Business Process Automation: Which Workflow Should You Automate First?
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Business Process Automation: Which Workflow Should You Automate First?
Start with a recurring task that has a clear beginning, a useful finish and someone responsible for the result. You should be able to explain the usual steps, recognise when information is missing and check whether the work was completed correctly.
For one business, that might mean getting website enquiries into the right customer record. For another, it could be preparing an onboarding checklist after a proposal is accepted. The best first project depends on where your team spends time and what happens when a step goes wrong.
Before buying software or commissioning a build, compare a few real workflows. The questions below will help you choose a manageable first project and decide what it needs to prove.
In this article
What does business process automation involve?
Business process automation uses software to carry out agreed steps in a business process. Those steps might move information between systems, prepare a document, assign work or send a reminder. A person can still review a record or approve a decision along the way. IBM’s overview describes how this work can connect activities across several systems.
A workflow might begin when a customer submits a form and finish when a staff member receives a complete follow-up task. That is specific enough to inspect. “Automate our sales” leaves too many questions unanswered: which enquiries, which records, which decisions and whose responsibility?
Write the starting event and the intended finish in one sentence. If the team disagrees about either, settle that before building the connection.
Four workflows worth putting on the shortlist
These business process automation examples are starting points for discussion. The useful first scope will depend on your systems and how your team handles exceptions.
Getting enquiries to the right person
A website form can create a customer record or follow-up task, send an acknowledgement and notify the responsible team member. Check how you will handle an existing customer, a missing phone number or an enquiry about several services. Begin with one form and one destination.
Preparing customer onboarding
An accepted proposal can trigger an internal checklist, a request for documents and a welcome email. Make sure acceptance has a clear meaning in the system. A draft proposal or a conversation about pricing should not accidentally start the work.
Following up unpaid invoices
Approved reminders can be prepared or sent according to an invoice’s status. Before including this workflow, decide how to treat disputed invoices, payment arrangements and payments that have arrived but have not yet been matched. Finance staff need a way to hold a reminder.
Preparing a recurring report
Software can collect agreed figures and assemble a draft report. First confirm which system owns each figure, how dates are interpreted and who checks the result. Automating the collection will not resolve disagreements about what the figures mean.
Use the same questions to compare each option
Ask the people doing the work to describe recent examples. A process that looks simple on a whiteboard may involve a spreadsheet, a second login and a call to someone who knows what happened last time.
| What to record | What to ask your team |
|---|---|
| Frequency and handling time | How often does this happen? How long do the normal steps, checks and corrections take? |
| Effect on the business | Does the delay hold up a customer, leave work unassigned or cause repeated chasing? |
| Inputs and systems | Where does the information arrive? Which record is authoritative? What access would a connection need? |
| Rules and exceptions | What happens when details are missing, records conflict or the customer changes their request? |
| Consequence of error | Could a mistake send the wrong message, change an account or commit the business to something? |
| First useful scope | Which small part could you test while keeping the result useful? |
| Ongoing owner | Who will monitor failures, correct records and update the rules? |
Compare the answers together. A frequent task with consistent inputs and an easy review step may be a sensible first choice. A task that happens rarely can still deserve attention if a missed deadline has a serious effect. Record the reason for your choice; a precise-looking score would hide those differences.
You can copy this table into a shared document and complete it for two or three candidates. Leave uncertain answers visible so you know what to investigate.
Check the awkward cases before choosing
Take a few recent records through the proposed workflow. Include an incomplete submission and a duplicate, if those occur in your business. Ask what the system should do when it cannot finish a step.
If a customer submits the same form twice, should the second submission update the first record, create another request or wait for review? If the accounting connection is unavailable, where will the failed item appear? If the person responsible is away, who sees the work?
Write down the answer and the person responsible for resolving it. An error notification needs somewhere useful to go, with enough information for someone to repair the problem.
It is also worth checking what your existing software can already do. A supported form, reminder or approval feature may cover the first scope. Where information needs to pass between products, review the available system integration options before assuming every required action is possible.
Does this workflow need AI?
Fixed rules may be enough when the input is predictable: a selected service determines the team, an approved status starts a checklist, or a due date determines when a reminder is prepared.
AI may be useful when the input varies, such as a free-text enquiry that needs a suggested category or a long message that needs a draft summary. Define what the output will be used for and how someone will check it. If a suggested category controls who receives urgent work, a wrong category could matter.
Begin with a limited role that you can evaluate. For example, the assistant could suggest a summary while the original message remains beside it. A staff member can correct the summary before it is used in a customer response.
Keep decisions about pricing, refunds, unusual commitments and other consequential changes with the person authorised to make them. The permissions given to any connected tool should reflect the work you have actually agreed to automate.
A worked example: website enquiry to follow-up task
Illustrative example: consider a service business whose office copies website enquiries into a customer database, then emails someone to follow up. This example describes a possible design, not a measured Grendigital customer result.
The first release could cover this sequence:
- A customer submits a particular website form.
- The workflow checks that the required contact details are present.
- It looks for a matching customer using agreed matching rules.
- It creates the supported enquiry record and a follow-up task for the assigned person.
- It sends an approved acknowledgement and records whether delivery succeeded.
An uncertain customer match goes to a review list. A failed transfer stays visible for the office to correct or retry. The workflow keeps a link to the original submission so the staff member can check what the customer actually asked.
For this first release, the team would still qualify the enquiry, agree the scope and prepare a quote. Separating those decisions makes the initial project easier to check. You can assess whether records arrive correctly and work is assigned without also testing an automated quoting system.
Agree what a pilot must prove
Before switching on the workflow, record the current handling time and what staff regularly have to correct. Then choose a trial period that includes enough real work to assess the result. A daily task and a monthly report will need different observation periods.
During the trial, record completed items, items requiring review, failures and corrections. Include the time spent checking the automation. Ask the people receiving the work whether the records are complete and whether they can find the original information.
For a rough estimate of time released, multiply the observed reduction in handling time by the number of items completed correctly, then subtract the additional monitoring and correction time. Use actual observations when you have them. A few hours released for other work do not automatically become a reduction in business costs.
Set the conditions for continuing, changing or stopping the trial before you begin. IBM’s implementation guidance also recommends starting with a small project and measuring its results before expanding.
Bring one workflow to the first conversation
You do not need a finished technical specification. Bring an example of the work, the systems it touches and the exceptions your team has to manage. Include the person who does the task regularly; they will usually know where the missing details turn up.
Grendigital’s AI agents and workflow automation services cover the planning and connections behind this kind of work. Our free AI and automation audit is a starting point for discussing a practical first scope.
Request a free AI and automation audit and tell us which workflow you would like to examine.
