All blogsYour first steps with automation
15 min read · Jul 23, 2025
If you’re considering investing in automation, this blog is for you. We’ll explain the why, the what, and the how, with some practical tips along the way.
Why bother with automation?
First, let’s look at why automation is valuable. There are two main benefits.
The first benefit is saving time. When you free your team from repetitive tasks, they can focus on more impactful things - growing the business, providing better service, or mentoring colleagues. This is especially important as an organisation grows, because it allows you to do more work without costs rising at the same rate.
The second benefit is reducing human error. Humans make mistakes, machines - not so much. Depending on the task, human errors can cause anything from a minor customer annoyance to a major, costly incident. Automation removes opportunities for human errors and therefore reduces the risks they bring.
What kind of things can we automate?
When looking for things to automate, you should look for tasks with two key characteristics: they are repetitive and have clear rules. In other words, they don’t require much human intuition.
A great example is manually copying data from one system to another. It’s repetitive because you have to do it every time a new piece of information is added to a system. It has clear rules, because you’re simply moving data from one place to another without making any subjective judgements.
Another example is processing an online order. Every time a customer buys something, you have a set list of tasks you need to complete: send the order confirmation, update inventory, print a shipping label. This is a repetitive process, you do it for every order. It has clear rules, because the steps are always the same, no matter what the customer has ordered.
What about AI?
There is a lot of hype around Artificial Intelligence (AI) right now, specifically Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. These tools can provide some of the “human intuition” that some tasks require. This makes it possible to automate things that were previously very difficult to automate.
Think of customer support. A customer might send a lengthy message explaining their problem. Previously, this required a human to decipher the request and figure out next steps. Now, an LLM can often understand the message and handle common support requests.
LLMs are a great solution for certain tasks, like summarising documents or sorting an inbox, because they’re really good at understanding the meaning of text. You do need to take care when using them, as they are much less predictable than traditional automation, but with proper guardrails in place, they can automate tasks that previously always required a human.
Identifying automation opportunities
So now you know why automation is valuable, and what kinds of tasks are good candidates. But how do you actually find them in your own organisation?
Method 1: Use your intuition
You (or your colleagues) might already know where the pain points are. If you want to move as fast as possible, start there. Sometimes it’s painfully obvious where the problems live, like a task that requires hours of manual data entry - you know it takes ages because you do it every single day! This strategy is great for quick wins, but you might miss bigger opportunities that only become visible when you look at the process as a whole.
Method 2: Map your process
If a process is complex or you aren’t close to it, you’ll want to map it out.
Grab your favourite diagramming tool (which can be as simple as a pen and paper) and map out each task. For each task, write a couple of sentences describing what happens and the different people or systems that are involved. If you’re not the expert, ask the people who perform the process to help you. This map doesn’t need to be super detailed, it’s a tool to help you spot opportunities.
Next, label each task with some key information. For example: how long it takes to complete, how often are mistakes made, how costly are those mistakes. Data is king here, the more accurate you can be, the better your decisions will be. If you don't have this data already, you don't have to guess, you can collect it by asking the people who do the work or by observing them. You can ask them questions like: how long does this task take you on average? How often do you make mistakes on this task? If you made a mistake on this task, what would happen?
---
title: A simple process map for a shop taking orders via email
---
flowchart LR
a["`**Send order via email**
Who: customer
Time taken: 15 minutes
Risks: high, lots of friction for customers to order
`"]
b["`**Update inventory**
Who: employee
Time taken: 5 minutes
Risks: medium, customers will be able to order things we don't have in stock
`"]
c["`**Send order confirmation**
Who: employee
Time taken: 10 minutes
Risks: low, customer won't receive confirmation
`"]
d["..."]
a --> b
b --> c
c --> d
Once you’ve built out your map and labelled each task, you can build a list of opportunities. Look for tasks that have the characteristics we mentioned earlier - they are repetitive and have clear rules.
It’s important to not only look at each task independently, but also at the process as a whole. This is where you can spot the big wins. Automating a sequence of connected steps can lead to much greater time savings and error reduction.
Prioritising automation opportunities
Now you’ve got a list of opportunities, you need to prioritise them. To do this, you need the final piece of the puzzle, effort. Effort is how much time and/or money it will take to implement the automation opportunity. If you’ve identified an opportunity that will save you 1 hour per week, but it’ll take 200 hours of effort to implement, you won’t see a return on your investment for 4 years - probably not worth it.
Estimating effort isn’t an exact science, but it’s crucial for making informed decisions. To estimate effort, you need to have a rough idea of the solution that’ll be used to implement the opportunity. If you think the solution will require custom software, then you’ll need to start working with a software developer. If possible, we’d recommend getting a developer involved when you’re identifying opportunities, as that way they’ll gain a deep understanding of the process and its problems.
Once you’ve estimated the effort for each opportunity, you can prioritise them. How you prioritise is completely up to you, and will depend on your goals. Maybe your process is causing frequent issues, and so you want to give more weight to opportunities that will reduce risk. Maybe your team is overwhelmed with work, and so you want to give more weight to opportunities which reduce human effort/time.
One approach to prioritisation is to plot your opportunities based on their estimated benefit vs estimated effort. This helps you identify the low hanging fruit, the opportunities that give you high benefit for a relatively low effort. Be careful with this approach though, as it doesn’t factor in how different opportunities and their solutions relate to each other. For example, opportunity A automates task 1 in the process, it’s easy to automate and saves loads of time - a clear win. But opportunity B automates tasks 1, 2 and 3 all at once. So if you went ahead with opportunity A, and then later implemented opportunity B, implementing opportunity A would’ve been a waste of time.
---
config:
quadrantChart:
chartWidth: 400
chartHeight: 400
themeVariables:
quadrant1Fill: "#ffffff"
quadrant2Fill: "#AFE1AF"
quadrant3Fill: "#ffffff"
quadrant4Fill: "#ffffff"
---
quadrantChart
title Estimated benefit vs effort
x-axis Low effort --> High effort
y-axis Low benfit --> High benefit
quadrant-2 Low hanging fruit
Opportunity A: [0.3, 0.6]
Opportunity B: [0.57, 0.69]
Opportunity C: [0.45, 0.23]
Opportunity D: [0.78, 0.34]
Opportunity E: [0.30, 0.34]
Opportunity F: [0.35, 0.78]
The 80/20 rule
As with many things in life, in automation, the 80/20 rule often applies: you can get 80% of the benefit with 20% of the work. The final 20% of the benefit (which likely involves handling unusual situations) can take the other 80% of the effort.
Ask yourself if that last 20% is worth it right now. It almost never is. Processes tend to evolve over time, and as they scale, you’ll encounter new, bigger challenges you’ll want to spend your effort resolving. It’s often better to wait until the return on investment is clearer. Remember, automation doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing!
That said, if you know your process will remain stable, and your organisation is growing, it might be worth tackling now so it doesn’t become a problem later.
Implementing automation opportunities
Once you have a prioritised list, it’s time for implementation. The solution(s) can range in complexity, from updating a spreadsheet formula, to building a fully custom software system.
If you’re building custom software, you’ll want to work with your developers to clearly outline the requirements, so everyone has the same understanding of exactly what needs to be built.
As you work out the details and begin implementation, keep an eye on your actual benefit and effort. Up to this point, these numbers have been rough estimates, but as you start implementing, you’ll learn more, making them more accurate. Maybe you’ll realise that this opportunity is way more effort, or the benefits are way less than you initially thought. If this happens, you’ll need to decide how to move forward. The earlier you realise your estimates are off the better, as you can switch to a different opportunity at a lower cost. Don’t be afraid to switch if needs be, but take into account how far along you already are. Switching to a different opportunity is not free. If you’re already 50% through implementing an opportunity, it might make sense to just finish it off, even though you’ll get less benefit than you originally thought.
Estimates being a bit off is perfectly acceptable, they are estimates after all. But you might make a bad assumption that makes your estimates way off, to the point where the prioritisation is completely wrong. You really want to avoid this as it can be very costly, but if it happens, take it as a learning experience. Understand why you were so off, and revisit your other opportunities to see if you’ve made similar mistakes on their estimates too.
Conclusion
Automation offers huge benefits, and with the right approach, you can focus your efforts where they’ll have the most impact. By identifying opportunities, prioritising them based on real benefit and effort, and adapting your plans as you learn, you're well on your way to transforming your organisation.
We hope you found this blog useful. If you’ve got any questions or need support, feel free to reach out.