As a business owner, you understand the competitive nature of the open marketplace. We don’t often like to discuss it, but business can be, and often is, cutthroat in nature. There are only so many clients or customers available. The business that is best able to attract a majority of those clients or customers succeeds. Everybody else fails to a greater or lesser degree. It’s all about survival of the fittest. Therefore, if you want your business to survive and thrive then you have to make sure that you and your business are in the very best shape. Why? Because business survival is no different than personal survival.

Imagine for a moment that you are in a life-threatening survival situation. Also imagine that it is up to you to survive. No one is going to come and rescue you. You’re going to have to do this all by yourself. One of the things that are going to improve your chances to survive are your innate survival skills – the things that you already know or have learned that will help you pull through. Another important thing that will determine whether or not you survive is the tools you have available and how well you implement them. In a survival situation innate knowledge alone will not help you live. In order to survive you’re going to need to use every tool you have handy. It is this combination of skill sets and the right tools that will get you through.

Survival in the business world is no different than personal survival in the wild. You certainly need to be a good business person with a better than average business knowledge in order to succeed. However, no matter how good your business skills are, they will not be enough to get you to where you want to go on their own. In order to succeed you are also going to need the right tools for the job at hand. One of the best and most effective of these success tools is automation.

What is automation? In a nutshell, automation (also known as business process automation or “BPA”) is a way to take routine tasks, regular events and common steps and make them occur and run smoothly automatically, time and time again.

This automation frees up your time, as a business owner, so that you can concentrate on more important, creative and productive tasks that can help make your business grow and succeed.

The problem is that many business owners are confused about automation. They wonder exactly which processes in their businesses are most amenable to automation. They are concerned that automation won’t really make their businesses more efficient and competitive. They are afraid that automation will cause them to lose control over important aspects of their business processes. The purpose of this book is to clear up that confusion, address those concerns and assuage those fears. In these pages you will learn exactly what business automation is and the benefits that automation can bring to your business. We’ll take a close look at some things to consider before automating. We’ll also give you twelve reasons why automation is right for you. Next we’ll look at specific areas within your business that can benefit from automation. Finally, we’ll look at specific automation tools that are currently available to help your business.

There is absolutely no reason to be confused, concerned or afraid when it comes to business process automation. Automation is simply a powerful tool that allows you to survive in the open market. Properly applied, business automation will make your business operations more efficient and productive. This, in turn, makes you a tougher competitor and allows you to grab a bigger share of your given market. It’s all about the survival of the fittest, so let’s get started automating your business and making it a leaner and meaner profit-making machine.