Which of My Processes Should Be Digitised — All of Them?
Which processes to digitise is the question that decides a transformation project’s fate. The two wrong answers are “all of them” and “I don’t know” — both leave the project unfinished. 🎯
Short answer: not all. Start with the processes that repeat most and produce most errors — quoting, orders, stock, collections. A project trying to digitise everything at once never ends.
Below: the prioritisation test, typical starting processes, what can wait, and how to build your own list. 📋
How is priority decided?
Which processes to digitise is answered with two tests.
Which process tires the owner most?
Also a valid test. Work that constantly needs your intervention is work without a system — and it benefits most from digitisation.
What are the typical starting processes?
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- Quoting and order tracking
- Stock, collections and account tracking
- Customer history and contact records
Sectors differ but the same candidates come forward.
Quoting and order tracking
In most SMEs this is the bloodiest spot: who has the quote, was it approved, what was the price. The information sits scattered in email and in people’s heads. A single record location directly reduces lost sales. 📑
Stock, collections and account tracking
“Do we have it?” and “has this customer paid?” get asked several times a day. Making those two visible instantly is the fastest-felt gain of transformation, and it improves cash flow directly. 💰
Customer history and contact records
Who called, what was discussed, what was promised. Without this record every team member starts from zero and the customer repeats themselves. The loss map sits in the loss article. 📞
Which can wait?
Knowing the order protects the budget.
What to postpone
Work done a few times a year, processes run by one person without errors, and business lines that haven’t settled yet. Digitising a process that’s still changing is like setting concrete before it’s shaped — wait a few months. ⏸️
How many processes should I start with?
The answer isn’t a number but capacity.
One or two — why more than three is risky
Because every process demands an adjustment period and the team’s attention is finite. Change three systems at once and none gets adopted; all revert. Showing a gain in one process also makes the next project easier — the adoption side sits in the team article. 🎯
How do I build my own list?
An hour’s work, months of right direction.
The one-page process inventory
Draw five columns on a sheet: process name, times per week, how many people touch it, errors last month, where the information lives. Write your main jobs into it. The two rows with the highest frequency and error counts are your starting project. The sequence sits in the starting article, all questions on the consulting page. ✅
📝 Field Notes
In a manufacturer’s process inventory, the highest-error job was quote pricing: every quote came from a different spreadsheet with a different discount. A single price source was set up and errors nearly vanished. The whole project was one process — and the biggest gain came from there. 📑
📖 Quick Glossary
Process inventory: a table of processes with frequency and error counts. Repetition frequency: how often a job is done in a given period. Single record location: the one correct source for a piece of information. Adjustment period: the team’s time to adapt to a new system.
⚡ Quick Summary
Not all: high-repetition, high-error processes first. 🎯 Typical starts: quoting, stock and collections, customer history. Unsettled processes wait. Two processes at most. The inventory takes an hour.
🎯 Next Step
Let’s build your process inventory and name the two to start with in the first meeting: the quote page. Scope on the consulting page. 📋
Frequently Asked Questions
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The return on digitising is multiplied by repetition. Automating something done once a month is a small gain; automating something done twenty times a day changes the business. Look at frequency first. 🔁
Wrong prices, forgotten orders, records entered twice. A process producing errors costs not just time but customers and money. Where repetition and errors meet in the same process, that’s your starting point. ⚠️
Accounting software keeps records but doesn’t manage processes: quote tracking, customer history and workflow usually sit outside it. To judge, check how many of your daily questions it actually answers.
In a mid-sized business, a rough write-up of the main processes takes a few days. Going into detail can take weeks, but rough is enough to start. Waiting for a perfect document kills the project before it begins.
The resistance usually comes from fear: “will my job be at risk?” Saying plainly that the aim is to make work easier, and writing the process together with them, resolves it. A process written from above never survives in practice.