Why Process Automation Needs a Tidy Up

Over the years I have had the privilege of working with some brilliant businesses. Forward thinking teams, the right people in the right roles, and critically, the right technology stack already in place. CRM? Present and correct. Marketing automation? Ticking along. Customer success tools? Absolutely. On the surface, it is all there.

So why do things still break?

The issue, more often than not, is not about what tools are missing. It is about how they are talking to each other, or more precisely, how they are not. This is where tidy process automation becomes essential. And it is where too many businesses quietly lose time and efficiency.

The Frankenstein Effect

Imagine this. A new hire joins the business, tasked with setting up an automation that passes qualified leads from a marketing event into the CRM. They build the workflow, get it running, job done.

Six months later, someone else joins. They need something similar, but slightly different. Perhaps an extra email step or a change in the trigger criteria. They duplicate the automation and make their tweaks. Then another person joins. They do the same.

Fast forward a year, and what started as one clear automation is now a bloated, confusing web of fourteen interlinked steps. I have seen this happen. What could have taken three steps now takes fourteen, and no one is entirely sure why.

Simple Over Complex Every Time

The most common issue I come across is not a lack of technology. It is overcomplication. The original intention is always good. Let us make this process smoother, but when you keep building without pausing to audit what is already in place, you end up with a mess.

Each step in a broken automation chain takes time to investigate. Ten minutes here, fifteen there. Multiply that by fourteen steps and you are quickly losing hours just trying to understand what is going wrong, never mind fixing it.

That is just one process. What if the same complexity is repeated across lead capture, pipeline movement, customer onboarding, renewals, and so on?

This is where simplification is not just helpful. It is essential.

So What Should You Do

There are three principles I always come back to when working on tidy process automation in marketing technology and revenue technology environments.

• Review Before You Build

  Before spinning up a new automation, take the time to see what is already in place. Is there an existing workflow you can reuse or adjust? Could a minor fix to a current process achieve the same outcome? Too often, people build from scratch because they do not know what is already live.

• Design for Simplicity

  Fewer steps means fewer things that can break. Focus on what is absolutely necessary to get from point A to point B. If you need to add logic, do it in a way that is easy for the next person to understand. Label your work clearly. Use consistent naming. Build with handovers in mind.

• Schedule Regular Audits

  Process automations are not set and forget. Every quarter or so, run a tidy up session. What is running? What is working? What is duplicated or outdated? In smaller teams, this can be a short check in. In larger ones, it might involve operations, marketing, sales and customer success teams. But the goal is always the same. Review and simplify.

Why It Matters

Sales and marketing automation is supposed to make things easier, not harder, but when automations are overbuilt, poorly documented, or repeatedly tweaked without oversight, they become barriers instead of solutions.

If you are in a role within operations, whether that is sales, marketing, revenue or customer success, your job is not just to fix what is broken. It is to prevent the next thing from breaking by building smarter and simpler from the start.

We are firmly in a world of data led decision making. There are more tools than ever to plug in and power up a modern growth engine. That does not mean we need to automate everything or use every available feature.

The best systems are clean. The best automations are minimal. The best outcomes are delivered by simple, structured thinking.

Final Thought

As I have said in other posts, your processes need to work for today, but they also need to scale for tomorrow. Every new tool or integration should have a clear role, minimal touchpoints, and a known owner. That only happens when you prioritise clarity over complexity.

So if this sounds familiar, you are not alone. But it is never too late for a tidy up. And often, a bit of simplification is all it takes to get your tech stack working with you, not against you.

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