Approach
Manual processes in a company: eight questions before any software is built
Software laid over an unresolved process does not improve it. It makes it go wrong faster.
Most companies do not have a software problem. They have a handover problem. We map the process first, remove duplication, standardise — and only then build. This page describes what the process review actually examines.
Understand the process first. Then build the software that fits it.
The usual order is the reverse: a company describes what its staff do today and receives software that reproduces exactly that — including the double entry, the detours and the steps that exist only because somebody introduced them years ago.
We work the other way round. First the real process is recorded, then duplication and redundant steps are removed, then it is standardised — and only after that does a system get designed.
The difference is not academic. In a project covering three plants and the wholesale operation selling their output, recording and unifying three separately grown workflows was the heaviest part of the work — and the precondition for one platform being able to serve all three sites.
That is why the result is neither a CRM nor an ERP nor an app, but an operating model of the company: data appears once and then travels through the processes that actually exist.
The eight questions the process review consists of
These are not interview questions for a transcript. Each one exposes a class of failure that costs money later.
- 01
Who decides — and on what basis?
Who may accept a request, release a price, start a job. And on what grounds: a rule, experience, or asking someone in the next room.
- 02
Where does the information come from?
Every channel separately: website, phone, message, paper, spoken word. The channels nobody mentions are the ones where orders later disappear.
- 03
Where is it lost?
The handover points between people and programs. The expensive failures almost never happen inside a department; they happen between two of them.
- 04
What is entered twice?
The same value in a spreadsheet, in the industry software and in the bookkeeping. Double entry is not only effort — it creates two versions of the truth.
- 05
Which decisions does a person make that a rule could make?
Who gets the job, when to reorder, which technician drives out. This is the part that can genuinely be automated.
- 06
What depends on one individual?
The process that stalls the moment somebody is away for two days. That is not a staffing issue, it is a design fault in the process.
- 07
Where does the waiting happen?
Between request and answer, between closing and invoice, between completion and proof of work. Waiting time is the most visible part of a broken process.
- 08
Which numbers does management need — and when does it get them?
What becomes known at month end was unsteerable for a month. This question decides what the system has to record in the first place.
Frequent questions
- What is the deliverable?
- A written document: where information is lost today, what is worth automating and in which order, what should stay manual and why, and a rough price range for building it.
- What if off-the-shelf software is enough?
- Then the document says so and names the software. A review that always ends in a development project is not a review, it is a sales call.
- Do we have to give access to our systems?
- No. We do not work inside your production systems and do not ask for access to them. We read documents and screens and talk to the people doing the work.
- How long does it take?
- A review from a conversation and documents ends in a written document within three working days of the first conversation. If a process cannot be read that way, we say so — then it needs a day on site.
- Is the fee credited against a project?
- Yes, in full, if the project starts within 45 days. If we conclude that we cannot help, we refund it.
Process review — €350
One conversation, your documents, a written document within three working days. Credited against the project, refunded if we cannot help.