The value of time
Why the Most Valuable Thing Automation Creates Isn't Efficiency. It's Thinking Time.
Businesses have always looked for ways to become more efficient. From the introduction of the production line to the arrival of computers, every generation has searched for methods of doing more with less. Today, that conversation is dominated by Artificial Intelligence, workflow automation and digital transformation. Everywhere you look there is another headline promising greater productivity, lower costs and faster results.
Whilst these benefits are certainly achievable, I believe they miss a crucial point. The greatest value that automation creates is not measured in pounds saved or hours reduced. It is measured in the time it gives people to think. That might sound like a subtle distinction, but it changes the entire conversation about digital transformation.
For many organisations, the working day has become dominated by administration. Teams spend countless hours producing quotations, updating spreadsheets, chasing approvals, responding to routine emails, transferring information between systems and searching for data that already exists somewhere within the business. Individually these tasks seem relatively insignificant, but collectively they consume thousands of hours every year.
The irony is that most businesses do not employ talented people because they are good at updating spreadsheets. They employ them because they can solve problems, build relationships, understand customers, develop new ideas and make informed decisions. These are the activities that create competitive advantage, yet they are often squeezed into whatever time remains after the administration has been completed.
It is hardly surprising that so many organisations feel constantly busy whilst simultaneously struggling to move forward. This challenge is not a reflection of people's capability. It is a consequence of how work has evolved. As businesses have grown, processes have become layered with additional approvals, duplicated information, disconnected software and manual workarounds. New systems have often been introduced to solve one problem whilst inadvertently creating another. Over time, organisations become highly efficient at managing complexity instead of questioning whether that complexity should exist at all.
This is where workflow automation becomes so powerful.
The objective should never be to automate for the sake of automation. Technology implemented without purpose simply creates different problems. Instead, automation should begin with a much more fundamental question. Where do our people create the greatest value? Once we understand the answer, it becomes much easier to identify which activities genuinely require human judgement and which repetitive tasks can be safely managed by technology.
This philosophy echoes the work of management thinker Peter Drucker, who famously wrote, "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all." Although written decades before workflow automation became commonplace, his observation is arguably even more relevant today.
Too many organisations focus on improving the speed of inefficient processes instead of asking whether those processes should exist in their current form. Automating a poor process simply allows the business to make the same mistakes more quickly. The real opportunity lies in understanding how work actually happens, simplifying it where possible, and then using technology to remove the repetitive administration that remains.
This is why process mapping is such a critical part of any successful automation project. At PruneSoftware we encourage organisations to map the reality of their operations, not the version documented in an old procedures manual. Every business develops workarounds over time. Staff create spreadsheets because existing systems cannot provide the information they need. Departments keep separate records because data is not shared effectively. Teams send emails asking for updates because systems do not provide real time visibility. These behaviours are rarely deliberate. They evolve gradually until they become accepted as normal.
Unfortunately, what becomes normal is not always what is best. Removing these hidden inefficiencies is often where organisations see the greatest improvements. Not because people begin working harder, but because they finally have the freedom to concentrate on work that genuinely matters. Research from McKinsey & Company suggests that around 60% of occupations have at least 30% of activities that could be automated using technologies that already exist. This finding is frequently interpreted as evidence that jobs are at risk. I believe there is a much more optimistic conclusion.
If almost a third of many people's working day can be spent on repetitive administration, imagine what businesses could achieve if that time was redirected towards innovation, customer service, continuous improvement and strategic thinking instead. That is not a technology opportunity. It is a human opportunity.
Over the past few years, I have spoken to many business owners who assumed automation was primarily about reducing headcount. Yet the organisations achieving the greatest returns are rarely those focused on replacing people. Instead, they are investing in making their people more effective and to grow competitive advantage.
Creativity empathy, experience, and good judgement cannot be automated.
These qualities remain the preserve of people, and in an increasingly automated world they become even more valuable. The challenge for business leaders, therefore, is no longer simply deciding which software to buy. It is deciding how to design work so that technology handles routine activity while people spend more of their day doing what only people can do. That shift in thinking changes automation from a cost saving exercise into a growth strategy. It is that distinction which will separate the businesses that simply become more efficient from those that become genuinely more competitive.
If we accept that the real value of automation is creating time to think, the next question is perhaps even more important. What do people actually do with that time? The answer lies in understanding how people produce their best work.
For decades, businesses measured productivity by how busy people appeared to be. A full diary, an overflowing inbox and a constant stream of meetings became symbols of success. Yet anyone who has ever solved a difficult problem knows that breakthroughs rarely happen whilst rushing between tasks or responding to emails every few minutes. They happen when people have the time and space to concentrate.
Modern research supports what many business leaders have instinctively known for years, constant interruption comes at a significant cost. Every time we switch between tasks our brain takes time to refocus. Small interruptions repeated throughout the day gradually reduce the quality of our thinking, our creativity and ultimately our decision making.
This is one of the reasons why administration can become so damaging. It is not simply the minutes spent completing a task that reduce productivity. It is the mental interruption that follows. Writing an email, updating a spreadsheet or chasing an approval might only take a few minutes, but if those activities repeatedly interrupt work that requires concentration, the overall impact is far greater than the time recorded on a timesheet.
Author Daniel Pink explored this concept in his book Drive, where he challenged the traditional belief that people are primarily motivated by money or external rewards. Instead, Pink argues that lasting motivation comes from three factors: autonomy, mastery and purpose.
When we look at these principles through the lens of workflow automation, they become remarkably relevant. People want autonomy to use their judgement rather than following repetitive administrative routines. They develop mastery by applying their expertise to increasingly complex challenges, not by copying information between systems. Most importantly, they find purpose when they can see the value their work creates for customers, colleagues and the wider organisation.
Repetitive administration offers very little of any of these. It is difficult to feel inspired when your day is dominated by updating records or manually transferring information from one system to another. Equally, it is difficult for organisations to unlock the full capability of experienced employees if much of their time is devoted to work that technology can complete more reliably and consistently.
Automation helps restore that balance.
It removes many of the routine activities that create frustration, allowing people to spend more of their day using the very skills they were employed for in the first place. This idea becomes even more compelling when we consider the work of psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whose research introduced the concept of Flow. Flow describes the state in which people become completely immersed in meaningful work, losing track of time because they are fully engaged in solving problems, creating ideas or developing new solutions.
Most of us have experienced this feeling at some point in our careers. Perhaps it was developing a new product, solving a complex customer problem or designing a better process. Hours passed almost unnoticed because our attention was completely focused on the challenge in front of us.
Unfortunately, achieving Flow has become increasingly difficult in many modern workplaces. Constant notifications, fragmented systems, unnecessary meetings and repetitive administration continually interrupt concentration before it has the opportunity to develop. The consequence is not simply lower productivity. It is fewer ideas, slower innovation and poorer decisions.
This is where workflow automation creates value that extends far beyond operational efficiency. By removing repetitive interruptions, automation allows people to remain focused on higher value activities for longer. Teams spend less time reacting and more time creating. Leaders spend less time collecting information and more time using it. Customer service teams spend less time searching for answers and more time building relationships. The quality of work improves because the quality of thinking improves.
There is another perspective that reinforces this argument. Productivity expert David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, has long argued that our minds are designed for having ideas, not for storing them. When people attempt to remember dozens of unfinished tasks, outstanding approvals and unanswered emails, they create unnecessary mental clutter. That cognitive load consumes attention long before any physical work has even begun.
Many organisations unintentionally create this environment for their people. Employees spend their day remembering who they need to chase, which spreadsheet contains the latest version of the data, whether a purchase order has been approved or which customer requires a follow up call. None of these activities directly create value, yet they occupy valuable mental capacity.
Effective workflow automation changes this dynamic.
Instead of relying on individuals to remember routine activities, the system manages them automatically. Tasks are routed to the right people, reminders are generated at the appropriate time, approvals follow predefined workflows and information becomes available when it is needed. People no longer need to carry administrative processes in their heads because the business process itself becomes intelligent.
The result is not simply better organisation. it is greater clarity and clarity allows people to focus on what they do best. When organisations create this environment, something interesting begins to happen. Conversations shift away from asking, "Have we completed the administration?" towards much more valuable questions like:
How can we improve this process?
How can we better serve our customers?
What opportunities are we missing?
How can we innovate?
Those are the questions that create competitive advantage, and they are only possible when people have the time and mental space to ask them.
That is why I believe workflow automation should never be viewed as a technology project. It is an investment in human capability. The software may automate the process, but it is the people who create the value.
Of course, ideas only become meaningful when we see them in practice. Across every sector there are organisations proving that automation is not simply about reducing costs. The businesses seeing the greatest returns are using technology to create capacity. Capacity to improve products, strengthen customer relationships, solve operational challenges and innovate more quickly than their competitors.
One of the best examples comes much closer to home. Niche & Bespoke, a specialist aviation catering company supplying VIP aircraft around the world, was facing a challenge familiar to many growing businesses. Demand was increasing, but the administrative processes supporting the business had become increasingly time consuming. Preparing quotations, converting them into orders, communicating internally and ensuring everyone had access to the latest information required significant manual effort. Like many successful businesses, processes had evolved over time, but they had also become increasingly dependent on people remembering what needed to happen next.
None of this work was wasted. It was essential to delivering an exceptional customer experience. The difficulty was that experienced members of the team were spending a growing proportion of their day managing administration rather than applying the knowledge and expertise that customers genuinely valued.
Working with PruneSoftware, the business began by examining how work was really happening. Rather than simply digitising existing processes, every stage of the quotation and order journey was mapped, challenged and redesigned. Manual handovers were reduced, information flowed automatically between departments and routine communications became part of the workflow itself instead of relying on individuals to remember the next step.
The result was far more significant than simply completing administration more quickly. The time spent moving from quotation to order processing reduced by 50%, allowing the team to respond faster, reduce internal communication and spend more time supporting customers. Instead of administration dictating the pace of the business, people could concentrate on building relationships, solving problems and delivering the highly personal service that distinguishes Niche & Bespoke within a competitive international market.
Technology did not replace expertise, it created more opportunity to use it.
This is a pattern repeated across organisations of every size. For example, Siemens has invested heavily in digital manufacturing and automation, not simply to improve operational efficiency but to enable engineers to spend more time on innovation, product development and continuous improvement. By reducing manual intervention, improving data visibility and connecting operations more effectively, employees are able to make faster, more informed decisions that contribute directly to future growth.
A similar philosophy can be seen at Unilever. Through the use of digital technologies across manufacturing and supply chain operations, the organisation has focused on giving teams better information and greater visibility in real time. Rather than replacing experienced employees, automation has enabled people to respond more quickly to changing demand, improve sustainability and identify opportunities for continuous improvement throughout the business.
Perhaps one of the most familiar examples comes from Microsoft. The company has consistently encouraged organisations to think of automation as a way of removing what it describes as "digital drudgery". Routine administrative activities are automated so that employees can focus on collaboration, creativity and higher value decision making. It is a philosophy that closely mirrors the experiences of many organisations implementing workflow automation today.
Although these organisations operate on a global scale, the principles remain exactly the same for small and medium sized businesses. Whether a company employs twenty people or twenty thousand, every hour spent searching for information, updating duplicate records or manually progressing routine tasks is an hour that cannot be invested elsewhere.
Research from McKinsey & Company suggests that organisations adopting automation effectively can significantly improve productivity by allowing employees to focus on activities that require human judgement, creativity and collaboration. Equally, research from Gallup continues to demonstrate that employees are more engaged when they are able to use their strengths every day rather than spending their time completing repetitive administration.
These findings reinforce an important point. The organisations leading their industries are not successful because they have automated everything, rather they are successful because they have been selective about what they automate. Routine, repetitive and rules based activities are handled by technology. Relationship building, creativity, innovation, problem solving and strategic thinking remain firmly in the hands of people.
That balance is where competitive advantage is created.
At PruneSoftware we often describe this as allowing technology to do what technology does best, so that people can do what people do best. It is a simple philosophy, but one that fundamentally changes how organisations think about digital transformation. The conversation is no longer centred on reducing headcount or replacing jobs. Instead, it becomes a discussion about how grow and build a business where talented people spend more of their working day creating value than managing administration.
That is where automation delivers its greatest return. Not because the software becomes smarter, but because the people using it do.
There is, however, one final point that cannot be ignored. If automation is so powerful, why do so many digital transformation projects fail to deliver the results organisations hoped for? The answer is rarely because the software was incapable. More often, it is because organisations approached automation as a technology project instead of a business transformation project.
For years, research has consistently shown that the greatest barriers to successful change are not technical, they are human. People naturally question change, particularly when they do not understand why it is happening, how it will affect them or what success looks like. Introducing new technology without bringing people on the journey is a little like buying a new aircraft without training the pilot. The technology may be capable of extraordinary things, but its success ultimately dependson the people using it.
This is why the work of John Kotter remains so relevant. His research demonstrated that successful change begins by creating a genuine understanding of why change is necessary before asking people to embrace new ways of working. When people understand the purpose behind a transformation, they are far more likely to engage with it. Without that shared understanding, even the best technology can become another system that people work around rather than work with.
A similar lesson can be found in the ADKAR Model, developed by Jeff Hiatt. The model reminds us that successful change begins with Awareness and Desire before moving through Knowledge, Ability and finally Reinforcement. In other words, people need to understand the need for change, want to be part of it, learn how to work differently, develop confidence in the new process and continue to be supported long after implementation has finished. It is a simple framework, but one that many software implementations overlook.
Too often organisations begin by configuring software before they have fully understood how the business actually operates. Existing processes are transferred into a new system without questioning whether they remain fit for purpose. Teams receive training on which buttons to press, but not why the process has changed. When problems inevitably emerge, confidence falls, adoption slows and people quietly return to spreadsheets, emails and manual workarounds.
The technology has not failed, the implementation has.
This is why I believe the most important stage of any automation project takes place before a single workflow is built. It starts with understanding. Understanding how work really happens rather than how we think it happens. Understanding where information is duplicated, where delays occur, where decisions are made and where people add genuine value. Only then can technology be designed to support the business rather than forcing the business to adapt to the software.
This philosophy sits at the heart of the PruneSoftware implementation methodology. We begin with preparation. We work with organisations to understand their objectives, map existing processes and identify opportunities for improvement. We challenge assumptions, remove unnecessary complexity and ensure everyone understands why change is taking place. Only then do we move into designing and building workflows that reflect the reality of the business.
Throughout implementation, people remain at the centre of every decision. Training is tailored to different learning styles. Teams are encouraged to test new processes within a safe environment before go live. Feedback is actively sought, improvements are made collaboratively and success is measured not simply by whether the software works, but by whether people are confident using it.
That final point is perhaps the most important of all. Successful automation is not measured by the number of workflows you build. It is measured by the number of people who willingly stop using spreadsheets because the new process is genuinely easier. It is measured by the conversations that move from chasing updates to discussing opportunities. It is measured by faster decisions, stronger customer relationships and employees who have the time to contribute ideas instead of simply completing administration.
Technology may enable that transformation, but people are the ones who deliver it. As businesses continue to navigate rapid technological change, it is tempting to focus on the next innovation, the next software platform or the latest advances in Artificial Intelligence. Those technologies will undoubtedly continue to reshape the way we work, but the organisations that will benefit most are unlikely to be those with the most advanced systems. They will be the organisations that understand a simple but powerful truth. Technology should do what technology does best and people should do what people do best.
When those two things work together, automation becomes far more than an efficiency exercise. It becomes a catalyst for innovation, better decision making, stronger customer relationships and sustainable growth. That is not simply digital transformation. It is business transformation, and perhaps that is the greatest opportunity automation offers us all. Not to create smarter systems, but to create better businesses by giving people back the time, the clarity and the confidence to think.