One of the biggest mistakes I see in digital projects?
Teams rushing to automate business processes without first asking whether those processes make any sense to begin with.
Just because something exists doesn’t mean it’s worth preserving.
If a process is slow, unclear, or stitched together with manual workarounds, automating it won’t solve the problem — it’ll lock it in. You’ll make the mess go faster, not better.
A Real Example
In a former company, the sales team was copying lead data from one system into another, then flagging ops to update a spreadsheet, then sending manual reminders to finance to generate a quote.
Leadership’s solution? “Let’s automate the lead handoff.”
The better solution? Redesign the whole thing.
We eliminated two tools, set up a single form with proper validation, and routed everything through one source of truth. What used to take three systems, two handoffs, and constant follow-ups now runs cleanly end-to-end. Automation came last.
The Expensive Consulting Trap
We once brought in a major consulting firm to “streamline” operations. They delivered a 90-slide deck with flowcharts, RACI matrices, and the usual jargon — and their top recommendation? Automate approvals to speed up decisions.
What they didn’t ask:
Why do we need five layers of approvals in the first place?
Turns out most of them were added over time as risk mitigation — but no one had challenged them in years.
So we went against the recommendation.
Instead of automating the bloat, we eliminated three approval layers entirely, by setting clear thresholds and empowering teams to act.
Time to decision dropped by 60%.
No automation required. Just courage and common sense.
Another One: Vendor Management
A procurement team had a ticketing system where vendors submitted forms, which were then printed (yes, printed), manually signed, and rescanned back into the system for “compliance.” The automation plan was to digitize the paperwork routing.
But we stepped back.
The actual issue? Legal had no confidence in vendor compliance data — so they wanted to eyeball every form.
We created a clean intake flow with validation, integrated compliance checks, and gave Legal real-time dashboards instead of PDFs.
That let us remove human review in 80% of cases.
That’s real process re-engineering.
Automation didn’t lead. It followed.
Ask These Questions First
Before you write code, wire up a workflow, AI for automation, or bring in a vendor, ask:
- Why do we do it this way?
- What’s the actual goal?
- What would this look like if we started from scratch today?
Too often we’re just preserving tribal knowledge and legacy decisions — processes shaped around tools instead of needs, around silos instead of outcomes.
A Simple 3-Step Approach
Forget the fancy frameworks. Here’s the version that actually works:
- Understand the outcome – What’s the real job to be done?
- Rethink the process – Challenge every step. Cut what’s unnecessary. Resequence what’s broken.
- Then — and only then — automate – Make the clean process run faster — not the broken one.
Final Thought
Don’t fall in love with automation. Fall in love with clarity.
Fix the process. Then apply tech.
That’s how you get actual business value — not just faster noise.