This is not just another blog post on workflow software, describing what it is and why it’s important.

Nevertheless, I will quickly mention for those of you who doubt its importance, that the global market size of workflow management systems is estimated to grow at a staggering rate of 23% from 2016 to 2021, shooting up in value from $3.5 billion to just under $10 billion.

In short, it has already begun to establish itself as a key competitive battleground for years to come.

The intent of this post is to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the purpose and use of workflow software, its application in various industries, the role of automation, methods for continuous improvement, and top tips for getting started in a fast, high-impact fashion.

It’s long, it’s heavy, it’s everything you need to know.

Ultimately, I am aiming to provide a practical guide to help you get the most out of the software you use for workflow management.

If you don’t currently use software to manage your workflows, then you must be at least considering it, otherwise you wouldn’t be spending valuable minutes of your day reading this.

In any case, skim through, extract any nuggets of information you find useful, think about your internal business processes and how getting started could improve your team’s productivity and forward strategic goals. It really is surprisingly easy (and affordable) to get the ball rolling.

The goal of this post is to provide you with clear information you need to:

• Understand what workflow software is, how it works and key features
• Evaluate whether or not you need workflow software right now
• Understand the benefits of utilizing workflow software
• Know how you can get started quickly and with minimal stress
• Implement workflows effectively with a 5-step process
• Have a solid understanding of how to set up automation for even greater efficiency
• Set yourself up to achieve both short-term and long-term strategic goals

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The real estate market is known to require a significant level of human interaction, but to what extent is the human touch really necessary for delivering a high-quality service for each and every customer?

The human-intensive nature of real estate creates a large margin for human error. Poor lead management, documentation, appointment coordination, tenant screening, and maintenance supervision are just a few examples of tasks/processes that are difficult to execute consistently without the assistance of automation software working in the background.

“Real estate is a market that is ripe for technological disruption. Whatever can be automated should be automated!” – Jyotirmay Samanta, How to Automate Your Real Estate Business?

Some of you property managers out there may claim that diving headfirst into the automation craze sweeping the business world is not such a good idea, as it undermines the face-to-face interactions that play such an important role in the field.

This is not entirely wrong, but all things considered, deciding to ignore new ways of streamlining processes will leave you in the dust as your competitors continue to find new ways of being more efficient.

Plus, some industry thought leaders believe that automation actually humanizes the property management experience even more:

“One of the most effective ways to humanize the property management experience is by providing better communication. Figuring out what residents want in order to improve service can be a complicated and daunting task. But today, a company can easily leverage automated surveys and other forms of real-time communication to glean real, useful feedback from residents.” – Doug Brien – How Technology And Automation Humanize The Property Management Experience

Recently, it was reported that total investment in real estate tech has ballooned from $33 million in 2010 to more than $5 billion in 2017. That is nothing short of astounding, especially when you consider the market’s volatility over the past decade.

Technology is driving the evolution of real estate, and market players need to keep up if they want any hope of leading the charge.

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Whether you’re submitting a draft of an article for review, collating a report for senior management, or presenting a product design, you probably need someone to sign off on your work.

This happens day in day out in organizations all around the world.

Yet, the sign off process can be slow and littered with delays.

Anyone who has worked in software development will know the pain of submitting work for review, only for revisions and changes to drone on and on. The time spent waiting can sometimes be as much as the time spent working.

And this, friends, is bad for business.

Last week I published an article on Muda – waste in production systems – and laid out the different ways poor processes create waste and damage business performance. One of those wastes is referred to as Time on Hand, or waiting.

In this article, we’ll look to cover the most common occurrence of this waste: the approval flow. We’ll look at:

• What an approval process is
• What common approval workflows are
• Best practices for approvals
• How you can use Process Street to streamline your approvals

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