The tools available to us have fundamentally changed, yet we still treat manual effort as if its inherently valuable. Admin, repetition and manual processes continue to qualify as a productive day, simply because they require time and mental energy.
It’s always been like this. Businesses once kept accounts by hand, which by today’s standards seems ludicrously inefficient. But there would have been a slow uptake in adopting digital record keeping simply because it was a new way of doing things.
Today we’re in a similar place. The way we can work has moved forwards but our expectations haven’t fully caught up, so we accept tedious and frustrating tasks as part of the modern definition of work.
This usually shows up in the way businesses use their tools. When you have systems that aren’t fit for purpose, manual processes become normal and copying data between tools, checking multiple sources to confirm numbers, or chasing information across teams becomes baked into how things operate.
This is what bad systems look like in practice. At best, it’s a frustrating inconvenience. At worst, it has far reaching implications as there’s no single source of truth and different people work from their own version of “reality”. This presents challenges with delivery and sound decision-making, not to mention the manual data processing required to fix bad data quality.
This usually happens because tools are added over time, gradually and to fix a very specific problem. The introductions of systems without taking into account how they fit into the bigger picture is a common reason why tools quickly fall out of favour with users.
Then when a system is introduced, no one is assigned as the business owner responsible for keeping it well-structured and user-friendly. With no champion for its use, this is where data problems creep in and the improvement roadmap stops in its tracks.
You need to remember that information is a living concept. It changes from person to person and it evolves over time. It’s critical that the systems you implement facilitate the movement of this information as easily as possible.
On the face of it, a few hours lost a week seems like a tolerable cost of doing business. Time and efficiency are difficult concepts when it comes to assessing return on investment - revenue and profit are far more universal metrics.
Here’s two simple ways to assess whether its time to invest in better systems. In both cases, let’s use an example where you spend five hours a week searching for missing data, copying and pasting it between systems and performing manual tasks like sending emails and creating documents.
The resource approach looks at whether the value of the time tied up in these activities is greater than the investment required to eliminate them. To make a fair comparison, you need to convert the time spent on these tasks into an hourly rate. This doesn’t need to be exact and can be based on your typical rate, market rate or the value of the work you would normally prioritise.
For example, let’s say your time is worth £100 per hour. That means on a weekly basis, you’re spending £500 on completing low-value tasks. Over a 46 week period, accounting for personal and public holidays, the total cost of these activities adds up to a staggering £23,000.
Now if a system costing £5,000 can significantly reduce that time, would you make that deal?
Instead of focusing on what’s being lost, the capacity approach focuses instead on what becomes possible when time is reallocated to higher-value activities like sales and delivery. This is called the opportunity cost.
For example, an additional 5 hours per week could allow for up to 5 additional sales calls (when estimated at 1 hour long). If 1 in 5 of those calls converts, and your average deal value is £3,000, that’s an additional £138,000 over 46 weeks.
Of course, this assumes you have the demand to fill those calls and the capacity to deliver the work. A more conservative assumption might be closing just 1 additional deal per month, with the remaining time savings used for business development and delivery.
That alone is £36,000 in additional annual revenue.
Cost avoidance is an excellent lens to look through when operating in highly regulated industries or high-risk environments, as it focuses on how much could be saved if you prevented costs like compliance breaches, operational failures, fines or legal fees.
But let’s not forget about the non-financial benefits either.
Connected systems make work easier, reduce frustration and improve the day-to-day experience of getting things done. In doing so, they improve morale, reduce cognitive load and allow people to focus on work that develops them professionally and adds greater strategic value.
Blindly introducing another system may solve a local problem but it’s likely to amplify existing issues in the long-term. Before selecting any technology, it’s essential to fully understand the underlying business process, including how it works today, where it falls down and how it should work if it’s going to be efficient and scalable.
Only once you know this should you begin assessing a suitable solution. When deciding how technology will support, consider things like:
You don’t have to answer these questions alone.