Where to start with automation? With a small process, not the most important one

Most managers who ask where to start with automation already have an answer in mind: the process that hurts the most. It costs the most, so it should come first. That sounds like good prioritisation, and it is usually the slower route. Our advice is to start with a small, well-contained process instead, precisely because it gets you to the big one sooner.

Where to start with automation when everything feels urgent

The most expensive process in a business tends to be the messiest one as well. Orders arrive through four channels, there are dozens of exceptions, three departments have a say, and it takes a while before anyone can tell whether things are better than before.

Starting there means building your first agent and, at the same time, everything any agent in your company will need. Access to the systems. Sign-off from IT. A mapping between your customer and supplier numbers and the ones other systems use. Someone who answers questions when the agent is unsure. All of that has to exist sooner or later, but none of it has to be built on your hardest process.

A small process puts the same foundations in place with fewer people involved. The big process then becomes your second agent instead of a fresh start.

A worked example: two candidates at a wholesaler

This example is made up for illustration. Suppose a plumbing and heating wholesaler comes out of the Automation Check with two candidates.

The big one is order intake. Orders arrive by email, through the web shop, by fax and over the phone. Some customers have special prices, some deliveries are split, and some customers quote their own item numbers. This is where most of the money is.

The small one is supplier delivery date changes. Every day, suppliers email the purchasing inbox to say a delivery will be late. Someone in purchasing reads each email, finds the purchase order in the ERP, enters the new date and tells the sales office if a customer order depends on it. Usually that happens in the afternoon, sometimes the next day. The customer often finds out when the goods fail to show up.

An agent for these emails has one input, the purchasing inbox, and one target, the delivery date on the purchase order. It reads the email, identifies the supplier from the sender address and finds the order by its number, or by item and quantity if the number is missing. It enters the new date and notes which email it came from. If a customer order is attached, the sales office gets a line straight away: customer, old date, new date. If the match is ambiguous, the email goes onto a review list with the agent's suggestion, and the person in purchasing decides.

Building this takes one to two days. Testing happens in the same week, using recent emails, so you can compare what the agent would have entered with what purchasing actually entered by hand. Within a few days the business knows whether it works.

Afterwards the wholesaler has inbox access, write access to the ERP, a maintained supplier mapping, a review list someone owns, and a colleague who has already checked and approved an agent's work. Order intake needs nearly all of that. It then gets built in stages, email orders first and the web shop next, and each stage is running within days.

How to spot the right first process

• One input and one target system, not four and three.
• Cases you can count, and new ones every day.
• Results you can check the same day.
• Mistakes that are visible and cheap, like a wrong date someone corrects on the next look.
• One person in the department who knows the process and can answer questions on the spot.

Small does not mean trivial. Late delivery dates that reach the sales office too late cost customer goodwill. The process is simply contained enough to get right quickly.

What the big process gains

If you start with the big process, you learn the same lessons, just with more people and more exceptions at once. If you start small, you have a working agent within days, a team that knows how it behaves, and access the big process can build on. The big one is not pushed back. It tends to go live earlier.

In the free Automation Check, Sophera Consulting works out with you which process goes first and which one follows on the same foundations. We build the first agent at a fixed price, with no subscription, and it belongs to you afterwards.

Our recommendation: list your three most expensive processes, and next to them three small, well-contained ones. Start with the small one that shares the most systems and access with the most expensive.