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Fifteen minutes, in this order.

Most businesses that fail at automation bought software first. This path makes you decide what, whether and why before you spend a dollar.

  1. Score your readiness 4 min

    Twelve questions on data, process, people and infrastructure. If you score under 13, the next step is not automation — it is a written process and a spreadsheet. The tool says so.

  2. Find the opportunities 2 min

    Pick your industry and the three things that hurt most. You get a ranked shortlist from 34 named opportunities, each with effort, impact and the guide that covers it.

  3. Run the numbers 3 min

    Take the top opportunity and put your real figures in: how many people, how many hours, what an hour costs you, how many enquiries you lose. Net per month, payback, USD and ZiG.

  4. Read the one guide that matches 10 min

    Six guides cover the processes Zimbabwean SMEs automate first: WhatsApp, invoicing and fiscalisation, bookkeeping, rosters, quotes and follow-ups. Each has a flow diagram and a cost table.

  5. Run a 30-day pilot on one process 4 weeks

    One process, one metric, one owner, a go/no-go on day 30. Use the pilot checklist. Do not start a second automation until the first has survived a month.

  6. Decide: scale, adjust or stop

    If the metric moved, extend to the next opportunity on your shortlist. If it did not, the pilot still paid for itself in what you learned about the process. If you want a second opinion at any point, get an assessment.

Should you automate this process yet? Decision flow Four yes/no questions: Is the process written down? Does it happen more than twenty times a week? Is the data already in a system or spreadsheet? Can one person own the pilot? Each no leads to a fix; four yeses lead to a pilot. Is the process written down?Happens 20+ times a week?Data already in a system?One person can own it? Pilot it for 30 days No → write a one-page SOP first (template)No → not worth automating yet; template itNo → start with a shared spreadsheetNo → pick a smaller process nonononoyesyesyesyes
The four gates before any automation. A "no" is not a failure; it is the cheaper task to do first. The one-page SOP template is at /templates/one-page-sop/.

Three mistakes we see most

  1. Buying software before fixing the process. A CRM does not create follow-ups; a rule does ("every quote gets a day-2 message"). Write the rule, run it by hand for two weeks, then automate it.
  2. Automating the hardest process first. Bookkeeping is where the pain is loudest, but the WhatsApp inbox is where the volume is: POTRAZ measures WhatsApp at 20.69% of all mobile data in Zimbabwe. Start with the noisiest process, not the most painful.
  3. Counting only wages. At a loaded cost near US$2–3 an hour for junior staff, replacing labour rarely pays for software. Counting the owner's hours and the enquiries that go unanswered usually does. The calculator is built that way on purpose.

Rather have someone walk the path with you?

An automation assessment does steps 1–4 with you on a call, using your numbers, and leaves you with a one-page plan whether or not you build it with us.

Get an automation assessment