Automation. The magical word that promises to free us from repetitive tasks, save hours of time, and deliver your business from the clutches of inefficiency.
Just plug in a shiny new app, flick a few switches, and voilà – chaos becomes order.
Except… it doesn’t. Not if your underlying processes are a mess to begin with.
Let’s break down the common myth that automation fixes processes and explore why you need to sort your workflows out first – before letting the bots loose.
The Myth: “We’ll Just Automate It”
You’ve probably heard (or said) something like this:
“Our quoting process is all over the place. We just need to automate it.”
Or:
“We keep missing invoice follow-ups – let’s get a system that does it automatically.”
The idea is appealing–automation as a silver bullet. But automating a broken process doesn’t fix it – it just allows you to do the wrong thing faster and more often.
Garbage In, Garbage Out
Automation is only as good as the process it’s built on. If you’ve got:
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- Multiple ways of entering the same data.
- Approval steps that rely on someone’s memory.
- Bottlenecks disguised as “checks and balances”.
- Excel sheets of doom lurking in the background.
Then automating those steps won’t solve the problem. It’ll just make the spaghetti go faster.
Take invoicing as an example. If your team is unclear on when to invoice, what to include, or which rate card applies, then automating that process will just send out incorrect invoices – but faster! Your accounts team won’t thank you.
The Fix: Clean Before You Code
Before you even think about automation, take time to map the process as it should be. Ask:
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- Who does what, and when?
- What decisions are made along the way?
- Where does information come from and go to?
- What causes delays or confusion?
It doesn’t need to be a six-month strategic review. A whiteboard, a few post-it notes, and some candid conversations can go a long way. Once you’ve got a cleaned-up, agreed-upon workflow, then it’s time to look at automation tools that can support and scale that process.
Automation is Amplification
Think of automation as a megaphone. It amplifies what’s already happening in your business – good or bad.
If you’ve got a solid workflow, automation helps your team run like a well-oiled machine. But if your process is a bit… Frankenstein, then automation will just make the monster move faster.
A quick case in point: a client wanted to automate their quote approvals using a fancy CRM integration. Turns out, half their quotes weren’t even following the same template. After standardizing their quote process first, automation finally made sense – and worked beautifully.
Final Thoughts
Automation isn’t magic. It’s just a tool. And like any tool, it works best when the foundation is solid. So before you go chasing new tech, do a bit of spring cleaning. Your future automated self will thank you.
The following content was originally published by BOMA. We have updated some of this article for our readers.