ILLUSTRATIVE SAMPLE · FICTIONAL SCENARIO

What an Efficiency Assessment looks like

This example shows the structure of a one-workflow assessment. The company, workflow volume, rates and findings below are invented to explain our method. They are not client results, promised savings or a forecast.

The decision

A fictional service business wants to know whether to automate its customer-request intake. The right question is narrower: Which steps create avoidable work, and what should change first?

Current workflow

  1. A request arrives by email or web form.
  2. A coordinator copies details into a tracker.
  3. Missing information is chased by email.
  4. A manager assigns an owner.
  5. The owner updates status manually.
  6. The customer receives a separate progress update.

The likely friction points are duplicate entry, incomplete requests, unclear ownership and manual status updates. An actual engagement would test each point against interviews and approved records before calling it a finding.

Evidence register

  • Assumed for this example: 300 requests per month and eight minutes of duplicate handling per request.
  • Illustrative rate: $40–$60 per loaded staff hour. This is an input range, not a verified company cost.
  • Still unknown: actual monthly volume, observed handling time, exception rate, rework, customer impact and permissions for any AI or automation tool.

A real report would label every important input as observed, estimated, assumed or missing. We would ask for a small sample of request records, approved screenshots or exports, and interviews with the people doing the work.

Illustrative calculation

300 requests × 8 minutes = 40 staff hours of duplicate handling per month. If a process change removed 30–50% of that work, it would free 12–20 hours per month. At the illustrative $40–$60 loaded hourly range, that represents $480–$1,200 per month of staff capacity.

This is not cash savings. The time must be measured, the change must actually work, and capacity only turns into cash or revenue if the business can use it that way. The example excludes implementation cost, training, errors and ongoing maintenance.

Prioritized recommendations

  1. Standardize intake fields — high priority, low effort. Require the information the coordinator repeatedly chases. Test completion quality before expanding.
  2. Define owner and exception rules — high priority, low to medium effort. Make handoffs explicit so requests do not sit between teams.
  3. Pilot automation only after a baseline — conditional priority. Compare one request type against its previous handling time and error rate. Do not automate unclear rules.

30 / 60 / 90 day roadmap

  • First 30 days: Measure current handling time and exceptions; agree on required fields and ownership.
  • By 60 days: Pilot the revised intake and assignment process on one request type; compare speed, quality and staff effort.
  • By 90 days: Expand only if the pilot improves outcomes without adding material errors. Consider automation after the process is stable and data permissions are clear.

What the real assessment would still need

Before recommending spend, we would verify request volume, staff time, rework, customer consequences, system limits, security requirements and the cost of change. If the evidence does not support an investment, the report would say so.

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