Business process automation
Which process should you automate first?
The first automation project sets expectations for every later one. Choose a process that repeats often, has a clear owner and can be checked, and measure it before anything changes.
A good candidate
What a good first process looks like.
01
It repeats often
The same steps happen many times a week, for example sorting enquiries, preparing a report or copying data between tools.
02
The inputs are digital
Emails, forms, spreadsheets or exports already exist. Paper and phone calls need another step first.
03
Mistakes are easy to catch
A person can review the result before it reaches a customer, and an error is cheap to correct.
04
It has an owner
Someone knows how the process works today and can approve changes to it.
05
It can be measured
You can count cases, time spent or errors before and after the change.
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Processes that are poor first choices.
- Decisions with legal or financial consequences that would run without human review.
- Processes nobody can describe step by step.
- Work that handles personal or sensitive data before the legal basis and the tool settings have been checked.
- Processes that change every few weeks.
Want help applying this? See our AI process automation service or tell us about your project
Baseline
Measure before you automate.
For a representative period, record how many cases arrive, how long each takes and how many need correcting. Without this baseline you cannot tell whether the automation saved time or only moved the work.
Write an acceptance test before building anything: which examples the automation must handle correctly, what counts as a correct result and who signs it off.
Pilot design
Build the pilot to be checked and switched off.
01
Human approval
Keep a review step before anything reaches a customer or changes a record.
02
Logging
Record inputs, outputs and errors so problems can be traced.
03
Fallback
Agree what happens when a tool is unavailable or returns something unexpected.
04
Least privilege
Give the automation only the data and permissions it needs.
05
Maintenance
Name who updates the workflow when tools, prompts or the process change.
Checklist
Before you start a pilot.
- Is the process frequent, digital and owned by a named person?
- Do you have a baseline for volume, time and errors?
- Is there a written acceptance test with real examples?
- Does personal data appear, and has its use been checked?
- Where is the human review step?
- How will you switch the automation off if needed?
Have a process in mind?
Our AI process automation page includes a short brief you can fill in before we talk.