In the last few years, businesses have been facing a dilemma - how to best digitise their operations and maximise their profits. This article will demonstrate how to transform the capturing of external data by transferring it from paper to digital format, using a mobile phone application. This is ideal for you, your employees and your clients, capturing data in a more efficient way. Mobile apps give business owners and their employees power to control their workflow digitally.

The following process will help you to optimise your data entry process and minimise human errors.

1. How does your business flow?

Through observation of the flow of documents throughout your business processes and external data collection, you can identify potential opportunities to reduce waste and human error and improve processes through digitalisation.

2. Identification of paper data collection

After observing your business flow, identify all the relevant paper format data collections which are inefficient and result in delays in data collection processing.

3. Structure your incoming and outgoing data formats

Identify how you need to receive data and structure it to be able to upload to your internal systems.

4. Find the right digital tool or application

This is can be the hardest part of the processing. Finding the right tool is the most valuable decision for your business. If you cannot find the right tool for your business needs, you can develop a customised solution which will bring your business to a new level.

5. Run the transformation process and educate your staff

Successfully implementing the tool will not, on its own, guarantee the success of the process digitisation. You will also need to educate your staff to produce consistent results in the imputing, importing and processing of the data.

An example of how this digitisation has worked can be seen with Duo Tax Quantity Surveyors. It is one the leading Tax Depreciation Quantity Surveyors in Sydney. Originally the company used the hand written notes to collect data from the inspected apartments which was then manually entered into a spreadsheet. The result of Duo Tax Quantity Surveyors moving from paper to app-based application was reduction of 30% in the data collection time and the processing time was reduced to almost zero.This mobile application resulted in the collection data process being visible and transparent to both the employee and end user.

Another perfect example of business optimisation is with CT Group which provides Self Managed Superannuation Funds (SMSF) Services in Sydney. Their agents used to manually complete company forms, scan them and then email the filled forms back to the company. The huge success was in providing their agencies with the correct tool. The outcome increased the processing speed and, as a result, company expenses were reduced by removing paper and freeing up staff for other important tasks.

Any business interested in Business Process Improvement (BPI) may look to technology to reduce costs, increase productivity and enter into the digital world. Business profitability can be easily achieved through reducing paper and human error by introducing a mobile phone application.