business AI & automation
You can’t talk about technology today without mentioning AI and Automation. At Paragus, we understand that many people are still navigating these tools and how they can benefit their business. Whether you’re just starting your AI and Automation journey or looking to take things to the next level, Paragus has got you covered. Unlock the full potential of your business with Microsoft Power Tools. Streamline operations, enhance productivity, and drive innovation with powerful automation solutions tailored to your needs. Start your journey towards a smarter, more efficient future today.
Business Automation | AI & Automation | Benefits | What Can Be Automated? | How We Do It | Automation Assessment | Case Studies
Automation & AI—It’s Quick, It’s Easy, And Your Competition Is Already Using It
As Automation & AI becomes increasingly accessible, nearly 70% of businesses are using it to cut costs, streamline operations, and gain a competitive edge.
But does it really save that much time and money? What kind of changes will you have to make to your current systems? Is it easy to use? When should you not use it?
Paragus is here to demystify the process and deliver results, with services including:
Automating business processes using Power Automate
Building custom apps leveraging Power Apps
Dashboards for data visualization with Power BI
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Eliminate Tedious <br>& Repetitive Tasks
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Free Up Time For <br>Other Ventures
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Consistent Workflow <br> & Project Completion
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Tracking <br> & Analytics
BUSINESS PROCESS AUTOMATIONS
SAVE VALUABLE TIME AND MONEY.
Appointment Booking
Approval Processes
Asset Management
Collecting Survey Results
Gathering Teams Data
Email Auto-Responses
Employee Scheduling
Event Registration
Issue Tracking & Resolution
Keeping People Informed
Managing SharePoint Data
Notifications & Alerting
New Employee Onboarding
Organizing Email Attachments
Sales Leads & Assignment
Social Media Activity
Time-Off Requests
To Do List Management
Uploading / Organizing Files
Time For A 15 Minute Chat?
LET’S MAKE THIS AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE.
We will get into more detail as the process rolls out and we get into the specific needs of your business, but this will give you a general roadmap of the Paragus automation journey.
Goals & Scope
First, we’ll have a call with your team to get an idea of your overall goals and vision with the project and what you’d like to accomplish.
Next, we’ll speak in more detail with the person directly involved in the process being automated (someone in the accounting department if we’re automating payroll, for example).
THE PITCH
We will present you with a document that clearly lays out:
Workflow evaluation
Suggested goal for Phase One
Timeline
Estimated budget—including how much the new automation will save!
We will also lay out potential next steps and what future phases might look like.
APPROVAL
& FIRST
PAYMENT
We receive 50% of the estimated budget on project approval and 50% at process completion.
While we can’t give you an estimate until we scope your project, clients typically see an 8-10x ROI in the first six months alone.
Each project is different, so we will go into more detail as the process continues, but generally this is how it goes:
Create and get approval on proposed workflow.
Frequent check-ins to ensure we are on track.
Demo and test the automations.
Train your team on using the automations.
Once approved, we go live!
Document and back up the automation.
Assess the results and discuss future enhancements.
The Paragus Automation Assessment
30-minute intro call to discuss how automation can streamline workflow
4 in-person or video-call shadowing sessions to identify potential automations to benefit your business (max 90 mins per session)
Recap meeting with detailed list of potential automations with estimated time and money saved
For an investment of $749, you can save big over the long term by permanently eliminating tedious, time-consuming tasks.
With so many changes to the labor market, it’s more important than ever to be able do more with less.
Sign up for the Paragus Automation Package and start saving time and money today.
Explore our latest case studies to see how businesses like yours have transformed their operations through automation and AI. From reducing manual tasks to enhancing productivity, our success stories highlight the tangible benefits of automation and AI. Scroll through the gallery below to see a more in depth view of our automations or click the button below to download a pdf highlighting the impact of our automation and AI process.
1/7
Employee Onboarding
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A growing business with 250 employees who were in the process of onboarding or offboarding more than a dozen people at any given time. They were required to create and maintain documentation that showed that every single onboarding and offboarding task had been completed, by whom, and when.
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Using a manual Excel spreadsheet template, the company struggled to manage employee onboarding and offboarding processes.
Onboarding had many steps that took place over 60 days.
Offboarding took about 2 weeks.
Managing the processes was consuming 5-10 hours per week, depending on the volume.
Mistakes were very common as it was very easy for a manager to open the wrong spreadsheet, update the wrong cell, or not have their edits saved properly.
The company relied on one employee emailing the next employee to trigger the “hand-off.”
There was little to no visibility into the status of any given task.
There were no alerts or reminders for tasks not being completed.
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By leveraging Microsoft’s Planner tool, along with the Microsoft Automation platform, Paragus was able to create a new solution:
HR simply fills out an electronic form that collects all pertinent information.
Tasks are automatically created and assigned to all relevant stakeholders.
Each task is assigned to a specific team or employee.
Clear, detailed instructions and deadlines are communicated across the board
Progress is easily monitored.
Alerts and reminders are triggered when tasks haven’t been completed on time.
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This automation saves a lot of time, reduces mistakes, improves efficiency, and creates an improved experience for the employee and all of the relevant stakeholders.
It also created the foundation to begin to look at the actual tasks being completed by the various stakeholders and automate any of them that could be in a Phase II.
Phase II automated 30% of the tasks previously being done manually, saving the organization 75-90 hours a month while also shaving several days off the timeline.
2/7
Mileage Reimbursement
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A business with more than 100 employees out in the community providing wellness visits to their clients, each driving their own vehicle.
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Employees had to submit mileage for reimbursement via a manual process that was complex and time-consuming:
Employees spent an average of 15-30 minutes a week (x100 employees) filling out mileage forms manually, making frequent mistakes.
Managers spent an average of 2-3 hours a week (x20 managers) reviewing the forms for accuracy and correcting them.
The accounting department spent an average of 15-20 hours a week processing the requests individually.
Forms were occasionally lost, leading to mileage not being reimbursed.
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Using the Microsoft Automation toolset, Paragus created a simple electronic form employees could access right from their phones. By inputting simple address information, the automation is able to:
Accurately calculate travel distances.
Notify employees of what travel is eligible for reimbursement.
Identify potential errors.
Generate a clear record of all travel reimbursements per pay period.
Digitally submit entries to the financial department in a single document that is easily imported into the payroll system.
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Employees are spending more time helping clients and less time filling out mileage forms.
Managers are spending more time auditing compliance risks and less time double-checking mileage forms.
The accounting department has become more efficient.
Accuracy of the mileage reimbursement payouts is almost 100%.
3/7
Client & Employee Satisfaction Tool
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A business interested in getting clear, quantifiable data on the satisfaction levels of their 200 customers and 75 employees.
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Most commercial tools and programs seemed to be designed just to collect responses on a rolling basis. As a result, the company was manually sending out surveys, then exporting the results to Excel to tabulate the scores.
Between the two processes (employee and client satisfaction), the company was spending 50-60 hours a quarter across multiple resources.
Due to the manual nature of the process, they routinely made mistakes in both the sending of the survey and the tabulation of the data.
Because of the clunky, time-consuming user experience, the survey response rate was routinely 30-40%
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Using a combination of several automation tools, Paragus built a new satisfaction measurement tool that streamlined every step of the survey process, including:
Scheduling
Importing new email addresses
Simplifying the review/rating method
Monitoring response rates
Generating real-time results
Alerting management of low survey scores and potential problems
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The business now spends less than one hour a quarter on employee and client surveys.
The results are much easier to interpret and allow for much more dynamic analysis.
The alerts ensure that low scores are followed up with within 24 hours, not weeks later.
Response rates run from an average of 78% for customers and 95% for employees.
4/7
Equipment Rental
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A small professional services business who would occasionally rent equipment to their customers.
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They had no system in place to handle the rentals.
Team members had no visibility into what equipment the company had available to rent or at what cost.
There was no process to ensure items were billed to the customer.
Every step was manual and felt like reinventing the wheel each time.
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By leveraging Microsoft’s automation platform, Paragus was able to create an inventory of all available assets with statuses.
In the new system:
Employees chat with a bot via Teams to learn what equipment is available and what the price is.
Employees can ask the bot to rent a piece of equipment to a customer.
The bot knows the full list of customers by querying the company’s primary line of business application.
The bot creates an email to the point of contact for the customer, outlining the cost per week to rent the equipment and including a link to approve or deny the request.
If they click approve, the automation automatically logs into the company’s billing system, generates an invoice, and creates a ticket for a technician to go onsite and deliver the equipment.
Further reminders are generated confirming the rental is still needed and scheduling the collection of the equipment when the customer no longer needs it.
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The process happens the same way every time—with a 90% time savings.
Rental equipment revenue has increased by 350%.
5/7
Market Research & Lead Generation
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An innovative business that provides services to help individuals to manage their second homes.
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The company needed a tool to help them identify sales prospects.
Before the automation, they hired interns and entry-level salespeople to search real estate listings for recently closed transactions within specific zip codes over a set dollar amount.
The approach was completely manual, very high cost, and only captured a small percentage of opportunities.
It was executed by people with a lack of experience and a high degree of instability (turnover and unexpected absences).
Lead assignment to senior salespeople was time-consuming, inconsistent, and non-trackable.
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Paragus created a bot that automatically monitors real estate listings 24/7:
Finding transactions that meet the specified criteria.
Assigning opportunities to senior sales reps using a round-robin approach.
Following up with the rep to see what the outcome is.
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The company went from 25-30 opportunities per month at a cost of $4,800 to 50-60 opportunities at a cost of $0.
Lead conversion tracking enables the team to identify which senior sales reps have the highest conversion success rates, allowing the organization to modify the assignment algorithm, sending more leads to those reps and less to those with low conversion rates.
Sales revenue increased from $15 million to $21 million after implementing the solution, due in part to the automation tool.
6/7
Sales Admin Automation
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A growing business with a robust salesforce.
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The company was spending more than $200K a year in sales administration support.
Despite this, their sales team was still spending 15%-20% their time doing administration work instead of selling.
There was a great deal of inconsistency in the work being completed.
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Paragus created a sales bot that allows the salespeople to seamlessly have what feels like a personal assistant to:
Query information
Draft responses
Prepare proposals
Update the CRM
Mark tasks as completed.
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The company was able to reduce the sales admin team by 2/3 while simultaneously reducing the time spent by sales team from 15%-20% to 5%-8%.
At the same time, they dramatically improved both the consistency and accuracy of the administrative tasks.
This resulted in much better visibility, forecasting, and reporting for the company.
Over this time sales increased by 18% while spending less.
7/7
Equipment Upgrades
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A growing tech business with more than 300 employees.
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The company was looking for a way to streamline the process of requesting computer equipment.
These requests ranged from replacement of broken equipment to upgrading work-from-home gear to make them more productive when not in the office.
There was no system in place, so employees were simply going to their managers for approvals.
Managers were inconsistently approving requests leading to fairness and equity concerns.
The lack of a process created an accounting nightmare for the finance team.
When an employee left, there was no good way to know what assets they had.
The company was unable to budget correctly for the expense.
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Paragus created an entire system to automate, manage, and track this process:
All new employees are given a budget to spend on gear—making it fair and equitable.
The gear they buy is logged into a system that makes it easy for HR and Accounting to see what was purchased, who it’s assigned to, and the status of that gear.
Managers can assign additional budget as a reward or for special cases when needed.
Depreciation of assets is tracked allowing HR to know the condition of the employee’s gear, as well as the current book value to either sell the gear to the employee or ensure it is returned.
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Employees love the freedom, fairness, and flexibility.
Accounting knows exactly who has what at all times.
The company saved over $150K per year in equipment expenses.
They created a second-hand store where employees can purchase equipment that had been turned in instead of using their budget to buy new equipment.
Used equipment is reused 75% of the time and the rest is donated for a tax write-off—previously the company estimated only 25% of equipment was reused and none was donated.