Manual Processes are OK

Is it great to have everything automated? Yes.

Does automation always provide a cost-benefit? No.

Does automation always add business value? No.

Here are a few examples where automation might not make sense.

• Monthly process of generating detailed performance reports for a particular product line
• Inventory Management Automation in Low-Variability Settings
• Onboarding significant clients to a platform that is only done a few times a year
• Automating Employee Performance Reviews, not until an AI platform is created 😀

These are examples of the high cost to automate with lost cost to manual performance.

The other thing with automation is that it takes maintenance. How do you know it's working? What happens when the environment changes?

So before you automate for automation's sake, evaluate the benefit vs. the cost to implement against the business value created.

One way to identify processes for automation is to determine what processes your staff are complaining about.