by Joshua I. | March 25, 2025
Most businesses depend on routine tasks, which are tedious and uninspiring, yet are essential to their operations. By leveraging automation tools, businesses free up time and mental resources to focus on more strategic and other revenue-generating activities. From streamlining mundane tasks to enabling data-driven decision-making, here’s how top businesses are harnessing automation to revolutionize their operations.
What’s the Point of Automation?
According to IBM, “business automation is the process of using automation solutions to manage repetitive tasks, so businesses can streamline workflows, drive revenue and thrive in challenging markets.” Automation allows businesses to delegate monotonous and time-consuming workflows to intelligent automation tools. The substantial amount of human talent that is recovered from the grind of repetition through automation is then reinvested into higher-value contributions.
A study by Mckinsey found that employees are spending time saved through automation tasks on entirely new and often creative activities. The more time businesses spend performing manual, often repetitive tasks, the less time and energy they can allocate to more creative and strategic aspects of their operations. Take for instance, traditional customer centre agents who spend lots of time manually logging customer interactions. While their work is crucial for future engagement with customers, this data entry work lowers their capacity to resolve more complex issues.
Take financial teams that spend hours processing invoices or HR departments that have to fulfil massive payrolls. These tasks mean little or no time or even motivation is left to focus on strategic initiatives like talent development or workforce planning. These mundane tasks, though small individually, often accumulate into a substantial drain on employees’ productivity. With automation, a substantial amount of human talent and time is recovered from the grind of repetition and reinvested into higher-value contributions.
Why Top Businesses Are Leveraging Automation Tools
According to Microsoft, workers at nearly 70% of Fortune 500 companies use its chatbot, Microsoft 365 Copilot to tackle plenty of repetitive and mundane tasks. These include sifting through email and taking notes during Teams meetings. Coca-Cola, Alibaba, Walmart, Adidas, Uber, Kyocera, AT& T, Spotify, Heathrow Airport, HSBC, Mercedes Benz, Netflix are among top companies reported to have incorporated automation into their operations.
At Walmart, for instance, day-to-day office tasks such as digitizing documents, handling internal service processes, inventory monitoring are automated. Artist royalty payments at Spotify are automated. At Coca-Cola, on-demand shipping requests and SAP invoicing process are hyperautomated.
Italian telecoms company, Telecom Italia (TIM) implemented a Google-powered voice agent to address many customer calls, increasing efficiency by 20%.
1. They Achieve More With Less
At these businesses, AI-powered platforms and AI agents handle tasks at speeds beyond humans at a significantly lower cost.
At Walmart, for instance, day-to-day office tasks such as digitizing documents, handling internal service processes and inventory monitoring, are all automated. Also, at Spotify, artist payments as well as content marketing are automated. At Coca-Cola, on-demand shipping requests and SAP invoicing process are hyperautomated. In 2024, the Ministry of Labour in Qatar launched an AI-powered platform that connects expatriate university graduates with job opportunities in the private sector.
The result is that operations in these businesses become leaner and more agile, and employees contribute to more strategic aspects of the business. Thus, while improving productivity, automation creates a culture of innovation and creativity.
2. They Reduce Human Error
In manual operations, human error is almost inevitable, in spite of the time invested. For instance, a misplaced decimal in financial reporting or a mislogged customer detail can cascade into tremendous costs for businesses. Automation removes this risk by adhering strictly to predefined rules. In healthcare, for instance, automated medication dispensing systems have slashed dosage errors thus, safeguarding patient outcomes.
Beyond error reduction, automation also ensures uniformity across workflows. Automated workflows guarantee that every customer interaction, data entry, or compliance check follows the same protocol. This consistency builds trust, whether in product quality, service delivery, or regulatory adherence and strengthens a company’s reputation in competitive markets.
For example, Woven, created by Toyota, uses vast amounts of data and AI to enable autonomous driving, supported by thousands of ML workloads on Google Cloud’s AI Hypercomputer. This has resulted in 50% total-cost-of-ownership savings to support automated driving.
3. They Save Labour Costs That Can Be Invested Elsewhere
Though implementing automation requires significant upfront investment, they often return the investment over the long-run. McKinsey estimates that automation can reduce operational costs by up to 30% in sectors like manufacturing and healthcare. From savings made on labour costs, and with machines handling repetitive tasks, they re-invest in growth strategies while reduction in human error minimizes expenses tied to rework or penalties.
Banking, financial services and insurance sector, accounted for 28.89% revenue share of automation tools called robotic process animation (RPA). In this sector, RPA technologies helps companies automate various business processes, including account and deposit opening, customer onboarding, KYC and anti-money laundering procedures. These savings are then be reinvested into R&D, employee training, or market expansion.
4. Automating Improves Customer Experience and Satisfaction
In an era where customer loyalty hinges on seamless interactions, automation is a differentiator. Chatbots can resolve queries instantly. Personalized recommendation engines can curate shopping experiences tailormade to fit individual preferences. At Heathrow, for instance, booking, baggage handling, passenger forecasting and check-in and bag drop processes are all automated. This reduces wait times whilst increasing traveler satisfaction.
For example, Nutrition startup, Spoon Guru uses Vertex AI to process up to 14 billion data points a day including pack labels, ingredients, nutritional values, allergens, and other metadata. This allows retailers and consumers to better determine a product’s suitability for any given health, nutrition or lifestyle diet.
Electronics retailer, Best Buy uses a generative AI-powered VA that can troubleshoot product issues, reschedule order deliveries, manage Geek Squad subscriptions. Italian telecoms company, Telecom Italia (TIM) implemented a Google-powered voice agent to address many customer calls, increasing efficiency by 20%.
5. Automation Generates Usable Data that Can Drive Insights
Every automated process produces insights into performance, customer behavior and market trends. Predictive analytics tools interpret this data and draw helpful insights or identify inefficiencies. These insights empower proactive decision-making. Companies like Deloitte use data-driven insights from technologies incorporated into automation processes to streamline production processes and optimize supply chain management.
To give an example, NotCo, a Chilean food tech company, developed a conversational AI chatbot, that allows employees to instantly query their SAP system and gain real-time insights for faster, data-driven decision-making. Also, in Taiwan, Carrefour uses a conversational AI service integrated into its app, to allow customers select wines based on their preferences.
Automate or Die!
Automation isn’t about replacing workers; this is almost impossible in spite of all the hullabaloo. Automation is mostly about augmenting their capabilities. Employees are freed from mundane tasks to innovate, strategize and connect with customers on a deeper level. The question is no longer whether businesses should automate but how quickly they can embrace it.
Businesses that delay risk falling behind; those that act have the chance to position themselves as pioneers in their industries. The transformation begins with a single step: identifying repetitive tasks that stifle potential. From there, the possibilities are limitless.
This is where NQLB comes in.
We help companies, small businesses and governments in Nigeria and West Africa automate their operations. To get started, book a call today through our website or email us at [email protected]. Our team will schedule a consultation to understand your needs and develop a tailored approach to address your specific challenges.
