of valuable time that could otherwise be spent focusing on driving more strategic, high-value initiatives. The time and cost impacts of administrative work are significant.
4 in 10 organizations—both large and small—still use manual tools. Even with the evolution of cloud-based tools, we have not seen a dramatic increase in productivity and efficiency. In fact, many managers report that these new tools have the propensity to increase the number of information silos in a business and create more unnecessary manual tasks.
Poor communication tops managers’ workflow challenges. Managers say the top workflow challenge they face is poor communication (54%) followed by repetitive errors (44%) and delays in project deployment (42%). This overall lack of communication can increase the risk for mistakes and ultimately lead to a loss of stakeholder trust and less positive growth.
Automating workflows allows managers to focus on high-value initiatives. When workflows are automated, it leads to greater efficiency and allows managers to focus on high-value work that drives the organization forward. This, in turn, can lead to improved employee empowerment and happiness.
Workflow automation saves organizations thousands of dollars. Most respondents weren't able to cite a specific dollar amount saved by workflow automation tools, citing it was hard to measure or that they didn't have access to the information. However, those that could estimated anywhere from $10,000 to millions of dollars. On average, though, organizations are saving $46,000 annually.
What’s happening in education? Sixty-three percent of respondents working in education say their institution uses workflow automation tools. Within this industry, 30% spend two to three hours a day on manual data entry. Twenty-five percent devote four or more hours per day to these tasks.
What’s happening in healthcare? Although 63% of healthcare respondents use workflow automation tools, 67% spend eight or more hours a week on manual data entry. Meanwhile, 68% have identified as many as four inefficiencies in their business processes; 12% have identified five or more.
The Current State of Workflow Automation
How are administrators and managers currently using workflow automation tools?
First, we wanted to understand how many administrators or managers are using workflow automation tools, and why.
Are you currently using workflow automation tools?
Why does your organization use workflow automation tools?
Of those who use workflow automation tools:
76% use these tools to standardize or automate daily workflows
58% use workflow automation tools for data/reporting and planning
36% use workflow automation for regulation or compliance purposes
Next, we wanted to understand the top workflow automation challenges and bottlenecks in current business processes.
What workflow challenges does your organization most face?
How many inefficiencies or bottlenecks have you identified in your business processes?
A majority identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes. More than half (54%) of managers cite poor communication as their business’s most pressing challenge that needs to be addressed with workflow automation.
Workflow Automation Success Spotlight: See how PATLive brought in 240 new accounts after automating customer onboarding.
Top 3 Workflow Automation Challenges You Can Easily Solve
The managers represented in our study face several challenges that businesses need to address if they want to create more productive, profitable business environments through the use of workflow automation tools:
The challenge: Too much time spent on manual repetitive tasks
The solution: Improve automated workflows to free up time for more high-value initiatives
Based on the insights above, it’s evident that managers and administrators are still spending far too much time on mundane, manual work. By automating more workflows—and strengthening those that are already in place—companies can shift more hours to strategic initiatives that lead to growth.
The challenge: Unproductive, inefficient business processes
The solution: Seek out more intuitive, user-friendly tools
If current workflow automation tools aren’t intuitive and easy to use, it’s time to create tools that are. How? By streamlining multiple systems to a minimal number of platforms: The fewer apps you have to open to get something done, the better. Find tools that allow nontechnical users to build and update processes with ease, and steer clear of software that requires advanced coding knowledge and reliance on developers or IT.
The challenge: Information that’s divided and poorly communicated
The solution: Workflows that are flexible and easy to customize
When managers report that new cloud-based tools are increasing complexity and causing more work, that’s a sure sign it’s time to simplify. Businesses that succeed with workflow management will develop solutions that can be easily scaled to add new employees, extend to more departments, or enhance functionality.
Where Are Managers Most Struggling?
Managers are spending a substantial amount of time on repetitive, day-to-day tasks that don’t drive the business forward. Of those surveyed, 55% regularly spend time on administrative tasks that consume at least a full day of their work week, and 25% said they spend more than two days per week on these tasks.
We also asked managers about their level of confidence in the metrics they report to their bosses.
Are you confident in the accuracy of metrics you report?
In identifying some of their biggest obstacles to gathering reliable metrics, 65% of respondents said poor tracking parameters and too many reporting systems keep them from reporting more accurate data to their bosses. Another 10% had no clearly defined reporting requirements.
Key Takeaways
The abundance of manual tasks, often not part of a respondent’s core job function, is increasingly taking time away from managers’ abilities to focus on strategic initiatives that drive the organization forward.
This is often due to inefficient business processes and workflows that are difficult to track and measure.
What Are Their Biggest Roadblocks?
While much of managers’ time is being devoted to unstructured manual tasks, the current state of workflow automation within their organizations—often fraught with an overabundance of apps, tools, processes, and systems—isn’t solving this problem.
What is your top challenge in adopting workflow automation tools?
The bulk of managers in our survey cited poor communication, delays in project deployment, and repetitive errors as big roadblocks to creating effective workflows. When it comes to adoption of workflow automation tools, the biggest obstacles are not cost or buy-in from leadership, but rather ease of use and deciding which tool is best for the company.
Key Takeaways
Despite the numerous workflow automation tools available today, many managers at small and mid-sized businesses struggle to streamline the many administrative tasks they’re still handling manually. Without a standardized platform that streamlines processes, employees are forced to continuously shift between disparate dashboards, logins, and other sources of information. The result? Less productivity and more disengagement.
Future success will depend on finding an intuitive, uncomplicated system that lets managers “set and forget” the kind of dynamic workflows that are easy to build and simple to use.
3 Steps to Effective Workflow Automation
1. Conduct a time management audit How much time is currently going to manual tasks that could be automated?
2. Identify workflows in need of attention Are there any workflows employees avoid because they’re too cumbersome or require too many steps?
3. Choose a tool that’s easy to use Which tools are difficult or time-consuming to use—and which ones allow you to set up or tweak automated workflows within minutes?
Conclusion
Given this data, it’s no wonder businesses are increasingly turning to workflow automation to streamline routine workflow processes across departments—whether it’s employee reviews, project approvals, reimbursement requests, budget approvals, or any of the hundreds of other activities that take place day in and day out.
But not just any solution will work. To be effective, workflow automation must be intuitive, easy to use, and—most of all—flexible.
With the availability of online workflow management solutions, there’s simply no reason to continue spending valuable hours on repetitive tasks. It’s time to focus on aligning goals with the workflow automation tools that can empower managers and administrators to create more efficiency and save more time and money.
The Team Behind This Report
The State of Workflow Automation Report was prepared by Formstack, a secure workplace productivity platform built to produce ingenious solutions to the everyday tasks that slow your organization down. From eliminating paper forms to breaking digital silos, Formstack empowers anyone to quickly and easily build custom forms, create documents, and collect eSignatures—all without any specialized skills or coding. Our users live and work all over the world and use a wide array of robust tools to solve their most challenging data management issues.
An intuitive, drag-and-drop form and workflow builder that allows businesses to collect information that matters and automate processes. Accept payments, gather customer data, and automate your day-to-day tasks in just a few clicks.
A seamless document generator that puts an end to manual data entry by automatically populating documents with data from central business systems, like CRMs and form builders. Easily create custom PDFs, Word docs, Excel sheets, and PowerPoint presentations with your data in minutes.
A simple, drag-and-drop eSignature solution that empowers businesses to collect secure digital signatures for their documents and forms from any device. Simply upload your document and add your signer's information to send an email or text with the document to be signed.
A seamless, drag-and-drop Salesforce form builder that allows businesses to dynamically collect data and update information in their Salesforce org. The leading native form and survey builder on the Salesforce AppExchange.
Panelists
No items found.
Infographic
The State of Workflow Automation Report
Workflow automation is the key to greater productivity and efficiency. This report identifies common workflow challenges and how you can overcome them.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way—or, these days, a workflow. When it comes to completing tasks fast, workflow automation is a business’s best friend. Designed to streamline manual processes and bring structure to otherwise time-consuming, unstructured activities, this tool allows teams to get more done in less time.
Instead of logging into three different platforms, you might use an automated workflow to open just one. Twenty steps are condensed to five, emails are substituted by automatic alerts, and manual data entry is replaced by integrations. It can be a very reliable way to simplify business processes and improve your bottom line. Because when routine work flows, there's more time to focus on the things that really matter.
Introduction
What if there was a single solution you could use to run your business operations profitably and keep your employees actively engaged?
There is. It’s called workflow automation. A solid workflow management system provides a reliable way to unite different teams and departments as they work to get things done—whether that means onboarding new customers, approving new projects, accepting budget proposals, or accomplishing any number of mission-critical activities that must be completed day after day and week after week. These are just a few examples among thousands of repetitive tasks that can be replaced by automated workflows. In fact, when you consider all that can be automated, the opportunities are seemingly endless.
And therein lies the challenge. With the average business using 10 to 16 apps, creating a workflow management system to connect them all may prove to be problematic.
Amid the mountain of potential workflow management systems offered, we couldn’t help but wonder: What’s the true state of workflow automation today, and is it keeping pace with business needs?
Are companies embracing the power of workflow automation, or becoming overwhelmed by a never-ending array of options? Are managers harnessing the full power of workflow tools to effectively automate tasks? Or are outdated, disjointed business processes still causing issues?
We decided to find out.
Enter Formstack’s State of Workflow Automation Report
We surveyed hundreds of administrators and managers like you across a variety of industries in 2018. This survey was used to learn how workflows are being automated, identify common challenges, and find out what issues need to be addressed. In this report, you’ll find answers to questions such as:
What mediums and methods are managers relying on to automate workflows?
What are the biggest challenges affecting managers and administrators?
What are the top workflow automation problems that must be solved?
How to Use This Report
Managers and administrators at all experience levels will find value in this report.
First, take a look at the Key Findings and Key Insights to see how your current automated workflows (or lack of them) compare to those of your peers.
Next, by delving into the more in-depth Current State of Workflow Automation, you can get a better sense of what challenges may be standing in the way of greater productivity at your company.
Lastly, we recommend reviewing Workflow Automation Opportunities for ideas on what you can start doing today to better automate your own workflows.
Executive Summary and Major Findings
Methodology
To gain new insights on the current state of workflow automation in the U.S., we surveyed over 280 managers, directors, vice presidents, and C-level executives at small (10-99), medium (100-499), mid-sized (500-999), and enterprise (1000+) businesses. Here’s a snapshot of participants:
Key Industries and Departments
68% work in education and healthcare
34% work in marketing or sales
22% work in IT or technology
17% work in operations
16% work in finance, HR, or support
74% make administrative and/or process decisions for their companies
Key Findings
Among the business administrators we surveyed:
62% are using workflow automation tools
44% say their businesses have made a significant investment in workflow automation tools in the last 12-24 months
In what ways are these businesses using workflow automation?
76% use it for standardizing or automating daily workflows
58% use it for data/reporting for planning
36% use it for regulation or compliance purposes
How much time do these businesses spend on unstructured, manual data entry such as email and spreadsheet updates?
42% spend less than one hour per day
33% spend two to three hours a day
25% devote four or more hours per day
In addition:
62% have identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes that could potentially be solved with effective workflow automation:
54% cite poor communication as their organization’s most pressing challenge
44% cite repetitive errors
42% cite delays in project deployment
24% cite compliance
17% cite growing costs
When it comes to measuring the success of workflow automation tools, here’s how businesses gauge effectiveness:
59% look at overall improvement in their systems
33% look at improvements in employee or customer satisfaction
3% look at specific cost savings
Key Insights
Managers spend 8 hours a week on manual tasks. Managers say, on average, that they spend at least eight hours a week—one full work day’s worth of time—on manual data tasks, while 25% devote 20 or more weekly hours to these tasks. (That’s an average of four hours per workday!)
Those tasks are draining managers of valuable time that could otherwise be spent focusing on driving more strategic, high-value initiatives. The time and cost impacts of administrative work are significant.
4 in 10 organizations—both large and small—still use manual tools. Even with the evolution of cloud-based tools, we have not seen a dramatic increase in productivity and efficiency. In fact, many managers report that these new tools have the propensity to increase the number of information silos in a business and create more unnecessary manual tasks.
Poor communication tops managers’ workflow challenges. Managers say the top workflow challenge they face is poor communication (54%) followed by repetitive errors (44%) and delays in project deployment (42%). This overall lack of communication can increase the risk for mistakes and ultimately lead to a loss of stakeholder trust and less positive growth.
Automating workflows allows managers to focus on high-value initiatives. When workflows are automated, it leads to greater efficiency and allows managers to focus on high-value work that drives the organization forward. This, in turn, can lead to improved employee empowerment and happiness.
Workflow automation saves organizations thousands of dollars. Most respondents weren't able to cite a specific dollar amount saved by workflow automation tools, citing it was hard to measure or that they didn't have access to the information. However, those that could estimated anywhere from $10,000 to millions of dollars. On average, though, organizations are saving $46,000 annually.
What’s happening in education? Sixty-three percent of respondents working in education say their institution uses workflow automation tools. Within this industry, 30% spend two to three hours a day on manual data entry. Twenty-five percent devote four or more hours per day to these tasks.
What’s happening in healthcare? Although 63% of healthcare respondents use workflow automation tools, 67% spend eight or more hours a week on manual data entry. Meanwhile, 68% have identified as many as four inefficiencies in their business processes; 12% have identified five or more.
The Current State of Workflow Automation
How are administrators and managers currently using workflow automation tools?
First, we wanted to understand how many administrators or managers are using workflow automation tools, and why.
Are you currently using workflow automation tools?
Why does your organization use workflow automation tools?
Of those who use workflow automation tools:
76% use these tools to standardize or automate daily workflows
58% use workflow automation tools for data/reporting and planning
36% use workflow automation for regulation or compliance purposes
Next, we wanted to understand the top workflow automation challenges and bottlenecks in current business processes.
What workflow challenges does your organization most face?
How many inefficiencies or bottlenecks have you identified in your business processes?
A majority identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes. More than half (54%) of managers cite poor communication as their business’s most pressing challenge that needs to be addressed with workflow automation.
Workflow Automation Success Spotlight: See how PATLive brought in 240 new accounts after automating customer onboarding.
Top 3 Workflow Automation Challenges You Can Easily Solve
The managers represented in our study face several challenges that businesses need to address if they want to create more productive, profitable business environments through the use of workflow automation tools:
The challenge: Too much time spent on manual repetitive tasks
The solution: Improve automated workflows to free up time for more high-value initiatives
Based on the insights above, it’s evident that managers and administrators are still spending far too much time on mundane, manual work. By automating more workflows—and strengthening those that are already in place—companies can shift more hours to strategic initiatives that lead to growth.
The challenge: Unproductive, inefficient business processes
The solution: Seek out more intuitive, user-friendly tools
If current workflow automation tools aren’t intuitive and easy to use, it’s time to create tools that are. How? By streamlining multiple systems to a minimal number of platforms: The fewer apps you have to open to get something done, the better. Find tools that allow nontechnical users to build and update processes with ease, and steer clear of software that requires advanced coding knowledge and reliance on developers or IT.
The challenge: Information that’s divided and poorly communicated
The solution: Workflows that are flexible and easy to customize
When managers report that new cloud-based tools are increasing complexity and causing more work, that’s a sure sign it’s time to simplify. Businesses that succeed with workflow management will develop solutions that can be easily scaled to add new employees, extend to more departments, or enhance functionality.
Where Are Managers Most Struggling?
Managers are spending a substantial amount of time on repetitive, day-to-day tasks that don’t drive the business forward. Of those surveyed, 55% regularly spend time on administrative tasks that consume at least a full day of their work week, and 25% said they spend more than two days per week on these tasks.
We also asked managers about their level of confidence in the metrics they report to their bosses.
Are you confident in the accuracy of metrics you report?
In identifying some of their biggest obstacles to gathering reliable metrics, 65% of respondents said poor tracking parameters and too many reporting systems keep them from reporting more accurate data to their bosses. Another 10% had no clearly defined reporting requirements.
Key Takeaways
The abundance of manual tasks, often not part of a respondent’s core job function, is increasingly taking time away from managers’ abilities to focus on strategic initiatives that drive the organization forward.
This is often due to inefficient business processes and workflows that are difficult to track and measure.
What Are Their Biggest Roadblocks?
While much of managers’ time is being devoted to unstructured manual tasks, the current state of workflow automation within their organizations—often fraught with an overabundance of apps, tools, processes, and systems—isn’t solving this problem.
What is your top challenge in adopting workflow automation tools?
The bulk of managers in our survey cited poor communication, delays in project deployment, and repetitive errors as big roadblocks to creating effective workflows. When it comes to adoption of workflow automation tools, the biggest obstacles are not cost or buy-in from leadership, but rather ease of use and deciding which tool is best for the company.
Key Takeaways
Despite the numerous workflow automation tools available today, many managers at small and mid-sized businesses struggle to streamline the many administrative tasks they’re still handling manually. Without a standardized platform that streamlines processes, employees are forced to continuously shift between disparate dashboards, logins, and other sources of information. The result? Less productivity and more disengagement.
Future success will depend on finding an intuitive, uncomplicated system that lets managers “set and forget” the kind of dynamic workflows that are easy to build and simple to use.
3 Steps to Effective Workflow Automation
1. Conduct a time management audit How much time is currently going to manual tasks that could be automated?
2. Identify workflows in need of attention Are there any workflows employees avoid because they’re too cumbersome or require too many steps?
3. Choose a tool that’s easy to use Which tools are difficult or time-consuming to use—and which ones allow you to set up or tweak automated workflows within minutes?
Conclusion
Given this data, it’s no wonder businesses are increasingly turning to workflow automation to streamline routine workflow processes across departments—whether it’s employee reviews, project approvals, reimbursement requests, budget approvals, or any of the hundreds of other activities that take place day in and day out.
But not just any solution will work. To be effective, workflow automation must be intuitive, easy to use, and—most of all—flexible.
With the availability of online workflow management solutions, there’s simply no reason to continue spending valuable hours on repetitive tasks. It’s time to focus on aligning goals with the workflow automation tools that can empower managers and administrators to create more efficiency and save more time and money.
The Team Behind This Report
The State of Workflow Automation Report was prepared by Formstack, a secure workplace productivity platform built to produce ingenious solutions to the everyday tasks that slow your organization down. From eliminating paper forms to breaking digital silos, Formstack empowers anyone to quickly and easily build custom forms, create documents, and collect eSignatures—all without any specialized skills or coding. Our users live and work all over the world and use a wide array of robust tools to solve their most challenging data management issues.
An intuitive, drag-and-drop form and workflow builder that allows businesses to collect information that matters and automate processes. Accept payments, gather customer data, and automate your day-to-day tasks in just a few clicks.
A seamless document generator that puts an end to manual data entry by automatically populating documents with data from central business systems, like CRMs and form builders. Easily create custom PDFs, Word docs, Excel sheets, and PowerPoint presentations with your data in minutes.
A simple, drag-and-drop eSignature solution that empowers businesses to collect secure digital signatures for their documents and forms from any device. Simply upload your document and add your signer's information to send an email or text with the document to be signed.
A seamless, drag-and-drop Salesforce form builder that allows businesses to dynamically collect data and update information in their Salesforce org. The leading native form and survey builder on the Salesforce AppExchange.
What is Workflow Automation?
Where there’s a will, there’s a way—or, these days, a workflow. When it comes to completing tasks fast, workflow automation is a business’s best friend. Designed to streamline manual processes and bring structure to otherwise time-consuming, unstructured activities, this tool allows teams to get more done in less time.
Instead of logging into three different platforms, you might use an automated workflow to open just one. Twenty steps are condensed to five, emails are substituted by automatic alerts, and manual data entry is replaced by integrations. It can be a very reliable way to simplify business processes and improve your bottom line. Because when routine work flows, there's more time to focus on the things that really matter.
Introduction
What if there was a single solution you could use to run your business operations profitably and keep your employees actively engaged?
There is. It’s called workflow automation. A solid workflow management system provides a reliable way to unite different teams and departments as they work to get things done—whether that means onboarding new customers, approving new projects, accepting budget proposals, or accomplishing any number of mission-critical activities that must be completed day after day and week after week. These are just a few examples among thousands of repetitive tasks that can be replaced by automated workflows. In fact, when you consider all that can be automated, the opportunities are seemingly endless.
And therein lies the challenge. With the average business using 10 to 16 apps, creating a workflow management system to connect them all may prove to be problematic.
Amid the mountain of potential workflow management systems offered, we couldn’t help but wonder: What’s the true state of workflow automation today, and is it keeping pace with business needs?
Are companies embracing the power of workflow automation, or becoming overwhelmed by a never-ending array of options? Are managers harnessing the full power of workflow tools to effectively automate tasks? Or are outdated, disjointed business processes still causing issues?
We decided to find out.
Enter Formstack’s State of Workflow Automation Report
We surveyed hundreds of administrators and managers like you across a variety of industries in 2018. This survey was used to learn how workflows are being automated, identify common challenges, and find out what issues need to be addressed. In this report, you’ll find answers to questions such as:
What mediums and methods are managers relying on to automate workflows?
What are the biggest challenges affecting managers and administrators?
What are the top workflow automation problems that must be solved?
How to Use This Report
Managers and administrators at all experience levels will find value in this report.
First, take a look at the Key Findings and Key Insights to see how your current automated workflows (or lack of them) compare to those of your peers.
Next, by delving into the more in-depth Current State of Workflow Automation, you can get a better sense of what challenges may be standing in the way of greater productivity at your company.
Lastly, we recommend reviewing Workflow Automation Opportunities for ideas on what you can start doing today to better automate your own workflows.
Executive Summary and Major Findings
Methodology
To gain new insights on the current state of workflow automation in the U.S., we surveyed over 280 managers, directors, vice presidents, and C-level executives at small (10-99), medium (100-499), mid-sized (500-999), and enterprise (1000+) businesses. Here’s a snapshot of participants:
Key Industries and Departments
68% work in education and healthcare
34% work in marketing or sales
22% work in IT or technology
17% work in operations
16% work in finance, HR, or support
74% make administrative and/or process decisions for their companies
Key Findings
Among the business administrators we surveyed:
62% are using workflow automation tools
44% say their businesses have made a significant investment in workflow automation tools in the last 12-24 months
In what ways are these businesses using workflow automation?
76% use it for standardizing or automating daily workflows
58% use it for data/reporting for planning
36% use it for regulation or compliance purposes
How much time do these businesses spend on unstructured, manual data entry such as email and spreadsheet updates?
42% spend less than one hour per day
33% spend two to three hours a day
25% devote four or more hours per day
In addition:
62% have identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes that could potentially be solved with effective workflow automation:
54% cite poor communication as their organization’s most pressing challenge
44% cite repetitive errors
42% cite delays in project deployment
24% cite compliance
17% cite growing costs
When it comes to measuring the success of workflow automation tools, here’s how businesses gauge effectiveness:
59% look at overall improvement in their systems
33% look at improvements in employee or customer satisfaction
3% look at specific cost savings
Key Insights
Managers spend 8 hours a week on manual tasks. Managers say, on average, that they spend at least eight hours a week—one full work day’s worth of time—on manual data tasks, while 25% devote 20 or more weekly hours to these tasks. (That’s an average of four hours per workday!)
Those tasks are draining managers of valuable time that could otherwise be spent focusing on driving more strategic, high-value initiatives. The time and cost impacts of administrative work are significant.
4 in 10 organizations—both large and small—still use manual tools. Even with the evolution of cloud-based tools, we have not seen a dramatic increase in productivity and efficiency. In fact, many managers report that these new tools have the propensity to increase the number of information silos in a business and create more unnecessary manual tasks.
Poor communication tops managers’ workflow challenges. Managers say the top workflow challenge they face is poor communication (54%) followed by repetitive errors (44%) and delays in project deployment (42%). This overall lack of communication can increase the risk for mistakes and ultimately lead to a loss of stakeholder trust and less positive growth.
Automating workflows allows managers to focus on high-value initiatives. When workflows are automated, it leads to greater efficiency and allows managers to focus on high-value work that drives the organization forward. This, in turn, can lead to improved employee empowerment and happiness.
Workflow automation saves organizations thousands of dollars. Most respondents weren't able to cite a specific dollar amount saved by workflow automation tools, citing it was hard to measure or that they didn't have access to the information. However, those that could estimated anywhere from $10,000 to millions of dollars. On average, though, organizations are saving $46,000 annually.
What’s happening in education? Sixty-three percent of respondents working in education say their institution uses workflow automation tools. Within this industry, 30% spend two to three hours a day on manual data entry. Twenty-five percent devote four or more hours per day to these tasks.
What’s happening in healthcare? Although 63% of healthcare respondents use workflow automation tools, 67% spend eight or more hours a week on manual data entry. Meanwhile, 68% have identified as many as four inefficiencies in their business processes; 12% have identified five or more.
The Current State of Workflow Automation
How are administrators and managers currently using workflow automation tools?
First, we wanted to understand how many administrators or managers are using workflow automation tools, and why.
Are you currently using workflow automation tools?
Why does your organization use workflow automation tools?
Of those who use workflow automation tools:
76% use these tools to standardize or automate daily workflows
58% use workflow automation tools for data/reporting and planning
36% use workflow automation for regulation or compliance purposes
Next, we wanted to understand the top workflow automation challenges and bottlenecks in current business processes.
What workflow challenges does your organization most face?
How many inefficiencies or bottlenecks have you identified in your business processes?
A majority identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes. More than half (54%) of managers cite poor communication as their business’s most pressing challenge that needs to be addressed with workflow automation.
Workflow Automation Success Spotlight: See how PATLive brought in 240 new accounts after automating customer onboarding.
Top 3 Workflow Automation Challenges You Can Easily Solve
The managers represented in our study face several challenges that businesses need to address if they want to create more productive, profitable business environments through the use of workflow automation tools:
The challenge: Too much time spent on manual repetitive tasks
The solution: Improve automated workflows to free up time for more high-value initiatives
Based on the insights above, it’s evident that managers and administrators are still spending far too much time on mundane, manual work. By automating more workflows—and strengthening those that are already in place—companies can shift more hours to strategic initiatives that lead to growth.
The challenge: Unproductive, inefficient business processes
The solution: Seek out more intuitive, user-friendly tools
If current workflow automation tools aren’t intuitive and easy to use, it’s time to create tools that are. How? By streamlining multiple systems to a minimal number of platforms: The fewer apps you have to open to get something done, the better. Find tools that allow nontechnical users to build and update processes with ease, and steer clear of software that requires advanced coding knowledge and reliance on developers or IT.
The challenge: Information that’s divided and poorly communicated
The solution: Workflows that are flexible and easy to customize
When managers report that new cloud-based tools are increasing complexity and causing more work, that’s a sure sign it’s time to simplify. Businesses that succeed with workflow management will develop solutions that can be easily scaled to add new employees, extend to more departments, or enhance functionality.
Where Are Managers Most Struggling?
Managers are spending a substantial amount of time on repetitive, day-to-day tasks that don’t drive the business forward. Of those surveyed, 55% regularly spend time on administrative tasks that consume at least a full day of their work week, and 25% said they spend more than two days per week on these tasks.
We also asked managers about their level of confidence in the metrics they report to their bosses.
Are you confident in the accuracy of metrics you report?
In identifying some of their biggest obstacles to gathering reliable metrics, 65% of respondents said poor tracking parameters and too many reporting systems keep them from reporting more accurate data to their bosses. Another 10% had no clearly defined reporting requirements.
Key Takeaways
The abundance of manual tasks, often not part of a respondent’s core job function, is increasingly taking time away from managers’ abilities to focus on strategic initiatives that drive the organization forward.
This is often due to inefficient business processes and workflows that are difficult to track and measure.
What Are Their Biggest Roadblocks?
While much of managers’ time is being devoted to unstructured manual tasks, the current state of workflow automation within their organizations—often fraught with an overabundance of apps, tools, processes, and systems—isn’t solving this problem.
What is your top challenge in adopting workflow automation tools?
The bulk of managers in our survey cited poor communication, delays in project deployment, and repetitive errors as big roadblocks to creating effective workflows. When it comes to adoption of workflow automation tools, the biggest obstacles are not cost or buy-in from leadership, but rather ease of use and deciding which tool is best for the company.
Key Takeaways
Despite the numerous workflow automation tools available today, many managers at small and mid-sized businesses struggle to streamline the many administrative tasks they’re still handling manually. Without a standardized platform that streamlines processes, employees are forced to continuously shift between disparate dashboards, logins, and other sources of information. The result? Less productivity and more disengagement.
Future success will depend on finding an intuitive, uncomplicated system that lets managers “set and forget” the kind of dynamic workflows that are easy to build and simple to use.
3 Steps to Effective Workflow Automation
1. Conduct a time management audit How much time is currently going to manual tasks that could be automated?
2. Identify workflows in need of attention Are there any workflows employees avoid because they’re too cumbersome or require too many steps?
3. Choose a tool that’s easy to use Which tools are difficult or time-consuming to use—and which ones allow you to set up or tweak automated workflows within minutes?
Conclusion
Given this data, it’s no wonder businesses are increasingly turning to workflow automation to streamline routine workflow processes across departments—whether it’s employee reviews, project approvals, reimbursement requests, budget approvals, or any of the hundreds of other activities that take place day in and day out.
But not just any solution will work. To be effective, workflow automation must be intuitive, easy to use, and—most of all—flexible.
With the availability of online workflow management solutions, there’s simply no reason to continue spending valuable hours on repetitive tasks. It’s time to focus on aligning goals with the workflow automation tools that can empower managers and administrators to create more efficiency and save more time and money.
The Team Behind This Report
The State of Workflow Automation Report was prepared by Formstack, a secure workplace productivity platform built to produce ingenious solutions to the everyday tasks that slow your organization down. From eliminating paper forms to breaking digital silos, Formstack empowers anyone to quickly and easily build custom forms, create documents, and collect eSignatures—all without any specialized skills or coding. Our users live and work all over the world and use a wide array of robust tools to solve their most challenging data management issues.
An intuitive, drag-and-drop form and workflow builder that allows businesses to collect information that matters and automate processes. Accept payments, gather customer data, and automate your day-to-day tasks in just a few clicks.
A seamless document generator that puts an end to manual data entry by automatically populating documents with data from central business systems, like CRMs and form builders. Easily create custom PDFs, Word docs, Excel sheets, and PowerPoint presentations with your data in minutes.
A simple, drag-and-drop eSignature solution that empowers businesses to collect secure digital signatures for their documents and forms from any device. Simply upload your document and add your signer's information to send an email or text with the document to be signed.
A seamless, drag-and-drop Salesforce form builder that allows businesses to dynamically collect data and update information in their Salesforce org. The leading native form and survey builder on the Salesforce AppExchange.
Collecting payments with online forms is easy, but first, you have to choose the right payment gateway. Browse the providers in our gateway credit card processing comparison chart to find the best option for your business. Then sign up for Formstack Forms, customize your payment forms, and start collecting profits in minutes.
Online Payment Gateway Comparison Chart
NOTE: These amounts reflect the monthly subscription for the payment provider. Formstack does not charge a fee to integrate with any of our payment partners.
FEATURES
Authorize.Net
Bambora
Chargify
First Data
PayPal
PayPal Pro
PayPal Payflow
Stripe
WePay
Monthly Fees
$25
$25
$149+
Contact First Data
$0
$25
$0-$25
$0
$0
Transaction Fees
$2.9% + 30¢
$2.9% + 30¢
N/A
Contact First Data
$2.9% + 30¢
$2.9% + 30¢
10¢
$2.9% + 30¢
$2.9% + 30¢
Countries
5
8
Based on payment gateway
50+
203
3
4
25
USA
Currencies
11
2
23
140
25
23
25
135+
1
Card Types
6
13
Based on payment gateway
5
9
9
5
6
4
Limits
None
None
Based on payment gateway
None
$10,000
None
None
None
None
Form Payments
Recurring Billing
Mobile Payments
PSD2 Compliant
What is Workflow Automation?
Where there’s a will, there’s a way—or, these days, a workflow. When it comes to completing tasks fast, workflow automation is a business’s best friend. Designed to streamline manual processes and bring structure to otherwise time-consuming, unstructured activities, this tool allows teams to get more done in less time.
Instead of logging into three different platforms, you might use an automated workflow to open just one. Twenty steps are condensed to five, emails are substituted by automatic alerts, and manual data entry is replaced by integrations. It can be a very reliable way to simplify business processes and improve your bottom line. Because when routine work flows, there's more time to focus on the things that really matter.
Introduction
What if there was a single solution you could use to run your business operations profitably and keep your employees actively engaged?
There is. It’s called workflow automation. A solid workflow management system provides a reliable way to unite different teams and departments as they work to get things done—whether that means onboarding new customers, approving new projects, accepting budget proposals, or accomplishing any number of mission-critical activities that must be completed day after day and week after week. These are just a few examples among thousands of repetitive tasks that can be replaced by automated workflows. In fact, when you consider all that can be automated, the opportunities are seemingly endless.
And therein lies the challenge. With the average business using 10 to 16 apps, creating a workflow management system to connect them all may prove to be problematic.
Amid the mountain of potential workflow management systems offered, we couldn’t help but wonder: What’s the true state of workflow automation today, and is it keeping pace with business needs?
Are companies embracing the power of workflow automation, or becoming overwhelmed by a never-ending array of options? Are managers harnessing the full power of workflow tools to effectively automate tasks? Or are outdated, disjointed business processes still causing issues?
We decided to find out.
Enter Formstack’s State of Workflow Automation Report
We surveyed hundreds of administrators and managers like you across a variety of industries in 2018. This survey was used to learn how workflows are being automated, identify common challenges, and find out what issues need to be addressed. In this report, you’ll find answers to questions such as:
What mediums and methods are managers relying on to automate workflows?
What are the biggest challenges affecting managers and administrators?
What are the top workflow automation problems that must be solved?
How to Use This Report
Managers and administrators at all experience levels will find value in this report.
First, take a look at the Key Findings and Key Insights to see how your current automated workflows (or lack of them) compare to those of your peers.
Next, by delving into the more in-depth Current State of Workflow Automation, you can get a better sense of what challenges may be standing in the way of greater productivity at your company.
Lastly, we recommend reviewing Workflow Automation Opportunities for ideas on what you can start doing today to better automate your own workflows.
Executive Summary and Major Findings
Methodology
To gain new insights on the current state of workflow automation in the U.S., we surveyed over 280 managers, directors, vice presidents, and C-level executives at small (10-99), medium (100-499), mid-sized (500-999), and enterprise (1000+) businesses. Here’s a snapshot of participants:
Key Industries and Departments
68% work in education and healthcare
34% work in marketing or sales
22% work in IT or technology
17% work in operations
16% work in finance, HR, or support
74% make administrative and/or process decisions for their companies
Key Findings
Among the business administrators we surveyed:
62% are using workflow automation tools
44% say their businesses have made a significant investment in workflow automation tools in the last 12-24 months
In what ways are these businesses using workflow automation?
76% use it for standardizing or automating daily workflows
58% use it for data/reporting for planning
36% use it for regulation or compliance purposes
How much time do these businesses spend on unstructured, manual data entry such as email and spreadsheet updates?
42% spend less than one hour per day
33% spend two to three hours a day
25% devote four or more hours per day
In addition:
62% have identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes that could potentially be solved with effective workflow automation:
54% cite poor communication as their organization’s most pressing challenge
44% cite repetitive errors
42% cite delays in project deployment
24% cite compliance
17% cite growing costs
When it comes to measuring the success of workflow automation tools, here’s how businesses gauge effectiveness:
59% look at overall improvement in their systems
33% look at improvements in employee or customer satisfaction
3% look at specific cost savings
Key Insights
Managers spend 8 hours a week on manual tasks. Managers say, on average, that they spend at least eight hours a week—one full work day’s worth of time—on manual data tasks, while 25% devote 20 or more weekly hours to these tasks. (That’s an average of four hours per workday!)
Those tasks are draining managers of valuable time that could otherwise be spent focusing on driving more strategic, high-value initiatives. The time and cost impacts of administrative work are significant.
4 in 10 organizations—both large and small—still use manual tools. Even with the evolution of cloud-based tools, we have not seen a dramatic increase in productivity and efficiency. In fact, many managers report that these new tools have the propensity to increase the number of information silos in a business and create more unnecessary manual tasks.
Poor communication tops managers’ workflow challenges. Managers say the top workflow challenge they face is poor communication (54%) followed by repetitive errors (44%) and delays in project deployment (42%). This overall lack of communication can increase the risk for mistakes and ultimately lead to a loss of stakeholder trust and less positive growth.
Automating workflows allows managers to focus on high-value initiatives. When workflows are automated, it leads to greater efficiency and allows managers to focus on high-value work that drives the organization forward. This, in turn, can lead to improved employee empowerment and happiness.
Workflow automation saves organizations thousands of dollars. Most respondents weren't able to cite a specific dollar amount saved by workflow automation tools, citing it was hard to measure or that they didn't have access to the information. However, those that could estimated anywhere from $10,000 to millions of dollars. On average, though, organizations are saving $46,000 annually.
What’s happening in education? Sixty-three percent of respondents working in education say their institution uses workflow automation tools. Within this industry, 30% spend two to three hours a day on manual data entry. Twenty-five percent devote four or more hours per day to these tasks.
What’s happening in healthcare? Although 63% of healthcare respondents use workflow automation tools, 67% spend eight or more hours a week on manual data entry. Meanwhile, 68% have identified as many as four inefficiencies in their business processes; 12% have identified five or more.
The Current State of Workflow Automation
How are administrators and managers currently using workflow automation tools?
First, we wanted to understand how many administrators or managers are using workflow automation tools, and why.
Are you currently using workflow automation tools?
Why does your organization use workflow automation tools?
Of those who use workflow automation tools:
76% use these tools to standardize or automate daily workflows
58% use workflow automation tools for data/reporting and planning
36% use workflow automation for regulation or compliance purposes
Next, we wanted to understand the top workflow automation challenges and bottlenecks in current business processes.
What workflow challenges does your organization most face?
How many inefficiencies or bottlenecks have you identified in your business processes?
A majority identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes. More than half (54%) of managers cite poor communication as their business’s most pressing challenge that needs to be addressed with workflow automation.
Workflow Automation Success Spotlight: See how PATLive brought in 240 new accounts after automating customer onboarding.
Top 3 Workflow Automation Challenges You Can Easily Solve
The managers represented in our study face several challenges that businesses need to address if they want to create more productive, profitable business environments through the use of workflow automation tools:
The challenge: Too much time spent on manual repetitive tasks
The solution: Improve automated workflows to free up time for more high-value initiatives
Based on the insights above, it’s evident that managers and administrators are still spending far too much time on mundane, manual work. By automating more workflows—and strengthening those that are already in place—companies can shift more hours to strategic initiatives that lead to growth.
The challenge: Unproductive, inefficient business processes
The solution: Seek out more intuitive, user-friendly tools
If current workflow automation tools aren’t intuitive and easy to use, it’s time to create tools that are. How? By streamlining multiple systems to a minimal number of platforms: The fewer apps you have to open to get something done, the better. Find tools that allow nontechnical users to build and update processes with ease, and steer clear of software that requires advanced coding knowledge and reliance on developers or IT.
The challenge: Information that’s divided and poorly communicated
The solution: Workflows that are flexible and easy to customize
When managers report that new cloud-based tools are increasing complexity and causing more work, that’s a sure sign it’s time to simplify. Businesses that succeed with workflow management will develop solutions that can be easily scaled to add new employees, extend to more departments, or enhance functionality.
Where Are Managers Most Struggling?
Managers are spending a substantial amount of time on repetitive, day-to-day tasks that don’t drive the business forward. Of those surveyed, 55% regularly spend time on administrative tasks that consume at least a full day of their work week, and 25% said they spend more than two days per week on these tasks.
We also asked managers about their level of confidence in the metrics they report to their bosses.
Are you confident in the accuracy of metrics you report?
In identifying some of their biggest obstacles to gathering reliable metrics, 65% of respondents said poor tracking parameters and too many reporting systems keep them from reporting more accurate data to their bosses. Another 10% had no clearly defined reporting requirements.
Key Takeaways
The abundance of manual tasks, often not part of a respondent’s core job function, is increasingly taking time away from managers’ abilities to focus on strategic initiatives that drive the organization forward.
This is often due to inefficient business processes and workflows that are difficult to track and measure.
What Are Their Biggest Roadblocks?
While much of managers’ time is being devoted to unstructured manual tasks, the current state of workflow automation within their organizations—often fraught with an overabundance of apps, tools, processes, and systems—isn’t solving this problem.
What is your top challenge in adopting workflow automation tools?
The bulk of managers in our survey cited poor communication, delays in project deployment, and repetitive errors as big roadblocks to creating effective workflows. When it comes to adoption of workflow automation tools, the biggest obstacles are not cost or buy-in from leadership, but rather ease of use and deciding which tool is best for the company.
Key Takeaways
Despite the numerous workflow automation tools available today, many managers at small and mid-sized businesses struggle to streamline the many administrative tasks they’re still handling manually. Without a standardized platform that streamlines processes, employees are forced to continuously shift between disparate dashboards, logins, and other sources of information. The result? Less productivity and more disengagement.
Future success will depend on finding an intuitive, uncomplicated system that lets managers “set and forget” the kind of dynamic workflows that are easy to build and simple to use.
3 Steps to Effective Workflow Automation
1. Conduct a time management audit How much time is currently going to manual tasks that could be automated?
2. Identify workflows in need of attention Are there any workflows employees avoid because they’re too cumbersome or require too many steps?
3. Choose a tool that’s easy to use Which tools are difficult or time-consuming to use—and which ones allow you to set up or tweak automated workflows within minutes?
Conclusion
Given this data, it’s no wonder businesses are increasingly turning to workflow automation to streamline routine workflow processes across departments—whether it’s employee reviews, project approvals, reimbursement requests, budget approvals, or any of the hundreds of other activities that take place day in and day out.
But not just any solution will work. To be effective, workflow automation must be intuitive, easy to use, and—most of all—flexible.
With the availability of online workflow management solutions, there’s simply no reason to continue spending valuable hours on repetitive tasks. It’s time to focus on aligning goals with the workflow automation tools that can empower managers and administrators to create more efficiency and save more time and money.
The Team Behind This Report
The State of Workflow Automation Report was prepared by Formstack, a secure workplace productivity platform built to produce ingenious solutions to the everyday tasks that slow your organization down. From eliminating paper forms to breaking digital silos, Formstack empowers anyone to quickly and easily build custom forms, create documents, and collect eSignatures—all without any specialized skills or coding. Our users live and work all over the world and use a wide array of robust tools to solve their most challenging data management issues.
An intuitive, drag-and-drop form and workflow builder that allows businesses to collect information that matters and automate processes. Accept payments, gather customer data, and automate your day-to-day tasks in just a few clicks.
A seamless document generator that puts an end to manual data entry by automatically populating documents with data from central business systems, like CRMs and form builders. Easily create custom PDFs, Word docs, Excel sheets, and PowerPoint presentations with your data in minutes.
A simple, drag-and-drop eSignature solution that empowers businesses to collect secure digital signatures for their documents and forms from any device. Simply upload your document and add your signer's information to send an email or text with the document to be signed.
A seamless, drag-and-drop Salesforce form builder that allows businesses to dynamically collect data and update information in their Salesforce org. The leading native form and survey builder on the Salesforce AppExchange.
What is Workflow Automation?
Where there’s a will, there’s a way—or, these days, a workflow. When it comes to completing tasks fast, workflow automation is a business’s best friend. Designed to streamline manual processes and bring structure to otherwise time-consuming, unstructured activities, this tool allows teams to get more done in less time.
Instead of logging into three different platforms, you might use an automated workflow to open just one. Twenty steps are condensed to five, emails are substituted by automatic alerts, and manual data entry is replaced by integrations. It can be a very reliable way to simplify business processes and improve your bottom line. Because when routine work flows, there's more time to focus on the things that really matter.
Introduction
What if there was a single solution you could use to run your business operations profitably and keep your employees actively engaged?
There is. It’s called workflow automation. A solid workflow management system provides a reliable way to unite different teams and departments as they work to get things done—whether that means onboarding new customers, approving new projects, accepting budget proposals, or accomplishing any number of mission-critical activities that must be completed day after day and week after week. These are just a few examples among thousands of repetitive tasks that can be replaced by automated workflows. In fact, when you consider all that can be automated, the opportunities are seemingly endless.
And therein lies the challenge. With the average business using 10 to 16 apps, creating a workflow management system to connect them all may prove to be problematic.
Amid the mountain of potential workflow management systems offered, we couldn’t help but wonder: What’s the true state of workflow automation today, and is it keeping pace with business needs?
Are companies embracing the power of workflow automation, or becoming overwhelmed by a never-ending array of options? Are managers harnessing the full power of workflow tools to effectively automate tasks? Or are outdated, disjointed business processes still causing issues?
We decided to find out.
Enter Formstack’s State of Workflow Automation Report
We surveyed hundreds of administrators and managers like you across a variety of industries in 2018. This survey was used to learn how workflows are being automated, identify common challenges, and find out what issues need to be addressed. In this report, you’ll find answers to questions such as:
What mediums and methods are managers relying on to automate workflows?
What are the biggest challenges affecting managers and administrators?
What are the top workflow automation problems that must be solved?
How to Use This Report
Managers and administrators at all experience levels will find value in this report.
First, take a look at the Key Findings and Key Insights to see how your current automated workflows (or lack of them) compare to those of your peers.
Next, by delving into the more in-depth Current State of Workflow Automation, you can get a better sense of what challenges may be standing in the way of greater productivity at your company.
Lastly, we recommend reviewing Workflow Automation Opportunities for ideas on what you can start doing today to better automate your own workflows.
Executive Summary and Major Findings
Methodology
To gain new insights on the current state of workflow automation in the U.S., we surveyed over 280 managers, directors, vice presidents, and C-level executives at small (10-99), medium (100-499), mid-sized (500-999), and enterprise (1000+) businesses. Here’s a snapshot of participants:
Key Industries and Departments
68% work in education and healthcare
34% work in marketing or sales
22% work in IT or technology
17% work in operations
16% work in finance, HR, or support
74% make administrative and/or process decisions for their companies
Key Findings
Among the business administrators we surveyed:
62% are using workflow automation tools
44% say their businesses have made a significant investment in workflow automation tools in the last 12-24 months
In what ways are these businesses using workflow automation?
76% use it for standardizing or automating daily workflows
58% use it for data/reporting for planning
36% use it for regulation or compliance purposes
How much time do these businesses spend on unstructured, manual data entry such as email and spreadsheet updates?
42% spend less than one hour per day
33% spend two to three hours a day
25% devote four or more hours per day
In addition:
62% have identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes that could potentially be solved with effective workflow automation:
54% cite poor communication as their organization’s most pressing challenge
44% cite repetitive errors
42% cite delays in project deployment
24% cite compliance
17% cite growing costs
When it comes to measuring the success of workflow automation tools, here’s how businesses gauge effectiveness:
59% look at overall improvement in their systems
33% look at improvements in employee or customer satisfaction
3% look at specific cost savings
Key Insights
Managers spend 8 hours a week on manual tasks. Managers say, on average, that they spend at least eight hours a week—one full work day’s worth of time—on manual data tasks, while 25% devote 20 or more weekly hours to these tasks. (That’s an average of four hours per workday!)
Those tasks are draining managers of valuable time that could otherwise be spent focusing on driving more strategic, high-value initiatives. The time and cost impacts of administrative work are significant.
4 in 10 organizations—both large and small—still use manual tools. Even with the evolution of cloud-based tools, we have not seen a dramatic increase in productivity and efficiency. In fact, many managers report that these new tools have the propensity to increase the number of information silos in a business and create more unnecessary manual tasks.
Poor communication tops managers’ workflow challenges. Managers say the top workflow challenge they face is poor communication (54%) followed by repetitive errors (44%) and delays in project deployment (42%). This overall lack of communication can increase the risk for mistakes and ultimately lead to a loss of stakeholder trust and less positive growth.
Automating workflows allows managers to focus on high-value initiatives. When workflows are automated, it leads to greater efficiency and allows managers to focus on high-value work that drives the organization forward. This, in turn, can lead to improved employee empowerment and happiness.
Workflow automation saves organizations thousands of dollars. Most respondents weren't able to cite a specific dollar amount saved by workflow automation tools, citing it was hard to measure or that they didn't have access to the information. However, those that could estimated anywhere from $10,000 to millions of dollars. On average, though, organizations are saving $46,000 annually.
What’s happening in education? Sixty-three percent of respondents working in education say their institution uses workflow automation tools. Within this industry, 30% spend two to three hours a day on manual data entry. Twenty-five percent devote four or more hours per day to these tasks.
What’s happening in healthcare? Although 63% of healthcare respondents use workflow automation tools, 67% spend eight or more hours a week on manual data entry. Meanwhile, 68% have identified as many as four inefficiencies in their business processes; 12% have identified five or more.
The Current State of Workflow Automation
How are administrators and managers currently using workflow automation tools?
First, we wanted to understand how many administrators or managers are using workflow automation tools, and why.
Are you currently using workflow automation tools?
Why does your organization use workflow automation tools?
Of those who use workflow automation tools:
76% use these tools to standardize or automate daily workflows
58% use workflow automation tools for data/reporting and planning
36% use workflow automation for regulation or compliance purposes
Next, we wanted to understand the top workflow automation challenges and bottlenecks in current business processes.
What workflow challenges does your organization most face?
How many inefficiencies or bottlenecks have you identified in your business processes?
A majority identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes. More than half (54%) of managers cite poor communication as their business’s most pressing challenge that needs to be addressed with workflow automation.
Workflow Automation Success Spotlight: See how PATLive brought in 240 new accounts after automating customer onboarding.
Top 3 Workflow Automation Challenges You Can Easily Solve
The managers represented in our study face several challenges that businesses need to address if they want to create more productive, profitable business environments through the use of workflow automation tools:
The challenge: Too much time spent on manual repetitive tasks
The solution: Improve automated workflows to free up time for more high-value initiatives
Based on the insights above, it’s evident that managers and administrators are still spending far too much time on mundane, manual work. By automating more workflows—and strengthening those that are already in place—companies can shift more hours to strategic initiatives that lead to growth.
The challenge: Unproductive, inefficient business processes
The solution: Seek out more intuitive, user-friendly tools
If current workflow automation tools aren’t intuitive and easy to use, it’s time to create tools that are. How? By streamlining multiple systems to a minimal number of platforms: The fewer apps you have to open to get something done, the better. Find tools that allow nontechnical users to build and update processes with ease, and steer clear of software that requires advanced coding knowledge and reliance on developers or IT.
The challenge: Information that’s divided and poorly communicated
The solution: Workflows that are flexible and easy to customize
When managers report that new cloud-based tools are increasing complexity and causing more work, that’s a sure sign it’s time to simplify. Businesses that succeed with workflow management will develop solutions that can be easily scaled to add new employees, extend to more departments, or enhance functionality.
Where Are Managers Most Struggling?
Managers are spending a substantial amount of time on repetitive, day-to-day tasks that don’t drive the business forward. Of those surveyed, 55% regularly spend time on administrative tasks that consume at least a full day of their work week, and 25% said they spend more than two days per week on these tasks.
We also asked managers about their level of confidence in the metrics they report to their bosses.
Are you confident in the accuracy of metrics you report?
In identifying some of their biggest obstacles to gathering reliable metrics, 65% of respondents said poor tracking parameters and too many reporting systems keep them from reporting more accurate data to their bosses. Another 10% had no clearly defined reporting requirements.
Key Takeaways
The abundance of manual tasks, often not part of a respondent’s core job function, is increasingly taking time away from managers’ abilities to focus on strategic initiatives that drive the organization forward.
This is often due to inefficient business processes and workflows that are difficult to track and measure.
What Are Their Biggest Roadblocks?
While much of managers’ time is being devoted to unstructured manual tasks, the current state of workflow automation within their organizations—often fraught with an overabundance of apps, tools, processes, and systems—isn’t solving this problem.
What is your top challenge in adopting workflow automation tools?
The bulk of managers in our survey cited poor communication, delays in project deployment, and repetitive errors as big roadblocks to creating effective workflows. When it comes to adoption of workflow automation tools, the biggest obstacles are not cost or buy-in from leadership, but rather ease of use and deciding which tool is best for the company.
Key Takeaways
Despite the numerous workflow automation tools available today, many managers at small and mid-sized businesses struggle to streamline the many administrative tasks they’re still handling manually. Without a standardized platform that streamlines processes, employees are forced to continuously shift between disparate dashboards, logins, and other sources of information. The result? Less productivity and more disengagement.
Future success will depend on finding an intuitive, uncomplicated system that lets managers “set and forget” the kind of dynamic workflows that are easy to build and simple to use.
3 Steps to Effective Workflow Automation
1. Conduct a time management audit How much time is currently going to manual tasks that could be automated?
2. Identify workflows in need of attention Are there any workflows employees avoid because they’re too cumbersome or require too many steps?
3. Choose a tool that’s easy to use Which tools are difficult or time-consuming to use—and which ones allow you to set up or tweak automated workflows within minutes?
Conclusion
Given this data, it’s no wonder businesses are increasingly turning to workflow automation to streamline routine workflow processes across departments—whether it’s employee reviews, project approvals, reimbursement requests, budget approvals, or any of the hundreds of other activities that take place day in and day out.
But not just any solution will work. To be effective, workflow automation must be intuitive, easy to use, and—most of all—flexible.
With the availability of online workflow management solutions, there’s simply no reason to continue spending valuable hours on repetitive tasks. It’s time to focus on aligning goals with the workflow automation tools that can empower managers and administrators to create more efficiency and save more time and money.
The Team Behind This Report
The State of Workflow Automation Report was prepared by Formstack, a secure workplace productivity platform built to produce ingenious solutions to the everyday tasks that slow your organization down. From eliminating paper forms to breaking digital silos, Formstack empowers anyone to quickly and easily build custom forms, create documents, and collect eSignatures—all without any specialized skills or coding. Our users live and work all over the world and use a wide array of robust tools to solve their most challenging data management issues.
An intuitive, drag-and-drop form and workflow builder that allows businesses to collect information that matters and automate processes. Accept payments, gather customer data, and automate your day-to-day tasks in just a few clicks.
A seamless document generator that puts an end to manual data entry by automatically populating documents with data from central business systems, like CRMs and form builders. Easily create custom PDFs, Word docs, Excel sheets, and PowerPoint presentations with your data in minutes.
A simple, drag-and-drop eSignature solution that empowers businesses to collect secure digital signatures for their documents and forms from any device. Simply upload your document and add your signer's information to send an email or text with the document to be signed.
A seamless, drag-and-drop Salesforce form builder that allows businesses to dynamically collect data and update information in their Salesforce org. The leading native form and survey builder on the Salesforce AppExchange.
What is Workflow Automation?
Where there’s a will, there’s a way—or, these days, a workflow. When it comes to completing tasks fast, workflow automation is a business’s best friend. Designed to streamline manual processes and bring structure to otherwise time-consuming, unstructured activities, this tool allows teams to get more done in less time.
Instead of logging into three different platforms, you might use an automated workflow to open just one. Twenty steps are condensed to five, emails are substituted by automatic alerts, and manual data entry is replaced by integrations. It can be a very reliable way to simplify business processes and improve your bottom line. Because when routine work flows, there's more time to focus on the things that really matter.
Introduction
What if there was a single solution you could use to run your business operations profitably and keep your employees actively engaged?
There is. It’s called workflow automation. A solid workflow management system provides a reliable way to unite different teams and departments as they work to get things done—whether that means onboarding new customers, approving new projects, accepting budget proposals, or accomplishing any number of mission-critical activities that must be completed day after day and week after week. These are just a few examples among thousands of repetitive tasks that can be replaced by automated workflows. In fact, when you consider all that can be automated, the opportunities are seemingly endless.
And therein lies the challenge. With the average business using 10 to 16 apps, creating a workflow management system to connect them all may prove to be problematic.
Amid the mountain of potential workflow management systems offered, we couldn’t help but wonder: What’s the true state of workflow automation today, and is it keeping pace with business needs?
Are companies embracing the power of workflow automation, or becoming overwhelmed by a never-ending array of options? Are managers harnessing the full power of workflow tools to effectively automate tasks? Or are outdated, disjointed business processes still causing issues?
We decided to find out.
Enter Formstack’s State of Workflow Automation Report
We surveyed hundreds of administrators and managers like you across a variety of industries in 2018. This survey was used to learn how workflows are being automated, identify common challenges, and find out what issues need to be addressed. In this report, you’ll find answers to questions such as:
What mediums and methods are managers relying on to automate workflows?
What are the biggest challenges affecting managers and administrators?
What are the top workflow automation problems that must be solved?
How to Use This Report
Managers and administrators at all experience levels will find value in this report.
First, take a look at the Key Findings and Key Insights to see how your current automated workflows (or lack of them) compare to those of your peers.
Next, by delving into the more in-depth Current State of Workflow Automation, you can get a better sense of what challenges may be standing in the way of greater productivity at your company.
Lastly, we recommend reviewing Workflow Automation Opportunities for ideas on what you can start doing today to better automate your own workflows.
Executive Summary and Major Findings
Methodology
To gain new insights on the current state of workflow automation in the U.S., we surveyed over 280 managers, directors, vice presidents, and C-level executives at small (10-99), medium (100-499), mid-sized (500-999), and enterprise (1000+) businesses. Here’s a snapshot of participants:
Key Industries and Departments
68% work in education and healthcare
34% work in marketing or sales
22% work in IT or technology
17% work in operations
16% work in finance, HR, or support
74% make administrative and/or process decisions for their companies
Key Findings
Among the business administrators we surveyed:
62% are using workflow automation tools
44% say their businesses have made a significant investment in workflow automation tools in the last 12-24 months
In what ways are these businesses using workflow automation?
76% use it for standardizing or automating daily workflows
58% use it for data/reporting for planning
36% use it for regulation or compliance purposes
How much time do these businesses spend on unstructured, manual data entry such as email and spreadsheet updates?
42% spend less than one hour per day
33% spend two to three hours a day
25% devote four or more hours per day
In addition:
62% have identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes that could potentially be solved with effective workflow automation:
54% cite poor communication as their organization’s most pressing challenge
44% cite repetitive errors
42% cite delays in project deployment
24% cite compliance
17% cite growing costs
When it comes to measuring the success of workflow automation tools, here’s how businesses gauge effectiveness:
59% look at overall improvement in their systems
33% look at improvements in employee or customer satisfaction
3% look at specific cost savings
Key Insights
Managers spend 8 hours a week on manual tasks. Managers say, on average, that they spend at least eight hours a week—one full work day’s worth of time—on manual data tasks, while 25% devote 20 or more weekly hours to these tasks. (That’s an average of four hours per workday!)
Those tasks are draining managers of valuable time that could otherwise be spent focusing on driving more strategic, high-value initiatives. The time and cost impacts of administrative work are significant.
4 in 10 organizations—both large and small—still use manual tools. Even with the evolution of cloud-based tools, we have not seen a dramatic increase in productivity and efficiency. In fact, many managers report that these new tools have the propensity to increase the number of information silos in a business and create more unnecessary manual tasks.
Poor communication tops managers’ workflow challenges. Managers say the top workflow challenge they face is poor communication (54%) followed by repetitive errors (44%) and delays in project deployment (42%). This overall lack of communication can increase the risk for mistakes and ultimately lead to a loss of stakeholder trust and less positive growth.
Automating workflows allows managers to focus on high-value initiatives. When workflows are automated, it leads to greater efficiency and allows managers to focus on high-value work that drives the organization forward. This, in turn, can lead to improved employee empowerment and happiness.
Workflow automation saves organizations thousands of dollars. Most respondents weren't able to cite a specific dollar amount saved by workflow automation tools, citing it was hard to measure or that they didn't have access to the information. However, those that could estimated anywhere from $10,000 to millions of dollars. On average, though, organizations are saving $46,000 annually.
What’s happening in education? Sixty-three percent of respondents working in education say their institution uses workflow automation tools. Within this industry, 30% spend two to three hours a day on manual data entry. Twenty-five percent devote four or more hours per day to these tasks.
What’s happening in healthcare? Although 63% of healthcare respondents use workflow automation tools, 67% spend eight or more hours a week on manual data entry. Meanwhile, 68% have identified as many as four inefficiencies in their business processes; 12% have identified five or more.
The Current State of Workflow Automation
How are administrators and managers currently using workflow automation tools?
First, we wanted to understand how many administrators or managers are using workflow automation tools, and why.
Are you currently using workflow automation tools?
Why does your organization use workflow automation tools?
Of those who use workflow automation tools:
76% use these tools to standardize or automate daily workflows
58% use workflow automation tools for data/reporting and planning
36% use workflow automation for regulation or compliance purposes
Next, we wanted to understand the top workflow automation challenges and bottlenecks in current business processes.
What workflow challenges does your organization most face?
How many inefficiencies or bottlenecks have you identified in your business processes?
A majority identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes. More than half (54%) of managers cite poor communication as their business’s most pressing challenge that needs to be addressed with workflow automation.
Workflow Automation Success Spotlight: See how PATLive brought in 240 new accounts after automating customer onboarding.
Top 3 Workflow Automation Challenges You Can Easily Solve
The managers represented in our study face several challenges that businesses need to address if they want to create more productive, profitable business environments through the use of workflow automation tools:
The challenge: Too much time spent on manual repetitive tasks
The solution: Improve automated workflows to free up time for more high-value initiatives
Based on the insights above, it’s evident that managers and administrators are still spending far too much time on mundane, manual work. By automating more workflows—and strengthening those that are already in place—companies can shift more hours to strategic initiatives that lead to growth.
The challenge: Unproductive, inefficient business processes
The solution: Seek out more intuitive, user-friendly tools
If current workflow automation tools aren’t intuitive and easy to use, it’s time to create tools that are. How? By streamlining multiple systems to a minimal number of platforms: The fewer apps you have to open to get something done, the better. Find tools that allow nontechnical users to build and update processes with ease, and steer clear of software that requires advanced coding knowledge and reliance on developers or IT.
The challenge: Information that’s divided and poorly communicated
The solution: Workflows that are flexible and easy to customize
When managers report that new cloud-based tools are increasing complexity and causing more work, that’s a sure sign it’s time to simplify. Businesses that succeed with workflow management will develop solutions that can be easily scaled to add new employees, extend to more departments, or enhance functionality.
Where Are Managers Most Struggling?
Managers are spending a substantial amount of time on repetitive, day-to-day tasks that don’t drive the business forward. Of those surveyed, 55% regularly spend time on administrative tasks that consume at least a full day of their work week, and 25% said they spend more than two days per week on these tasks.
We also asked managers about their level of confidence in the metrics they report to their bosses.
Are you confident in the accuracy of metrics you report?
In identifying some of their biggest obstacles to gathering reliable metrics, 65% of respondents said poor tracking parameters and too many reporting systems keep them from reporting more accurate data to their bosses. Another 10% had no clearly defined reporting requirements.
Key Takeaways
The abundance of manual tasks, often not part of a respondent’s core job function, is increasingly taking time away from managers’ abilities to focus on strategic initiatives that drive the organization forward.
This is often due to inefficient business processes and workflows that are difficult to track and measure.
What Are Their Biggest Roadblocks?
While much of managers’ time is being devoted to unstructured manual tasks, the current state of workflow automation within their organizations—often fraught with an overabundance of apps, tools, processes, and systems—isn’t solving this problem.
What is your top challenge in adopting workflow automation tools?
The bulk of managers in our survey cited poor communication, delays in project deployment, and repetitive errors as big roadblocks to creating effective workflows. When it comes to adoption of workflow automation tools, the biggest obstacles are not cost or buy-in from leadership, but rather ease of use and deciding which tool is best for the company.
Key Takeaways
Despite the numerous workflow automation tools available today, many managers at small and mid-sized businesses struggle to streamline the many administrative tasks they’re still handling manually. Without a standardized platform that streamlines processes, employees are forced to continuously shift between disparate dashboards, logins, and other sources of information. The result? Less productivity and more disengagement.
Future success will depend on finding an intuitive, uncomplicated system that lets managers “set and forget” the kind of dynamic workflows that are easy to build and simple to use.
3 Steps to Effective Workflow Automation
1. Conduct a time management audit How much time is currently going to manual tasks that could be automated?
2. Identify workflows in need of attention Are there any workflows employees avoid because they’re too cumbersome or require too many steps?
3. Choose a tool that’s easy to use Which tools are difficult or time-consuming to use—and which ones allow you to set up or tweak automated workflows within minutes?
Conclusion
Given this data, it’s no wonder businesses are increasingly turning to workflow automation to streamline routine workflow processes across departments—whether it’s employee reviews, project approvals, reimbursement requests, budget approvals, or any of the hundreds of other activities that take place day in and day out.
But not just any solution will work. To be effective, workflow automation must be intuitive, easy to use, and—most of all—flexible.
With the availability of online workflow management solutions, there’s simply no reason to continue spending valuable hours on repetitive tasks. It’s time to focus on aligning goals with the workflow automation tools that can empower managers and administrators to create more efficiency and save more time and money.
The Team Behind This Report
The State of Workflow Automation Report was prepared by Formstack, a secure workplace productivity platform built to produce ingenious solutions to the everyday tasks that slow your organization down. From eliminating paper forms to breaking digital silos, Formstack empowers anyone to quickly and easily build custom forms, create documents, and collect eSignatures—all without any specialized skills or coding. Our users live and work all over the world and use a wide array of robust tools to solve their most challenging data management issues.
An intuitive, drag-and-drop form and workflow builder that allows businesses to collect information that matters and automate processes. Accept payments, gather customer data, and automate your day-to-day tasks in just a few clicks.
A seamless document generator that puts an end to manual data entry by automatically populating documents with data from central business systems, like CRMs and form builders. Easily create custom PDFs, Word docs, Excel sheets, and PowerPoint presentations with your data in minutes.
A simple, drag-and-drop eSignature solution that empowers businesses to collect secure digital signatures for their documents and forms from any device. Simply upload your document and add your signer's information to send an email or text with the document to be signed.
A seamless, drag-and-drop Salesforce form builder that allows businesses to dynamically collect data and update information in their Salesforce org. The leading native form and survey builder on the Salesforce AppExchange.
What is Workflow Automation?
Where there’s a will, there’s a way—or, these days, a workflow. When it comes to completing tasks fast, workflow automation is a business’s best friend. Designed to streamline manual processes and bring structure to otherwise time-consuming, unstructured activities, this tool allows teams to get more done in less time.
Instead of logging into three different platforms, you might use an automated workflow to open just one. Twenty steps are condensed to five, emails are substituted by automatic alerts, and manual data entry is replaced by integrations. It can be a very reliable way to simplify business processes and improve your bottom line. Because when routine work flows, there's more time to focus on the things that really matter.
Introduction
What if there was a single solution you could use to run your business operations profitably and keep your employees actively engaged?
There is. It’s called workflow automation. A solid workflow management system provides a reliable way to unite different teams and departments as they work to get things done—whether that means onboarding new customers, approving new projects, accepting budget proposals, or accomplishing any number of mission-critical activities that must be completed day after day and week after week. These are just a few examples among thousands of repetitive tasks that can be replaced by automated workflows. In fact, when you consider all that can be automated, the opportunities are seemingly endless.
And therein lies the challenge. With the average business using 10 to 16 apps, creating a workflow management system to connect them all may prove to be problematic.
Amid the mountain of potential workflow management systems offered, we couldn’t help but wonder: What’s the true state of workflow automation today, and is it keeping pace with business needs?
Are companies embracing the power of workflow automation, or becoming overwhelmed by a never-ending array of options? Are managers harnessing the full power of workflow tools to effectively automate tasks? Or are outdated, disjointed business processes still causing issues?
We decided to find out.
Enter Formstack’s State of Workflow Automation Report
We surveyed hundreds of administrators and managers like you across a variety of industries in 2018. This survey was used to learn how workflows are being automated, identify common challenges, and find out what issues need to be addressed. In this report, you’ll find answers to questions such as:
What mediums and methods are managers relying on to automate workflows?
What are the biggest challenges affecting managers and administrators?
What are the top workflow automation problems that must be solved?
How to Use This Report
Managers and administrators at all experience levels will find value in this report.
First, take a look at the Key Findings and Key Insights to see how your current automated workflows (or lack of them) compare to those of your peers.
Next, by delving into the more in-depth Current State of Workflow Automation, you can get a better sense of what challenges may be standing in the way of greater productivity at your company.
Lastly, we recommend reviewing Workflow Automation Opportunities for ideas on what you can start doing today to better automate your own workflows.
Executive Summary and Major Findings
Methodology
To gain new insights on the current state of workflow automation in the U.S., we surveyed over 280 managers, directors, vice presidents, and C-level executives at small (10-99), medium (100-499), mid-sized (500-999), and enterprise (1000+) businesses. Here’s a snapshot of participants:
Key Industries and Departments
68% work in education and healthcare
34% work in marketing or sales
22% work in IT or technology
17% work in operations
16% work in finance, HR, or support
74% make administrative and/or process decisions for their companies
Key Findings
Among the business administrators we surveyed:
62% are using workflow automation tools
44% say their businesses have made a significant investment in workflow automation tools in the last 12-24 months
In what ways are these businesses using workflow automation?
76% use it for standardizing or automating daily workflows
58% use it for data/reporting for planning
36% use it for regulation or compliance purposes
How much time do these businesses spend on unstructured, manual data entry such as email and spreadsheet updates?
42% spend less than one hour per day
33% spend two to three hours a day
25% devote four or more hours per day
In addition:
62% have identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes that could potentially be solved with effective workflow automation:
54% cite poor communication as their organization’s most pressing challenge
44% cite repetitive errors
42% cite delays in project deployment
24% cite compliance
17% cite growing costs
When it comes to measuring the success of workflow automation tools, here’s how businesses gauge effectiveness:
59% look at overall improvement in their systems
33% look at improvements in employee or customer satisfaction
3% look at specific cost savings
Key Insights
Managers spend 8 hours a week on manual tasks. Managers say, on average, that they spend at least eight hours a week—one full work day’s worth of time—on manual data tasks, while 25% devote 20 or more weekly hours to these tasks. (That’s an average of four hours per workday!)
Those tasks are draining managers of valuable time that could otherwise be spent focusing on driving more strategic, high-value initiatives. The time and cost impacts of administrative work are significant.
4 in 10 organizations—both large and small—still use manual tools. Even with the evolution of cloud-based tools, we have not seen a dramatic increase in productivity and efficiency. In fact, many managers report that these new tools have the propensity to increase the number of information silos in a business and create more unnecessary manual tasks.
Poor communication tops managers’ workflow challenges. Managers say the top workflow challenge they face is poor communication (54%) followed by repetitive errors (44%) and delays in project deployment (42%). This overall lack of communication can increase the risk for mistakes and ultimately lead to a loss of stakeholder trust and less positive growth.
Automating workflows allows managers to focus on high-value initiatives. When workflows are automated, it leads to greater efficiency and allows managers to focus on high-value work that drives the organization forward. This, in turn, can lead to improved employee empowerment and happiness.
Workflow automation saves organizations thousands of dollars. Most respondents weren't able to cite a specific dollar amount saved by workflow automation tools, citing it was hard to measure or that they didn't have access to the information. However, those that could estimated anywhere from $10,000 to millions of dollars. On average, though, organizations are saving $46,000 annually.
What’s happening in education? Sixty-three percent of respondents working in education say their institution uses workflow automation tools. Within this industry, 30% spend two to three hours a day on manual data entry. Twenty-five percent devote four or more hours per day to these tasks.
What’s happening in healthcare? Although 63% of healthcare respondents use workflow automation tools, 67% spend eight or more hours a week on manual data entry. Meanwhile, 68% have identified as many as four inefficiencies in their business processes; 12% have identified five or more.
The Current State of Workflow Automation
How are administrators and managers currently using workflow automation tools?
First, we wanted to understand how many administrators or managers are using workflow automation tools, and why.
Are you currently using workflow automation tools?
Why does your organization use workflow automation tools?
Of those who use workflow automation tools:
76% use these tools to standardize or automate daily workflows
58% use workflow automation tools for data/reporting and planning
36% use workflow automation for regulation or compliance purposes
Next, we wanted to understand the top workflow automation challenges and bottlenecks in current business processes.
What workflow challenges does your organization most face?
How many inefficiencies or bottlenecks have you identified in your business processes?
A majority identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes. More than half (54%) of managers cite poor communication as their business’s most pressing challenge that needs to be addressed with workflow automation.
Workflow Automation Success Spotlight: See how PATLive brought in 240 new accounts after automating customer onboarding.
Top 3 Workflow Automation Challenges You Can Easily Solve
The managers represented in our study face several challenges that businesses need to address if they want to create more productive, profitable business environments through the use of workflow automation tools:
The challenge: Too much time spent on manual repetitive tasks
The solution: Improve automated workflows to free up time for more high-value initiatives
Based on the insights above, it’s evident that managers and administrators are still spending far too much time on mundane, manual work. By automating more workflows—and strengthening those that are already in place—companies can shift more hours to strategic initiatives that lead to growth.
The challenge: Unproductive, inefficient business processes
The solution: Seek out more intuitive, user-friendly tools
If current workflow automation tools aren’t intuitive and easy to use, it’s time to create tools that are. How? By streamlining multiple systems to a minimal number of platforms: The fewer apps you have to open to get something done, the better. Find tools that allow nontechnical users to build and update processes with ease, and steer clear of software that requires advanced coding knowledge and reliance on developers or IT.
The challenge: Information that’s divided and poorly communicated
The solution: Workflows that are flexible and easy to customize
When managers report that new cloud-based tools are increasing complexity and causing more work, that’s a sure sign it’s time to simplify. Businesses that succeed with workflow management will develop solutions that can be easily scaled to add new employees, extend to more departments, or enhance functionality.
Where Are Managers Most Struggling?
Managers are spending a substantial amount of time on repetitive, day-to-day tasks that don’t drive the business forward. Of those surveyed, 55% regularly spend time on administrative tasks that consume at least a full day of their work week, and 25% said they spend more than two days per week on these tasks.
We also asked managers about their level of confidence in the metrics they report to their bosses.
Are you confident in the accuracy of metrics you report?
In identifying some of their biggest obstacles to gathering reliable metrics, 65% of respondents said poor tracking parameters and too many reporting systems keep them from reporting more accurate data to their bosses. Another 10% had no clearly defined reporting requirements.
Key Takeaways
The abundance of manual tasks, often not part of a respondent’s core job function, is increasingly taking time away from managers’ abilities to focus on strategic initiatives that drive the organization forward.
This is often due to inefficient business processes and workflows that are difficult to track and measure.
What Are Their Biggest Roadblocks?
While much of managers’ time is being devoted to unstructured manual tasks, the current state of workflow automation within their organizations—often fraught with an overabundance of apps, tools, processes, and systems—isn’t solving this problem.
What is your top challenge in adopting workflow automation tools?
The bulk of managers in our survey cited poor communication, delays in project deployment, and repetitive errors as big roadblocks to creating effective workflows. When it comes to adoption of workflow automation tools, the biggest obstacles are not cost or buy-in from leadership, but rather ease of use and deciding which tool is best for the company.
Key Takeaways
Despite the numerous workflow automation tools available today, many managers at small and mid-sized businesses struggle to streamline the many administrative tasks they’re still handling manually. Without a standardized platform that streamlines processes, employees are forced to continuously shift between disparate dashboards, logins, and other sources of information. The result? Less productivity and more disengagement.
Future success will depend on finding an intuitive, uncomplicated system that lets managers “set and forget” the kind of dynamic workflows that are easy to build and simple to use.
3 Steps to Effective Workflow Automation
1. Conduct a time management audit How much time is currently going to manual tasks that could be automated?
2. Identify workflows in need of attention Are there any workflows employees avoid because they’re too cumbersome or require too many steps?
3. Choose a tool that’s easy to use Which tools are difficult or time-consuming to use—and which ones allow you to set up or tweak automated workflows within minutes?
Conclusion
Given this data, it’s no wonder businesses are increasingly turning to workflow automation to streamline routine workflow processes across departments—whether it’s employee reviews, project approvals, reimbursement requests, budget approvals, or any of the hundreds of other activities that take place day in and day out.
But not just any solution will work. To be effective, workflow automation must be intuitive, easy to use, and—most of all—flexible.
With the availability of online workflow management solutions, there’s simply no reason to continue spending valuable hours on repetitive tasks. It’s time to focus on aligning goals with the workflow automation tools that can empower managers and administrators to create more efficiency and save more time and money.
The Team Behind This Report
The State of Workflow Automation Report was prepared by Formstack, a secure workplace productivity platform built to produce ingenious solutions to the everyday tasks that slow your organization down. From eliminating paper forms to breaking digital silos, Formstack empowers anyone to quickly and easily build custom forms, create documents, and collect eSignatures—all without any specialized skills or coding. Our users live and work all over the world and use a wide array of robust tools to solve their most challenging data management issues.
An intuitive, drag-and-drop form and workflow builder that allows businesses to collect information that matters and automate processes. Accept payments, gather customer data, and automate your day-to-day tasks in just a few clicks.
A seamless document generator that puts an end to manual data entry by automatically populating documents with data from central business systems, like CRMs and form builders. Easily create custom PDFs, Word docs, Excel sheets, and PowerPoint presentations with your data in minutes.
A simple, drag-and-drop eSignature solution that empowers businesses to collect secure digital signatures for their documents and forms from any device. Simply upload your document and add your signer's information to send an email or text with the document to be signed.
A seamless, drag-and-drop Salesforce form builder that allows businesses to dynamically collect data and update information in their Salesforce org. The leading native form and survey builder on the Salesforce AppExchange.
What is Workflow Automation?
Where there’s a will, there’s a way—or, these days, a workflow. When it comes to completing tasks fast, workflow automation is a business’s best friend. Designed to streamline manual processes and bring structure to otherwise time-consuming, unstructured activities, this tool allows teams to get more done in less time.
Instead of logging into three different platforms, you might use an automated workflow to open just one. Twenty steps are condensed to five, emails are substituted by automatic alerts, and manual data entry is replaced by integrations. It can be a very reliable way to simplify business processes and improve your bottom line. Because when routine work flows, there's more time to focus on the things that really matter.
Introduction
What if there was a single solution you could use to run your business operations profitably and keep your employees actively engaged?
There is. It’s called workflow automation. A solid workflow management system provides a reliable way to unite different teams and departments as they work to get things done—whether that means onboarding new customers, approving new projects, accepting budget proposals, or accomplishing any number of mission-critical activities that must be completed day after day and week after week. These are just a few examples among thousands of repetitive tasks that can be replaced by automated workflows. In fact, when you consider all that can be automated, the opportunities are seemingly endless.
And therein lies the challenge. With the average business using 10 to 16 apps, creating a workflow management system to connect them all may prove to be problematic.
Amid the mountain of potential workflow management systems offered, we couldn’t help but wonder: What’s the true state of workflow automation today, and is it keeping pace with business needs?
Are companies embracing the power of workflow automation, or becoming overwhelmed by a never-ending array of options? Are managers harnessing the full power of workflow tools to effectively automate tasks? Or are outdated, disjointed business processes still causing issues?
We decided to find out.
Enter Formstack’s State of Workflow Automation Report
We surveyed hundreds of administrators and managers like you across a variety of industries in 2018. This survey was used to learn how workflows are being automated, identify common challenges, and find out what issues need to be addressed. In this report, you’ll find answers to questions such as:
What mediums and methods are managers relying on to automate workflows?
What are the biggest challenges affecting managers and administrators?
What are the top workflow automation problems that must be solved?
How to Use This Report
Managers and administrators at all experience levels will find value in this report.
First, take a look at the Key Findings and Key Insights to see how your current automated workflows (or lack of them) compare to those of your peers.
Next, by delving into the more in-depth Current State of Workflow Automation, you can get a better sense of what challenges may be standing in the way of greater productivity at your company.
Lastly, we recommend reviewing Workflow Automation Opportunities for ideas on what you can start doing today to better automate your own workflows.
Executive Summary and Major Findings
Methodology
To gain new insights on the current state of workflow automation in the U.S., we surveyed over 280 managers, directors, vice presidents, and C-level executives at small (10-99), medium (100-499), mid-sized (500-999), and enterprise (1000+) businesses. Here’s a snapshot of participants:
Key Industries and Departments
68% work in education and healthcare
34% work in marketing or sales
22% work in IT or technology
17% work in operations
16% work in finance, HR, or support
74% make administrative and/or process decisions for their companies
Key Findings
Among the business administrators we surveyed:
62% are using workflow automation tools
44% say their businesses have made a significant investment in workflow automation tools in the last 12-24 months
In what ways are these businesses using workflow automation?
76% use it for standardizing or automating daily workflows
58% use it for data/reporting for planning
36% use it for regulation or compliance purposes
How much time do these businesses spend on unstructured, manual data entry such as email and spreadsheet updates?
42% spend less than one hour per day
33% spend two to three hours a day
25% devote four or more hours per day
In addition:
62% have identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes that could potentially be solved with effective workflow automation:
54% cite poor communication as their organization’s most pressing challenge
44% cite repetitive errors
42% cite delays in project deployment
24% cite compliance
17% cite growing costs
When it comes to measuring the success of workflow automation tools, here’s how businesses gauge effectiveness:
59% look at overall improvement in their systems
33% look at improvements in employee or customer satisfaction
3% look at specific cost savings
Key Insights
Managers spend 8 hours a week on manual tasks. Managers say, on average, that they spend at least eight hours a week—one full work day’s worth of time—on manual data tasks, while 25% devote 20 or more weekly hours to these tasks. (That’s an average of four hours per workday!)
Those tasks are draining managers of valuable time that could otherwise be spent focusing on driving more strategic, high-value initiatives. The time and cost impacts of administrative work are significant.
4 in 10 organizations—both large and small—still use manual tools. Even with the evolution of cloud-based tools, we have not seen a dramatic increase in productivity and efficiency. In fact, many managers report that these new tools have the propensity to increase the number of information silos in a business and create more unnecessary manual tasks.
Poor communication tops managers’ workflow challenges. Managers say the top workflow challenge they face is poor communication (54%) followed by repetitive errors (44%) and delays in project deployment (42%). This overall lack of communication can increase the risk for mistakes and ultimately lead to a loss of stakeholder trust and less positive growth.
Automating workflows allows managers to focus on high-value initiatives. When workflows are automated, it leads to greater efficiency and allows managers to focus on high-value work that drives the organization forward. This, in turn, can lead to improved employee empowerment and happiness.
Workflow automation saves organizations thousands of dollars. Most respondents weren't able to cite a specific dollar amount saved by workflow automation tools, citing it was hard to measure or that they didn't have access to the information. However, those that could estimated anywhere from $10,000 to millions of dollars. On average, though, organizations are saving $46,000 annually.
What’s happening in education? Sixty-three percent of respondents working in education say their institution uses workflow automation tools. Within this industry, 30% spend two to three hours a day on manual data entry. Twenty-five percent devote four or more hours per day to these tasks.
What’s happening in healthcare? Although 63% of healthcare respondents use workflow automation tools, 67% spend eight or more hours a week on manual data entry. Meanwhile, 68% have identified as many as four inefficiencies in their business processes; 12% have identified five or more.
The Current State of Workflow Automation
How are administrators and managers currently using workflow automation tools?
First, we wanted to understand how many administrators or managers are using workflow automation tools, and why.
Are you currently using workflow automation tools?
Why does your organization use workflow automation tools?
Of those who use workflow automation tools:
76% use these tools to standardize or automate daily workflows
58% use workflow automation tools for data/reporting and planning
36% use workflow automation for regulation or compliance purposes
Next, we wanted to understand the top workflow automation challenges and bottlenecks in current business processes.
What workflow challenges does your organization most face?
How many inefficiencies or bottlenecks have you identified in your business processes?
A majority identified three or more major inefficiencies or bottlenecks in their business processes. More than half (54%) of managers cite poor communication as their business’s most pressing challenge that needs to be addressed with workflow automation.
Workflow Automation Success Spotlight: See how PATLive brought in 240 new accounts after automating customer onboarding.
Top 3 Workflow Automation Challenges You Can Easily Solve
The managers represented in our study face several challenges that businesses need to address if they want to create more productive, profitable business environments through the use of workflow automation tools:
The challenge: Too much time spent on manual repetitive tasks
The solution: Improve automated workflows to free up time for more high-value initiatives
Based on the insights above, it’s evident that managers and administrators are still spending far too much time on mundane, manual work. By automating more workflows—and strengthening those that are already in place—companies can shift more hours to strategic initiatives that lead to growth.
The challenge: Unproductive, inefficient business processes
The solution: Seek out more intuitive, user-friendly tools
If current workflow automation tools aren’t intuitive and easy to use, it’s time to create tools that are. How? By streamlining multiple systems to a minimal number of platforms: The fewer apps you have to open to get something done, the better. Find tools that allow nontechnical users to build and update processes with ease, and steer clear of software that requires advanced coding knowledge and reliance on developers or IT.
The challenge: Information that’s divided and poorly communicated
The solution: Workflows that are flexible and easy to customize
When managers report that new cloud-based tools are increasing complexity and causing more work, that’s a sure sign it’s time to simplify. Businesses that succeed with workflow management will develop solutions that can be easily scaled to add new employees, extend to more departments, or enhance functionality.
Where Are Managers Most Struggling?
Managers are spending a substantial amount of time on repetitive, day-to-day tasks that don’t drive the business forward. Of those surveyed, 55% regularly spend time on administrative tasks that consume at least a full day of their work week, and 25% said they spend more than two days per week on these tasks.
We also asked managers about their level of confidence in the metrics they report to their bosses.
Are you confident in the accuracy of metrics you report?
In identifying some of their biggest obstacles to gathering reliable metrics, 65% of respondents said poor tracking parameters and too many reporting systems keep them from reporting more accurate data to their bosses. Another 10% had no clearly defined reporting requirements.
Key Takeaways
The abundance of manual tasks, often not part of a respondent’s core job function, is increasingly taking time away from managers’ abilities to focus on strategic initiatives that drive the organization forward.
This is often due to inefficient business processes and workflows that are difficult to track and measure.
What Are Their Biggest Roadblocks?
While much of managers’ time is being devoted to unstructured manual tasks, the current state of workflow automation within their organizations—often fraught with an overabundance of apps, tools, processes, and systems—isn’t solving this problem.
What is your top challenge in adopting workflow automation tools?
The bulk of managers in our survey cited poor communication, delays in project deployment, and repetitive errors as big roadblocks to creating effective workflows. When it comes to adoption of workflow automation tools, the biggest obstacles are not cost or buy-in from leadership, but rather ease of use and deciding which tool is best for the company.
Key Takeaways
Despite the numerous workflow automation tools available today, many managers at small and mid-sized businesses struggle to streamline the many administrative tasks they’re still handling manually. Without a standardized platform that streamlines processes, employees are forced to continuously shift between disparate dashboards, logins, and other sources of information. The result? Less productivity and more disengagement.
Future success will depend on finding an intuitive, uncomplicated system that lets managers “set and forget” the kind of dynamic workflows that are easy to build and simple to use.
3 Steps to Effective Workflow Automation
1. Conduct a time management audit How much time is currently going to manual tasks that could be automated?
2. Identify workflows in need of attention Are there any workflows employees avoid because they’re too cumbersome or require too many steps?
3. Choose a tool that’s easy to use Which tools are difficult or time-consuming to use—and which ones allow you to set up or tweak automated workflows within minutes?
Conclusion
Given this data, it’s no wonder businesses are increasingly turning to workflow automation to streamline routine workflow processes across departments—whether it’s employee reviews, project approvals, reimbursement requests, budget approvals, or any of the hundreds of other activities that take place day in and day out.
But not just any solution will work. To be effective, workflow automation must be intuitive, easy to use, and—most of all—flexible.
With the availability of online workflow management solutions, there’s simply no reason to continue spending valuable hours on repetitive tasks. It’s time to focus on aligning goals with the workflow automation tools that can empower managers and administrators to create more efficiency and save more time and money.
The Team Behind This Report
The State of Workflow Automation Report was prepared by Formstack, a secure workplace productivity platform built to produce ingenious solutions to the everyday tasks that slow your organization down. From eliminating paper forms to breaking digital silos, Formstack empowers anyone to quickly and easily build custom forms, create documents, and collect eSignatures—all without any specialized skills or coding. Our users live and work all over the world and use a wide array of robust tools to solve their most challenging data management issues.
An intuitive, drag-and-drop form and workflow builder that allows businesses to collect information that matters and automate processes. Accept payments, gather customer data, and automate your day-to-day tasks in just a few clicks.
A seamless document generator that puts an end to manual data entry by automatically populating documents with data from central business systems, like CRMs and form builders. Easily create custom PDFs, Word docs, Excel sheets, and PowerPoint presentations with your data in minutes.
A simple, drag-and-drop eSignature solution that empowers businesses to collect secure digital signatures for their documents and forms from any device. Simply upload your document and add your signer's information to send an email or text with the document to be signed.
A seamless, drag-and-drop Salesforce form builder that allows businesses to dynamically collect data and update information in their Salesforce org. The leading native form and survey builder on the Salesforce AppExchange.
Lindsay is a writer with a background in journalism and loves getting to flex her interview skills as host of Practically Genius. She manages Formstack's blog and long-form reports, like the 2022 State of Digital Maturity: Advancing Workflow Automation.
