Answer
Which business processes should you automate first?
Automate the process that is repetitive, rule-based, high in volume, and stable. All four have to be true. The most common good first candidates are invoicing and payment chasing, moving data between systems, and first-response to enquiries — because they happen constantly, follow clear rules, and rarely change.
- Test 1
- Repetitive — the same steps every time
- Test 2
- Rule-based — decisions follow logic, not judgement
- Test 3
- High volume — often enough that hours add up
- Test 4
- Stable — will not be redesigned next quarter
Usually worth automating
- Raising, sending and chasing invoices
- Matching payments to open invoices
- Copying data between a CRM, accounts software and spreadsheets
- Acknowledging and routing inbound enquiries
- Generating quotes, contracts and reports from templates
- Assembling the same weekly or monthly report
Usually not worth automating yet
- Anything done fewer than a handful of times a month
- Processes where every case is genuinely different
- Work about to be replaced by a new system
- Decisions that need real judgement, where a human still has to check every output
- A process nobody can describe consistently — fix the process first
The mistake most people make
Picking the process that annoys them most rather than the one that costs the most. Irritation and cost are not the same thing. Count the hours before choosing: a small daily task usually beats a large monthly one.
A quick way to decide
Multiply how long the task takes by how often it happens, over a year. Compare that to a realistic build cost. If it does not pay back inside twelve months, pick a different process.
Related
How much does business process automation cost?
In the UK, automating a single business process costs roughly £1,500 to £6,500, and most SMEs spend £5,000 to £30,000 on their first automation project. Ongoing maintenance runs £500 to £3,000 a month. Cost is driven far more by how many systems have to talk to each other than by how clever the automation is.
Read→How do you measure ROI on automation?
Record the baseline before anything is built — hours spent, volume handled, error rate — then measure the same things afterwards. Without a before, there is no credible after. Return is the annual value of the time and errors removed, minus the build cost and any ongoing maintenance.
Read→How long does it take to automate a business process?
A single, well-scoped business process takes about two weeks from start to running. A connected set of three to six processes takes four to eight weeks. Delays almost never come from the build — they come from access to systems and from nobody internally owning the decisions.
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