We ask you a set of questions like:
Where are you spending the most time on?
What is your day to day routine like?
What is the 1st thing you do when you come to the office?
How frequently do you do these tasks? Is it daily, weekly, monthly or yearly?
What things are you doing manually in your business?
How many entries are you doing & where are you doing it?
What are you using to do these entries? Pen & Paper, Excel or some other tool?
Once we ask these few basic questions, you get a bit more comfortable with us and also start thinking along the same lines like what are the things that I can do that will make my own business better? You start bringing your points and we also start adding our points.
If these questions don’t help, we ask you to explain your complete business process to us and we think on what can be improved in which area of business & from there we identify which department/process has the most process debt.
An excellent example of process debt is when the Sales Team has a fantastic CRM Tool but still relies on Excel + Phone + Pen and Paper to track leads and make sales “because that worked for them all these years.
Processes having Process Debts:
a: Manual Inventory Management Process
Company A, a retail business, relied on a manual inventory management process that involved handwritten records and physical counts of products in stock. This outdated method led to discrepancies in inventory levels, stockouts of popular items, and overstock of slow-moving products. As a result, Company A faced lost sales opportunities, increased storage costs, and dissatisfied customers due to delayed or incorrect orders.
b: Paper-based Procurement System
Company B, a manufacturing firm, had a paper-based procurement system that required multiple approval signatures on physical purchase orders from stakeholders. This manual process was time-consuming, prone to errors, and lacked visibility into procurement status & spending patterns. As a result, Company B experienced delays in acquiring necessary materials, inefficient allocation of funds, and difficulties in tracking purchases.
c: Inefficient Customer Support Workflow
Company C, a technology company, had an inefficient customer support workflow that involved multiple handoffs between departments, redundant data entry & lack of integration. This fragmented process led to delays in resolving customer issues, duplicate responses to inquiries, and inconsistent service quality. As a consequence, Company C faced declining customer satisfaction, increased customer churn, and higher support costs.
Hinders integration: Process debt can create obstacles in integrating AI and automation technologies effectively into existing workflows, limiting their full potential.
Increases errors: Cumulative inefficiencies and bottlenecks from process debt can lead to inaccurate data inputs and outputs in AI and automation systems, reducing overall efficiency and reliability.
Slows down implementation: Addressing process debt is essential for successful AI and automation deployment, as outdated or inefficient processes can impede the adoption and optimization of these technologies.
To get the most out of automation & AI, businesses first have to remove existing Process debts from their Processes before using AI & Automation. Without tackling process debt, companies won’t be able to realise the massive potential of technologies like AI, according to an HBR article.
It can emerge due to any one of the reasons:
You must be wondering if Process Debt is really that big of a threat for your business. It is a form of debt you may not have considered till now but you are probably accumulating more of it.
On the micro-level, this may mean a customer lost to a slow turnaround for a quote or bug fix. On a larger scale, this could mean losing first mover position in the market by being too slow to adopt to changing market conditions.
Here are 8 of the worst case scenarios if you don’t eliminate Process Debt from your business.
Process debt identification is the first step of our process because it lays the foundational blueprint for the entire project, ensuring alignment with business goals and technological capabilities, thereby reducing the risk of costly changes later on.