Why Parabola is for Operators

Who are Operators

When businesses confront tough challenges, they turn to Operators. 

Operators are fueled by ingenuity and determination to make things happen. They have different titles — maybe Analysts, Program Managers, or Process Improvement Leads. Individually they have areas of specialty, but their impact transcends their specific roles.

Operators can get hard things done with few resources, but ironically, because of this, their plates quickly fill up with tedious make-work. This means less time is spent on work that helps fuel growth and innovation.

Why companies need Operators

Operators are required to solve thousands of different problems. For example:

• If you employ a lot of people, you probably have People Ops challenges involving wage and tax calculations in different jurisdictions.
• If you spend a lot of money on marketing, you probably also have Marketing Ops challenges around figuring exactly which platform and campaign brought you every customer.

Companies tend to solve problems by doing one of two things: devoting people specifically to that problem or hiring more engineers and data scientists. The first solution doesn’t work because it leads to siloed knowledge and burnout. The second one doesn’t work because while engineers may be great at building solutions that are rock solid, they aren’t as equipped to solve problems for dynamic use cases. 

In fact, there are plenty of problems that Operators excel at solving that engineers are less equipped for. These problems are generally unique to the company, are fairly complicated, and change often. But when Operators rely on manual processes to solve problems, the solutions become difficult, if not impossible to scale. This leads us to the big problem Operators tend to wrestle with.

The problem for Operators

The big problem within Ops teams is entropy: Manual systems do what they need to, but they eventually begin to break down. The usual trajectory looks like this:

• Some process within the business breaks, and a team is created to fix it.
• Despite few resources, Operators devise a solution with ingenuity and elbow grease. They create a plan to maintain the solution process ongoing, which they do manually.
• Months go by…one or two of them leave the company, probably because their weeks are now full of manual work. The company trains replacements, but knowledge is lost in transition.
• Eventually something changes, the process breaks, and so the cycle restarts.

How Operators should work

Operators should work under four principles:

1. Automate: The team should streamline repetitive processes in order to cut down on time and effort and minimize errors.
2. Centralize: The data the team uses should pass through a centralized place in a standardized way so that everyone has access to the same information.
3. Document: The team shouldn’t perform any process without documenting what it is, who it’s for, and why they’re doing it.
4. Collaborate: The team should foster a culture of collaboration and take advantage of centralized data by working together in one place.

When these pillars are in place, the general trajectory of Ops teams moves toward order instead of chaos. The queue of repetitive daily tasks is emptied. Everything that previously took time to slog through is now handled, so a baseline of productivity is established. Without adding any more people, the rate of productivity compounds, and the nature of the team begins to transform.

What Operators can become

With compounding productivity, a team of Operators becomes a revenue driver rather than a cost center. This can transform a business. As your team’s rate of productivity increases, the way you think of Ops will change. Instead of simply keeping things running so that the tech team or marketing team can materially advance the agenda of the company, Ops teams will yield compounding benefits to the bottom line.

Your team will be more able and willing to collaborate with data from a single source of truth, and good ideas will begin to bubble up from team members all over your business. Because you have eliminated the thoughtless daily work that took hours out of their day, Ops teams will be empowered to make the meaningful impact on the business that they have been wanting to all along.

How we empower Operators

Parabola builds for the four principles of successful Ops teams.

To read about how it works, see our Guide to Parabola:

1. Automate: We’ve built a system that can automate any data workflow, no matter what data you start with.
2. Centralize: There’s a central hub for Operators and IT teams to collaborate and standardize data. IT leaders don’t have to worry about data provenance, and Operators get quick access to what they need.
3. Document: Any data workflow created within the Parabola tool is self-documenting — anyone can see exactly what happens to the data at every step.
4. Collaborate: In Parabola, you can create interactive reports in Flow using a Parabola Table and share templates and workflows across your teams.

In summary: Here’s how Parabola empowers operators with automation

‍Operators across industries rely on automation to streamline workflows, eliminate manual tasks, and drive efficiency. Here’s how Parabola helps automate critical operations for operations leaders everywhere:

1. Enhance supply chain automation

‍Parabola simplifies supply chain automation by integrating data from multiple sources, from automating inventory updates, to optimizing order fulfillment workflows, and more—saving time and reducing errors.

2. Streamline logistics automation

‍Automating logistics automation tasks like shipment tracking, carrier rate comparisons, and freight auditing ensures smoother operations. Parabola helps eliminate bottlenecks and improve visibility across logistics networks.

3. Save time with document automation

‍Manually processing invoices, purchase orders, or shipping documents slows down operations. With Parabola’s document automation capabilities, you can parse (pdf parsing), extract, process, and organize information in real time.

4. Leverage workflow automation software for scalability

‍Parabola’s workflow automation software enables teams to create custom workflows that handle complex data tasks. Automate repetitive processes and ensure consistency without relying on manual intervention.

5. Boost efficiency with AI workflow automation

‍By incorporating AI workflow automation, Parabola helps teams make data-driven decisions faster. Automate processes that traditionally require manual input and improve operational accuracy.

Parabola is the go-to platform for operators looking to streamline supply chain automation, enhance document automation, and integrate powerful workflow automation software into their daily operations. Whether you need AI workflow automation or a reliable workflow automation tool, Parabola empowers you to work smarter and scale effortlessly.