Is your business ready for automation? A 10-point checklist

We’re not one of those agencies that thinks everything should be automated. Some things need a human, and we’d be worried about any agency that tells you otherwise.

But almost every business we work with has at least one process that’s quietly eating someone’s week. And once you know what to look for, it’s usually pretty easy to spot.

Pick one process and go through these. Tick whatever applies. Be honest, nobody’s watching.

The checklist

• It happens regularly. Weekly, monthly, or every time a new client comes on board.
• It’s the same steps every time, even if nobody’s ever written them down.
• It involves emailing something out and waiting for it to come back.
• Someone retypes or reformats information the client has already given you.
• Files need renaming, branding or moving into a specific folder.
• Old versions need to be archived so nobody uses the wrong one.
• You find yourself chasing people for missing or late information.
• Mistakes happen. Wrong file, wrong month, wrong name. And they’re a pain to fix.
• It grinds to a halt when one particular person is on leave.
• You’d struggle to prove who sent what, and when.

So, how did you do?

Three or fewer: probably not worth automating yet. Tidy up the process and come back to it.

Four to six: a really good candidate. Some of it could likely be automated fairly quickly.

Seven or more: this is costing you real money, and it should be running itself.

Almost every business has at least one process that’s quietly eating someone’s week.

What it looks like in real life

One of our clients, a compliance firm, ticked nearly every box on this list. Now their clients log in, fill in their information once, and the website formats it, adds the logos, names it, archives last month’s version and publishes the new one. Nobody in the office touches it. Here’s the full story.

You probably don’t need new software

This is the part that surprises people most. You very likely don’t need to buy a new platform or pay for another monthly licence. Most of the businesses we work with already have a website that could be doing a lot more than it is. With the right forms, document generation, secure logins and some custom logic, it can take the whole process over.