PROCESS AUTOMATION — DIAGNOSE · RULES · ROLL OUT
PROCESS AUTOMATION
Repetitive manual work leaves the company — not because someone tried harder, but because it stopped being needed by anyone.
A 60-SECOND TEST
Before anyone starts talking about tools, it's worth checking whether the problem is the kind automation actually solves. Read the list and count how many statements match your company.
The same record — an order, a customer, an invoice — is entered in at least two places.
Someone regularly exports data from one system to paste it into another.
The report management needs is assembled by hand and takes more than half a day.
The status of a case can only be established by asking a specific person.
There is a process that works as long as one particular person is at work.
The same errors recur in the same place and everyone already knows where to check.
Month-end close or stocktaking is the same crisis every single time.
Sales are growing, so you are planning another hire to handle the paperwork.
Three or more — business process automation will pay back faster than intuition suggests. Zero or one — the problem probably lies elsewhere, and we will say so plainly instead of selling you a project.
WHAT WE AUTOMATE MOST OFTEN
Not every process is a good candidate — a good one is repetitive, describable by rules and happens often. Below are the ones that keep coming back in 20–200-person companies, together with what exactly disappears.
Supplier invoice flow
Re-typing from PDFs, email threads asking „who ordered this", chasing approvals before month-end.
−30 MIN / DOCUMENTMONTH-END WITHOUT THE CHASE
Orders and fulfilment
Moving an order from the shop or an email into the warehouse and production by hand, phoning for status.
SHORTER LEAD TIMENO MORE LOST LINES
Management reporting
Assembling a report from three sources, arguing which version of a number is true, waiting for data.
REPORT IN MINUTESONE VERSION OF THE NUMBERS
Data flow between systems
Export to a spreadsheet, fix the formats, import into the next system — every day at the same hour.
DATA ENTERED ONCENO DRIFT BETWEEN SYSTEMS
Repetitive enquiries
Answering the same question about status, pricing or paperwork for the hundredth time.
FASTER ANSWERS FOR CUSTOMERSTHE TEAM ON HARDER CASES
Onboarding and HR admin
Collecting the same documents over email, chasing deadlines, creating accounts by hand.
DAY ONE WITHOUT IMPROVISATIONNOTHING FALLS OFF THE LIST
We don't automate a process that is simply badly designed. If an invoice passes through four approvals because somebody once made a mistake and it stuck, the sensible recommendation is to remove two of them — not to speed all four up.
An automated bad process is worse than a manual bad process, because it runs faster and is harder to question. It is one of the more common things an audit surfaces — and one of the cheapest to fix.
That is why process optimisation always comes before automation, never after. The order is: remove the steps nobody needs, simplify what remains, then automate the rest. Done the other way round, automation cements the mess in code — and getting it out of there costs far more than out of a procedure.
Pick the one process that irritates you most. Thirty minutes is enough to judge whether it is a good candidate and roughly what it would cost.
WHERE TO START
The most
common
first step
Two of those processes have pages of their own: reporting and data and customer enquiries. In most companies, though, the first step is the electronic document workflow — repetitive, measurable and touching every department. It gives a result you can count without arguing about methodology, which matters for the second project more than for the first.
If the pain is data being re-typed between programs, the answer is system integration instead. If you are looking for the wider context, start with digital transformation; if you don't know which of these applies, that is what the IT audit is for.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
Which process should we automate first?
The one that is repetitive, describable by rules and performed daily — not the one that is most visible. A good first candidate has a clear input and output, occurs dozens of times a month and doesn't require a human to judge the situation.
In practice it is usually the supplier invoice flow or moving orders between systems. Both have the advantage that the effect shows up in weeks and can be counted without an argument about methodology.
Does process automation mean redundancies?
It depends, and saying so is more honest than promising it doesn't. One question decides it: how much of someone's job was the work that is about to disappear. If a person re-typed data for an hour a day alongside six other tasks, they simply get that hour back. If an entire role consisted of moving documents from one system to another, a conversation about changing that role will be needed.
The other half of the answer belongs to you, not to us. Freed-up capacity can turn into fewer roles or into handling more sales without another hire — in 20–200-person companies we more often see the latter, but that is an owner's decision, not a side effect of technology. We raise it during the audit so it surprises nobody later.
Do we need an ERP to automate processes?
No. Automation works perfectly well on what a company already has — an accounting package, spreadsheets and an online shop. The condition isn't one big system; it is that those tools pass data to each other automatically, without a person re-typing it.
An ERP tends to be a consequence of processes maturing, rarely a prerequisite. What we do advise against is buying a system first and only then working out what it should do. That order usually ends in a year-long rollout that recreates old processes in a new interface.
How much does business process automation cost?
The quote depends on the number of integrations and the number of exceptions in the process — the exceptions are usually more expensive than the main flow. A process with three exceptions is cheap; one with thirty can cost more than rewriting it from scratch.
So we start with a fixed-price audit that ends with processes ranked by payback. Sometimes the best recommendation is to simplify a process rather than automate it — and then that is what we say.
How much time will this take from our team?
Most of it at the beginning. Mapping the process takes a few hours each from two or three people who do the work daily — not from a manager who knows how the process ought to look, but from the people who know how it actually looks. Those are usually the most valuable hours in the whole project and nothing substitutes for them.
After that the load drops to short weekly reviews. The biggest risk isn't a lack of time; it is delegating the topic to someone without authority — the project then stalls on questions nobody can answer. If nobody on your side can spare a few hours a month, it is better to postpone the start than to begin.
WE REPLY WITHIN 24 HOURS
LET'S START WITH A TALK
A free 30-minute consultation. No commitment and no sales rep — you talk to the person who will run your project.
JET LARK SP. Z O.O.
3 MAJA 22 / 2C
40-096 KATOWICE, POLAND
Thank you!
Your message has taken off. We'll get back to you within 24 hours — check your inbox (spam folder too, sometimes).