How to spot a process worth digitalising

1. Start with the business problem, not the tool

When companies start digitalising, they often ask first which technology they should use. A better starting point is the question of which process causes employees the most unnecessary work, waiting or errors every day.

For a first project there is no need to map every process in the organisation. It is enough to assess a few of the most likely candidates against three practical criteria.

2. Three criteria for choosing a process

The process repeats often

The more often a process runs, the sooner the effect of an improvement shows. Saving two minutes on a task performed several hundred times a month can matter more than a bigger improvement to a task that comes up only a few times a year.

The process has a clear owner

The process owner is the person who understands the workflow, can make decisions and is accountable for the result. Without them a project quickly stalls on questions such as exceptions, access rights and responsibility for data.

Visibility and traceability are missing

A good candidate is a process where it is hard to answer questions like: Where is the request? Who is handling it at the moment? What is still missing? How long does each step take? A digital solution can introduce clear statuses, responsible people, deadlines and a history of changes.

3. Two signs that it is better to sort out the process first

The first sign is that the people involved have not yet agreed how the process should run. Digitalising such a process does not remove the disagreements, it simply moves them into the system.

The second sign is data without a clear custodian. If nobody keeps code lists, user lists or other key data correct, even a well-designed solution will quickly lose the trust of its users.

4. How to estimate the impact before you start

Four figures are enough for a first estimate: how many people are involved, how often the process runs, how much time it takes today and how many errors or delays it causes. That lets you estimate the annual time saving, and fewer errors, faster decisions and better traceability matter just as much.

The goal of a first project should be concrete enough to measure once it goes live. For example: shorter handling times, less manual data re-entry, fewer lost requests or a higher share of tasks completed within the agreed deadline.

5. A BizIT example

At Hisense Europe the right process was ordering patent research. It repeated often, it had a clear owner, and users had no single view of the state of requests. Since the solution went live every request has a defined status and a responsible person, and notifications are sent automatically.