The world has been in a state of flux, and even after the immediate global threats passed, the digital business landscape has continued to evolve much faster than we have ever seen before. In the midst of all the calamity, travel, invoice, and expense automation has emerged as an unlikely hero to help set businesses on the right path to their digital transformation journey.

Automated travel, invoice, and expense management have quickly come to the fore in helping organisations maintain business continuity, improve operational efficiencies, reduce operating costs, and enhance the employee experience. These processes are core to business operations and impact employees directly so that the right methods can deliver the biggest return on investment both in terms of improved efficiencies and greater employee experiences.

By employing digital tools such as travel, invoice, and expense management to embed permanent changes that involve building agility and scalability into the core of business operations, organisations can achieve new levels of business resilience. This helps them to quickly adapt to constant economic and market shifts, as well as manage the great employee reshuffle.

For example, digital tools are helping businesses accommodate hybrid and remote working models and giving employees more flexibility to do business through the mobile devices they choose at the time they prefer to work.

At the same time, embedding cloud-based tools helps the business maintain consistency in all areas of operations, no matter where employees choose to work. Additionally, they are proving to be more secure and provide more protection against fraud than manual, paper-based processes. This is why organisations have recognised that automation is the key to achieving sustained business resilience in the face of competing internal and external forces.

There is little doubt that automation helps improve the employee experience, with automation essential for running a successful business in today’s operating environment. In addition, retaining skilled employees who hold corporate knowledge and improving business and cost efficiencies is vital to navigating an evolving economic landscape.

The need for automation is not merely a fad. Instead, it will continue to grow, with the world now shifting to a digital business landscape. Organisations that have already started their digital transformation journey by automating core processes are likely to maintain greater levels of business resilience, better cost efficiencies, and a competitive edge over those that still rely on manual processes.