Business process automation
The tasks that only take a minute. Data entry, the monthly report, the filing, the chasing. Multiply the minutes by the number of times a year, then multiply that by what the person doing it costs you.
That sum is usually the whole argument. We work it out with you first, automate the tasks worth automating, and leave the ones that are not.
When people call us about this
- You are hiring because of admin volume rather than because of growth.
- The same information is entered more than once, in more than one place.
- Somebody spends a day a month producing something nobody reads closely.
- Errors keep happening at the same step, and everybody knows which step.
- Growth means more admin at the same rate, so scale costs headcount.
What we build
The costing, first
Before anything is built. Some tasks are not worth automating and you should know which, because the honest answer sometimes is to carry on doing it by hand.
Data moved without a person
Between systems, into reports, out to clients. The retyping step removed, and with it the transcription errors that came free with it.
Chasing and follow up
The reminders, the second reminders and the escalations, sent on schedule rather than when somebody remembers.
Checks that used to be manual
Validation, reconciliation and exception flagging, run every time rather than when there is time.
Documents and packs
Produced from your templates and your data, consistently, including the boring ones nobody wants to own.
How it works
Cost it
We measure the task rather than estimating it. How long, how often, by whom, and what it costs a year. Sometimes that conversation ends the project, which is a good outcome.
Automate what earns it
The tasks where the sum works. Built, tested against real data, and handed over with the exceptions documented.
Run it
We keep it working. An automation nobody maintains is a problem with a delay on it, and it usually fails at the least convenient moment.
How long, and what it costs
The costing conversation takes an afternoon. Most individual automations are one to three weeks after that. A whole process rebuild is longer and we would scope it properly rather than guess.
Price depends on scope, and we would rather look first than quote a range that turns out to be wrong for you. The first conversation is fifteen minutes and costs nothing.
Common questions
Will this replace someone's job?
Usually it replaces part of several jobs, and the part nobody enjoyed. If the honest answer for you is headcount, we will say so before you spend anything, because finding out afterwards is worse for everybody.
What if our process changes?
It will. That is why we build things that can be changed and why we stay involved. An automation frozen against a process that has moved on is actively harmful.
Do we need to buy automation software?
Often not. A lot of this is done with tools you already own. Where a paid tool genuinely is the right answer we will tell you which and why, rather than building something to avoid a subscription that would have been cheaper.
How do you know it is working?
Because we measured the task before we touched it. If we cannot show you the before and after, we did not do the first step properly.
Related
- Google Apps Scripts — The job that eats a morning every week, done in the background instead. Sheets, Docs, Gmail, Drive and Calendar, wired together properly.
- Business Solutions — We get underneath the skin of the business, find the expensive thing nobody has fixed, and fix it. Then we stay until it holds.
Fifteen minutes, no obligation. We will tell you straight whether this is the right fix for what you have described.
Time to talk yet?