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VelvetGiraffe

Automate the process you'd actually keep

Author
Sarah-Jane Lewis
Published
Published 22 April 2026
Updated
Updated 10 June 2026
Reading time
4 min read

Automation applied to a bad process just produces bad outcomes faster. Redesign first, then automate.

Speed isn't the goal

The point of automation isn't to do the same thing faster. It's to remove steps that shouldn't exist and to make the remaining steps reliable.

Before automating an enquiry process, ask whether the qualification questions are the right ones, whether the follow-up sequence would impress you as a customer, and whether the handover to a human happens at the right moment.

A sensible order

Map. Simplify. Standardise. Then automate. Most SMEs skip the middle two and end up with an expensive version of the problem they started with.

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