The Blogger
6 min of reading
Which Processes Should You Automate First in Your Business?
Automation can help reduce costs, speed up operations, and free teams from repetitive tasks. But when a business starts seriously considering automation, one question quickly comes up: Where should we start?
Not all processes offer the same potential. Automating a process simply because it is easy to automate is not necessarily the best decision. The goal should be to identify the processes where automation will have the greatest impact on the organization.
Here is how to recognize them.
Start with tasks that take up a lot of time
A process performed several times a day by multiple employees often presents an excellent opportunity.
Consider an administrative task that takes just 10 minutes and is performed 15 times a day. That adds up to more than 600 hours of work per year.
On its own, the task seems insignificant. Across the organization, it is anything but.
Look for processes that involve:
Extensive manual data entry;
Copying and pasting between different systems;
Repeatedly generating documents;
Searching for information;
Manually updating statuses;
Following up by email.
Identify repetitive, predictable processes
The more a process follows clear rules, the easier it generally is to automate.
For example:
If a request exceeds $10,000, it must be approved by a manager.
When a new employee is added to the system, certain tasks must automatically be assigned to IT, HR, and the manager.
When a file reaches a particular status, a document must be generated and sent to the client.
These processes do not necessarily require a great deal of human judgment. Much of the work can therefore be performed automatically, while keeping people involved where their input adds real value.
Identify where errors happen frequently
Automation is not just about saving time.
It also helps make processes more reliable.
Information copied manually from one system to another can be entered incorrectly. An employee can forget a step. An approval request can sit in an inbox for several days. A document can be generated using the wrong version of a template.
The more a process depends on repetitive manual actions, the greater the risk of error.
Automating certain steps helps ensure that the same rules are applied consistently, every time.
Look for processes that cause delays
Some processes do not require much work but still slow the organization down considerably.
A request is waiting for approval.
Someone needs to manually notify the next person.
An employee is waiting for a file to be created.
A manager has to check regularly to see whether anything needs their attention.
These waiting periods are easy to underestimate because they do not necessarily show up as hours worked.
Yet they can significantly extend a process, create frustration internally or externally, and lead to losses for the organization.
Automation can trigger the next step immediately, send notifications, issue reminders, or automatically escalate a request when it goes unanswered.
Look at where information needs to move between systems
Another strong indicator is the presence of multiple systems that do not communicate with one another.
For example:
A client fills out a form → an employee receives an email → copies the information into an Excel file → creates a SharePoint folder → enters certain data into the CRM → notifies a colleague.
The issue is not necessarily the tools themselves. It is often the manual work required to connect them.
Automation can move information between these systems without requiring an employee to constantly act as the intermediary.
Prioritize impact, not just ease of implementation
A very simple automation is not necessarily a worthwhile one. Before prioritizing a process, ask yourself a few questions: A process that scores highly on several of these criteria should generally be near the top of the list.
Which processes are often good candidates?
Although every organization is different, certain processes consistently offer strong automation potential:
Employee onboarding and offboarding;
Internal requests and approvals;
Form processing;
Document generation;
Task creation, assignment, and tracking;
Follow-ups and reminders;
Information validation;
Data transfers between systems;
Report generation;
Customer request handling;
Invoicing.
However, it is important not to look at this list and conclude, “We are going to automate our onboarding because onboarding is easy to automate.”
The best opportunity always depends on your business’s specific circumstances.
In some cases, a process is predictable and standardized, but only one or a few people know how it works. This creates a dependency and a significant risk for the organization. These activities may be well worth examining, standardizing, documenting, and potentially automating.
What you should not automate first
Some processes are poor candidates, at least in their current state.
A process performed twice a year that takes 30 minutes probably offers little return on investment. However, if you are planning for significant growth, it may still be worth addressing.
A highly variable process that constantly requires human judgment can also be difficult to automate effectively. In this case, you could automate follow-ups and process oversight without automating the individual tasks.
And above all:
Do not automate a bad process.
If the steps are poorly defined, responsibilities are unclear, or the process includes unnecessary steps, improve it first.
Otherwise, you risk simply automating the inefficiencies that already exist.
So, where should you start?
Begin by identifying a few processes that:
Take up a lot of time;
Are performed frequently;
Involve repetitive tasks;
Generate errors or delays;
Follow relatively predictable rules;
Would have a measurable impact if improved.
You can then estimate the effort required to automate each process and compare it with the potential benefits.
This is often when priorities become clear.
At Soluqual, our approach is not to automate for the sake of automation. We start by understanding your operations, identifying where your organization is actually losing time, and determining which improvements will have the greatest impact.
Because the right question is not:
“What can we automate?”
But rather:
“What is actually worth automating?”
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