Business Automation

Small processes that consume more time than they should

Many businesses do not have one enormous operational problem. Instead, they have dozens of small tasks that quietly consume time throughout the working day.

A customer enquiry needs to be copied into a spreadsheet. Someone has to remember to send a follow-up. Information received through one communication channel needs to be entered into another system. A document has to be prepared whenever a particular event occurs. A manager repeatedly asks for the same status information.

None of these tasks appears particularly serious on its own. Each may take only a few minutes. But when the same activity occurs repeatedly across weeks and months, the accumulated cost can be substantial.

This is where relatively simple business automation can have a surprisingly useful impact.

Look for repetition

Good automation opportunities often become visible when we look at the verbs involved in everyday administrative work. Employees repeatedly receive information, check it, copy it, send something, update a record, create a reminder and report the result.

Consider a basic sales enquiry. A message arrives and someone reads it. The customer's details are copied into a spreadsheet or CRM. An acknowledgement is sent, the appropriate salesperson is informed and somebody has to remember to follow up later.

There is nothing particularly complicated about any individual step, but the same administrative sequence happens every time a new enquiry arrives.

A simple automated workflow might capture the customer's information, create the appropriate record, send the acknowledgement, notify the salesperson and schedule a follow-up. The business process itself has not fundamentally changed. What has changed is the amount of manual work required to move information from one stage to another.

Start with high-frequency, low-value work

Not every repetitive activity needs to be automated. Some tasks occur so infrequently that building a system around them would save very little.

The strongest candidates tend to be tasks that happen frequently, follow predictable rules and require relatively little judgement. They may also be tasks that are easy to forget or prone to simple copying errors.

Follow-up is a good example. A salesperson may speak with several prospects in a day. One needs information tomorrow, another should be contacted next week and a third may become relevant several months later.

Without a system, much of this depends on memory, handwritten notes or manually maintained calendars. A simple workflow can record the status of the conversation and create the appropriate reminder. The salesperson remains responsible for the relationship; the system simply makes it harder for an opportunity to disappear.

Don't automate an inefficient process

There is an important limitation to automation: it can make a bad process happen faster.

Before automating an existing workflow, it is worth examining whether every step is actually necessary. If employees are repeatedly copying the same information between several spreadsheets, connecting all of those spreadsheets may not be the best solution. Perhaps some of them should no longer exist.

A sensible sequence is therefore to understand the process first, simplify it where possible, and only then automate the repetitive parts.

This can result in a much smaller and more reliable solution than attempting to reproduce every existing activity through technology.

Small savings become significant

The value of automation becomes easier to see when repetitive tasks are considered over time.

Suppose a particular administrative activity takes five minutes and occurs twenty times during a working day. That represents 100 minutes of work. If the same pattern continues throughout the month, a seemingly insignificant task can consume dozens of working hours.

Not all of that time can necessarily be eliminated, but even reducing part of it can create useful capacity without requiring the business to hire additional people or introduce a large new system.

This is one reason small automation projects can sometimes produce better results than ambitious technology programmes. The problem is specific, the improvement can be measured, and the business can see relatively quickly whether the change is worthwhile.

The solution should fit the business

There is no single automation platform or workflow that every company needs. A useful solution depends on how customers contact the business, where information is currently stored, who needs to respond, what happens next and which decisions require human approval.

Existing systems also matter. If a business already uses particular applications successfully, it may make more sense to connect or improve them than to replace everything with a new platform.

Technology should fit the business wherever practical, rather than forcing the business to reorganise itself around unnecessary technology.

A useful exercise is simply to observe the working day and look for small points of friction. What information is repeatedly copied? What messages are repeatedly sent? What needs to be checked again and again? What regularly gets forgotten? Which administrative tasks cause frustration precisely because they are so repetitive?

Those questions often reveal the best places to begin.

Business automation does not always start with a major digital transformation. Sometimes the best place to start is with the five-minute task that everybody is tired of doing.

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Have a business process that takes too much time, leads that are difficult to follow up, or an idea you think AI and automation might make easier?

Tell me a little about what you're trying to improve. I'll be happy to explore whether there is a practical way technology could help.

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