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SmartBits.ca Consulting

Problems I solve

Operational friction, described plainly

These are the situations that come up most often. If one of them describes a process in your organization, that is a good place to start.

Repetitive copying and rekeying

The same information is typed into two or three systems, then reconciled by hand when the numbers disagree.

What it looks like

  • Data is exported, reformatted, and re-imported every week
  • Someone checks one system against another line by line
  • Errors are found late, usually by a customer

Information scattered across tools

The answer exists, but it lives in email, a spreadsheet, a document, and a shared drive at the same time.

What it looks like

  • People ask each other where the current version is
  • Status is reconstructed from an email thread
  • Two people work from different copies of the same file

Slow document intake and routing

Documents arrive by email or upload, then wait for a person to open, classify, check, and pass them on.

What it looks like

  • Attachments are renamed and filed by hand
  • Missing fields are noticed days later
  • Nobody can say where a document is right now

Requests and approvals that disappear

Requests are made in email or chat, and the only record of a decision is somebody's memory of it.

What it looks like

  • Approvals are chased by follow-up message
  • There is no list of what is waiting and on whom
  • Audit questions are hard to answer after the fact

Manual recurring reporting

The same report is rebuilt every month from the same sources, by the same person, in the same spreadsheet.

What it looks like

  • Half a day disappears into copy, paste, and formatting
  • Figures change depending on who prepared them
  • The report is late often enough to be expected

Knowledge held by one person

One employee knows how the process really works, and everything slows down when they are away.

What it looks like

  • Steps are not written down anywhere current
  • Exceptions are handled from memory
  • Handover and holidays are a real risk

Repetitive drafting and summarizing

Routine writing—summaries, standard replies, first drafts—takes time, but still needs a person to check it.

What it looks like

  • Similar text is rewritten from scratch each time
  • Long threads or documents are summarized by hand
  • Quality varies with who is available

Signs of a good first workflow

A first engagement works best when the process is bounded and someone owns it.

  • One person is accountable for the process end to end
  • You can show me real, representative examples
  • The problem can be measured: time, volume, errors, or delay
  • There is willingness to test a controlled pilot before scaling
  • The workflow runs often enough that an improvement is worth having

What I do not take on

Being clear about the limits keeps expectations honest on both sides.

  • A broad, organization-wide transformation assessment
  • Fully autonomous decisions in high-stakes situations
  • 24/7 managed service or on-call support
  • Guaranteed savings or a promised return figure

Recognize one of these?

Describe the process in a few sentences and we can decide together whether it is a sensible first workflow.

Discuss one workflow