Implementation plan

This War Map shows how we turn an operational review into an implementation plan. The company, people and figures are fictional. The dates show a possible sequence; the scope and schedule of a real engagement are agreed with you.

Implementation plan

What we fix, how long it takes, and what the company stops tolerating. 8 automation initiatives across 4 departments. €720K-1.05M illustrative annual gross value.

Priorities at a glance

  • 8 automation initiatives across 4 departments
  • €720K to €1.05M in illustrative annual gross value
  • Sample target: first production results in month 1
  • Target: remove the CEO from low-value routing, rubber-stamp approvals, and recurring exception handling

Automation Opportunity Map

The goal is not to add AI on top of chaos. The goal is to turn repeated fires into infrastructure: context assembled automatically, decisions routed to the right level, exceptions escalated only when human judgment is actually needed. The figures below show direct value by initiative. Broader operational value is modeled separately.

Matching and updates use deterministic rules. An agent can classify a free-text request, gather records or draft a response. Software-enforced access, validation, duplicate handling and named human approvals govern consequential actions.

The two estimates (€640-890K by initiative; €720K-1.05M by operational effect) are alternative, overlapping views. Do not add them. Ranges are teaching assumptions without source measurements: volumes, time, loaded cost and error cost require validation. Investment, operation and adoption ramp remain to be deducted.

Low complexity
Med complexity
High complexity
Direct initiative value: €640-890K/yr
Finance2 items
€200-260K
Close Automation: SAP-Excel reconciliation
€140-180KMed
Current state
David manually reconciles 400+ entries across SAP and Excel every month using a macro he built 6 years ago. No one else can run it.
Target state
Automated SAP-to-Excel matching with rules-based exception flagging. Human review only for genuine anomalies.
€140-180K/yrWeeks 3-8Med
Approval Routing: Rules-based PO routing
€60-80KLow
Current state
POs over €5K require CEO approval via email. Carlos signs ~40/week with 2.3-day average delay. Most are rubber-stamped.
Target state
Rules-based routing in SAP. Agreed low-risk purchases route to department heads; automatic release requires explicit delegated authority and enforced limits. The CEO retains designated strategic decisions.
€60-80K/yrWeeks 2-4Low
Operations3 items
€200-280K
Order Notifications: Trigger-based status updates
€90-120KLow
Current state
Sophie sends 30+ manual status update emails per day to 3 departments. No automated notifications from SAP.
Target state
Event-driven notifications triggered by SAP order milestones. Customers and internal teams updated automatically.
€90-120K/yrWeeks 2-5Low
Ops Report Auto-generation: Monday report from live data
€50-70KLow
Current state
Monday report requires 4-5 hours pulling from HubSpot, SAP, WMS CSV, and tickets. Excel template breaks regularly.
Target state
Automated weekly report from live data. Pre-built template populates automatically. Ready Monday 7am.
€50-70K/yrWeeks 7-9LowDepends on: WMS-SAP Sync
Knowledge Capture: Document tribal knowledge
€60-90KMed
Current state
14+ years of institutional knowledge lives in Laura's, David's, and Marc's heads. Nothing documented. Nothing searchable.
Target state
Structured capture of undocumented processes. Searchable knowledge base with version control. A second operator must complete representative tasks and a recovery exercise before transfer is accepted.
€60-90K/yrWeeks 5-10Med
Logistics2 items
€160-230K
WMS-SAP Sync: Connect warehouse to SAP
€80-120KHigh
Current state
No integration between Infor WMS and SAP. Marc exports CSV daily using an undocumented script on his laptop.
Target state
Real-time bidirectional sync. Inventory levels, goods receipts, and shipment confirmations flow automatically.
€80-120K/yrWeeks 3-10High
Inventory Reconciliation: Automated 3-way match
€80-110KMed
Current state
The daily cycle spans 6-8 elapsed hours, including waits. The friction register allocates 12 person-hours/week to stock checks; this is a subset of the cycle, separate from export handling. SAP and WMS are adjusted separately.
Target state
Automated nightly reconciliation. Discrepancies flagged with root cause analysis. Physical counts only for unresolvable exceptions.
€80-110K/yrWeeks 8-12MedDepends on: WMS-SAP Sync
Customer Success1 item
€80-120K
Escalation Intelligence: Rules-based routing
€80-120KLow
Current state
Céline triages 25-30 escalations/week from memory. Each takes ~45 min end to end, including necessary analysis. The register models 9 person-hours/week for the context-gathering subset.
Target state
Rules-based routing by issue type, customer tier, and product line. Each escalation arrives with full context pre-assembled.
€80-120K/yrWeeks 7-10Low

Implementation Timeline

Weeks are relative to implementation start; months represent four four-week blocks. Dependent work can be prepared in parallel with test fixtures, but production release waits for sync acceptance. This is a scenario schedule.

  1. Approval Routing

    Weeks 2 to 4

  2. Order Notifications

    Weeks 2 to 5

  3. Close Automation

    Weeks 3 to 8

  4. WMS-SAP Sync

    Weeks 3 to 10

  5. Knowledge Capture

    Weeks 5 to 10

  6. Escalation Intelligence

    Weeks 7 to 10

  7. Ops Report Auto-gen

    Weeks 7 to 9

  8. Inventory Reconciliation

    Weeks 8 to 12

  9. Full Cross-system Integration

    Weeks 13 to 16

Month 1: High-priority quick wins deployed first. Approval routing and order notifications go live within weeks. Close automation begins. Human reviews every output during this phase.

Month 2: WMS-SAP sync and knowledge capture workstreams in progress. Escalation intelligence and ops report automation begin. First measurable time savings reported.

Month 3: First full operational cycle with automation handling order notifications, close tracking, and reporting. Inventory reconciliation deployed. Target: measure released capacity against the scoped baseline.

Month 4: Full cross-system integration. All 8 initiatives in production. Target: validate released capacity without double counting. Team fully trained. Handoff complete.

Projected Annual Value

Coordinator capacity (12 people × 37% × €63-77K annual loaded cost)€280-340K
Procurement efficiency (fewer follow-ups, better pricing)€120-180K
Faster project profitability = better decisions€200-350K
Reduced onboarding cost + knowledge retention€80-120K
Quality/compliance time savings€40-60K
€720K-1.05M
projected annual value

Labor redeployment means shifting hours from manual coordination to higher-value work. Not headcount reduction. Coordinators move from data gathering to actual coordination. The COO stops firefighting and starts doing operational strategy.

Phase 1
War Map
Sample deliverable
Phase 2-3
Implementation
10-16 weeks
Phase 3+
Ongoing
Usage-based

How much time could this free up?

Choose one non-overlapping task category and the people who actually perform it. These inputs are scenario assumptions; replace them with a measured baseline.

180
52,000
40
31
40

2,232

Task hours per week

€2,901,600

Annual cost allocated to this work

892.8

Potentially released hours per week

€1,160,640

Annual gross value of that capacity

Hours = people × weekly hours × task share. Allocated cost = people × annual loaded cost × task share. Potential capacity multiplies each by the releasable share.

This is not net ROI or a payroll saving. Necessary manual work remains. Adoption and quality must be measured; actual uptake may be lower. Implementation investment, model and hosting costs, maintenance and supervision are excluded. Cash savings require a separate spending decision; otherwise the benefit is capacity available for other work.

How We Work

1
War Map Review
We walk through this deliverable together. You challenge the numbers, confirm the priorities, and tell us what we missed. This is your map. We built it, but you own it.
2
Remediation
Before we build anything, we fix what needs fixing. Data quality, missing SOPs, system access. Your team gets briefed on the plan. No surprises.
3
Build + Deploy
We work directly with your operations team. Systems go live one at a time, in priority order. Release gates cover representative cases, permissions, failures and escalation; consequential actions retain the agreed human authorization. This illustrative schedule targets first production results in month 1.
4
Transfer
We train your team. We document everything. We make sure the people who run your operations can run these systems without us. The capability is yours permanently.
5
Exit
Handover is accepted when your team can operate and recover the agreed systems. Any continuing support is separately scoped, with a named owner and a documented exit.

War Map

A real engagement is scoped in the Strategy Session and may begin with a War Map or a bounded Feasibility Sprint.

Request a Strategy Session

Direct accountability. Scope agreed before work begins.