Strip away the consultant-speak and here's what's happening:

Someone with fresh eyes examines how your business actually operates (not how you think it operates), identifies the manual work that's affecting you, figures out what's worth automating, and creates a roadmap that doesn't require you to rebuild your entire company.

It's not:

• A software demo

• An IT audit

• A sales pitch disguised as strategy

• Someone telling you to "just use AI"

It is:

• Workflow archaeology (digging into how things really work)

• Cost-benefit economics (what saves more than it costs)

• Change management planning (because tech is easy, people are hard)

• Roadmap creation (what to do first, second, third—and what to skip)

The firms that do this well save you £50,000-£200,000 in the first year. The firms that do it badly charge you £15,000 for a PDF you never read (we give this PDF for free).

Phase 1: Discovery and Current State Mapping

This is where good automation consultants and bad consultants diverge immediately.

Other consultants: Send a questionnaire, schedule one call, take your word for how processes work.

Good consultants: Show up, watch people work, ask "why do you do it that way?" seventeen times until someone admits "I don't know, Sarah told me to in 2019 and Sarah left two years ago."

What they're actually doing:

• Process observation - Watching workflows happen in real-time, not reading your process documentation (which is always outdated)

• Time tracking - Measuring how long tasks actually take versus how long you think they take

• Bottleneck identification - Finding where work piles up, what causes delays, what drives people insane

• System mapping - Documenting what tools you use, how data flows (or doesn't) between them, where manual handoffs happen

• Pain point cataloguing - Recording every "this is stupid but we have to do it" moment

Output: Current state process maps showing how work actually flows through your business

Why this matters: You can't automate what you don't understand. Most businesses have no idea how work actually moves through their organization.

Phase 2: Opportunity Identification

Now they've seen how things work. Next question: what's worth fixing?

Not everything that can be automated should be automated. Some manual work is fine. Some automation costs more than it saves. Professional consultants know the difference.

What they're evaluating:

• Volume and frequency - Tasks done hundreds of times monthly are prime candidates. One-off tasks aren't.

• Rule-based vs judgment-based - "If X then Y" processes automate well. "It depends on the vibe" doesn't.

• Time cost - Hours spent multiplied by hourly cost. £20/hour task × 100 hours/month = £24,000/year automation could save.

• Error rates - Manual data entry has 1-4% error rates. Automation has 0.01%. For compliance-heavy industries, this matters enormously.

• Scalability blockers - Tasks that prevent growth. "We can't take more clients because Jane manually processes applications" means Jane is your bottleneck.

• Integration complexity - Automating between two systems that talk nicely = easy. Automating between five legacy systems that hate each other = expensive.

Output: Prioritised list of automation opportunities with estimated ROI for each

The framework they're likely using:

• Impact score (1-10): How much this hurts you

• Feasibility score (1-10): How easy to automate

• Cost score (1-10): How expensive to implement

High impact + high feasibility + low cost = do this first

High impact + low feasibility + high cost = do this last (or never).

Phase 3: Technical Feasibility Analysis

Just because something should be automated doesn't mean it can be (easily).

What they're checking:

• Data quality - Automation needs clean, structured data. If your data is a mess, automation will just process garbage faster.

• System compatibility - Do your existing tools have APIs? Can they talk to each other? Or will you need middleware that costs £50k?

• Security and compliance - Can automated processes handle sensitive data properly? What about GDPR, SOC 2, industry regulations?

• Exception handling - What happens when automation encounters something unusual? Does it gracefully hand off to humans or does it break?

• Scalability - Will this solution handle 10x the volume in two years?

Output: Technical assessment report explaining what's possible, what's difficult, what's impossible

The questions good consultants ask:

• "What happens when this process encounters an exception?"

• "Who owns the data in each system?"

• "What's your tolerance for errors during transition?"

• "How quickly do you need this to work?"

• "What happens if the automation fails?"

While other consultants promise that everything works, good consultants identify technical constraints before they affect your bottom line.

Phase 4: Cost-Benefit Analysis

This is where consultants prove they're worth their fees or reveal they're just selling software.

What they're calculating:

Current cost:

• Labour hours × hourly rate

• Error correction costs

• Delay costs (missed opportunities, customer frustration)

• Scaling costs (what happens when volume doubles?)

Automation cost:

• Consulting/implementation fees

• Software licensing (monthly/annual)

• Integration development

• Training and change management

• Ongoing maintenance

Expected benefits:

• Time saved (hours per month)

• Error reduction (fewer mistakes = less firefighting)

• Speed improvement (faster turnaround)

• Scalability (handling growth without hiring)

• Compliance improvement (better audit trails)

Output: ROI model showing payback period and ongoing savings

Example calculation:

Manual invoice processing:

• 500 invoices/month

• 15 minutes per invoice

• £25/hour labor cost

• 4% error rate requiring 30 minutes to fix

Cost: (500 × 0.25 hours × £25) + (20 errors × 0.5 hours × £25) = £3,125 + £250 = £3,375/month

Automated solution:

• Software: £200/month

• Implementation: £8,000 one-time

• Ongoing support: £100/month

Cost: £300/month + (£8,000 / 12) = £967/month

Savings: £2,408/month = £28,896/year

Payback: 3.3 months

That's the math good consultants show you. Others will wave hands about "efficiency" without numbers.

Phase 5: Roadmap and Prioritisation

You can't automate everything at once. Attempting to automate everything at once is how projects fail.

How they sequence it:

• Quick wins first - Low-hanging fruit that builds momentum and proves ROI. Get stakeholder buy-in early.

• Foundation second - Core integrations and data cleanup that enable other automation later.

• Complex automations third - High-value but difficult projects, tackled once you've proven you can execute.

• Experimental last - AI-powered, cutting-edge stuff that might not work. Do this after boring automation succeeds.

What the roadmap includes:

For each automation opportunity:

• Estimated implementation timeline (weeks)

• Required resources (people, budget, tools)

• Dependencies (what needs to happen first)

• Success metrics (how we measure if it worked)

• Risk mitigation (what could go wrong and how to prevent it)

Output: A full implementation roadmap with phases, costs, and expected returns

Phase 6: Pilot Recommendation

Professional consultants don't recommend automating everything simultaneously. They recommend a pilot.

Why pilots matter:

• Proves concept with minimal risk

• Demonstrates ROI to skeptics

• Identifies unforeseen issues cheaply

• Builds internal capability and confidence

• Creates case studies for broader adoption

What makes a good pilot:

• High visibility but low risk

• Clear success metrics

• Measurable time/cost savings

• Affects enough people to matter

• Simple enough to complete in 6-8 weeks

Output: Pilot project specification with timeline and success criteria

Small Business Assessment (10-50 employees)

• Scope: 2-3 core processes, single department

• Timeline: 3-4 weeks

• Cost: £3,000-£8,000

• Deliverables: Process maps, 3-5 automation opportunities, basic ROI analysis, implementation roadmap

What you get: Clear picture of where you're losing time and money, prioritized list of fixes, enough detail to move forward

Mid-Size Business Assessment (50-200 employees)

• Scope: 5-8 processes across multiple departments

• Timeline: 6-8 weeks

• Cost: £10,000-£25,000

• Deliverables: Comprehensive process documentation, 10-15 opportunities, detailed technical feasibility, cost-benefit analysis, phased roadmap

What you get: Enterprise-grade analysis, interdepartmental coordination strategy, integration planning

Enterprise Assessment (200+ employees)

• Scope: Company-wide process review

• Timeline: 10-16 weeks

• Cost: £30,000-£80,000

• Deliverables: Complete operational audit, 20+ opportunities, change management strategy, governance framework, multi-year roadmap

What you get: Transformation blueprint, organizational change strategy, executive dashboards

The value equation:

• Assessment cost: £15,000

• First-year automation savings: £120,000

• ROI on assessment itself: 8x

This is why companies do assessments. Not because consultants are nice. Because proper planning pays for itself immediately.

Everything we just described—that's what professional automation consulting looks like at scale. We offer a lighter version for free.  

What this isn't:

• A sales pitch disguised as consulting

• Generic "you should use AI" advice

• Analysis of stuff we can't actually help with

What this is:

• Free expertise from people who've automated hundreds of processes

• Specific recommendations for your actual business

• A reality check on what's worth doing

• Zero obligation to work with us

Why we do free scans:

Because half the businesses we talk to don't need custom automation. They need to clean up their processes first. Or buy a £20/month tool that already solves their problem. Or just stop doing the inefficient thing they're doing.

We'd rather tell you the truth for free than sell you services you don't need. The businesses that do need automation remember that honesty and hire us when they're ready.

Automating broken processes just gives you faster broken processes. Assessment identifies what to fix, what to automate, what to leave alone.

You should expect process maps, prioritised opportunities, ROI calculations, implementation roadmap, pilot project recommendation—not vague promises about efficiency.

And if you’re still not sure, Octogle provides a free automation scan: discovery call → process analysis → findings presentation with 3-5 specific opportunities, time savings estimates, implementation approach

The firms charging £50,000 for assessments aren't ripping you off. They're saving you £200,000 in implementation mistakes, wasted software licenses, and failed automation projects.

The real question isn't whether assessment is worth it. It's whether you can afford to automate without one.

When you're ready to get your free AI automation assessment, let's connect.