How process automation can save you thousands of hours a year

If your team is buried in spreadsheets, toggling between systems, or chasing approvals via email, you’re not alone. In fact, studies show that up to one-third of working hours are spent on repetitive tasks, and most internal processes take 40% longer than they should.

That’s not just frustrating, it’s expensive. And not just in terms of time. When processes are manual, slow, or overly complex, errors go up, morale goes down, and your team ends up firefighting instead of creating value.

So, what’s the fix?

It’s not about doing more

You don’t need to rip up your entire tech stack or launch a six-month transformation program. In fact, the most effective workflow improvements often start small by identifying bottlenecks, automating just enough, and building from there.

Think about the hours lost every week to:

• Re-entering data between systems
• Tracking down missing order information
• Waiting on a manager’s “yes” for a routine approval
• Cleaning up avoidable mistakes

Each of those is a clear opportunity for automation, and not necessarily the kind that requires AI or deep-tech expertise. Sometimes, it’s as simple as creating a structured workflow or routing requests differently.

Start with the process, not the tool

At rb2, we always begin by mapping out the full process from end to end. Where does it start? Who touches it? How long does each step take? You’d be surprised how often the real delays happen in places no one is looking. These are all things you can look at, sure, expertise can play a role, but you’ll be able to see gaps and room for improvement pretty quickly if you take the time to map things out.

From there, we look for the low-hanging fruit, i.e., the parts of your process that are simple to automate and bring immediate value. That’s everything from validations like checking stock levels, transferring data, or repetitive communications like confirmation emails.

The goal is not to implement tech for tech’s sake, it’s to create results quickly, giving your team back control and clarity, and building a foundation you can further improve on.

Real impact, one process at a time

We’ve seen firsthand how small process changes can unlock big results. In one case, we worked with IPN, a national pet nutrition brand in the UK, that was manually processing every customer order from emails. The orders came in as purchase orders in PDF, CSV, and xlsx formats, and even photos. Each one took up to 30 minutes to input across various systems, with errors happening more often than they’d like to admit.

Our solution? A lightweight automation tool that could interpret incoming emails (including attachments), extract the relevant order data, and convert it into ERP-ready inputs. The system has even gotten smarter over time, learning to distinguish between different formats, languages, and even conversational email styles. IPN has seen huge time savings, far fewer mistakes, and a team that could finally breathe again. 

That tool is now known as OrderPilot, a custom-built AI agent we created because we realized how common this pain point really is. And while OrderPilot leverages AI to interpret context (not just copy-paste), it’s just one example of how automation can make a difference without disrupting everything you already have in place.

What makes automation work isn’t the complexity of the tech. It’s the clarity of the process behind it. The right automation should reduce errors, speed up delivery, free up people’s time for more valuable work, and be able to adapt as your business evolves. And crucially, it doesn’t need to start big. You can build momentum by starting small, measuring the impact, and scaling up only when it makes sense.

At rb2, we’ve made it our mission to make automation pragmatic, scalable, and in your control. Whether it’s through a custom platform, a simple RPA setup, or an AI agent like OrderPilot, we help businesses stop wasting hours and start working smarter.

Curious what process optimization could do for you?
Let’s take a look together, no bloat, no buzzwords. Just real steps forward.