Why act
Spreadsheet- and email-based operational processes scale poorly across sites: exception rules drift, visibility is retrospective, and management reporting depends on manual consolidation. As organisations add sites, the administrative cost compounds.
Recommended practices
- Start with one process, two sites. Prove the pattern on a single high-friction process before scaling.
- Keep one application, scope by site. Avoid per-site copies; centralise exception rules.
- Integrate, don’t replace. Connect the new process layer to incumbent CRM and ERP.
- Govern citizen development. Enable business-led app building within clear guardrails and review gates.
- Report from live data. Replace manual reporting with dashboards drawn directly from process data.
Common pitfalls
- Automating a broken process instead of redesigning it first.
- Allowing ungoverned app sprawl with no ownership or standards.
- Underestimating change management for plant and regional teams.