Find where the work breaks.
Follow one request from arrival to completion. Who receives it? Where is it recorded? Which decisions and approvals follow? Where does someone copy information, wait, or correct a mistake? Identify the owner of each step.
Use a real sample of work to establish a baseline: handling time, duplicate entry, rework, or incomplete requests. Avoid assigning a savings percentage before you know the current process.
Automate when the underlying systems still fit.
If the applications support the right work but information gets lost between them, an integration may be enough. An illustrative example is a website inquiry routed into a CRM, assigned to an owner, and flagged if delivery fails. It is useful only when the complete path works.
Check API access, permissions, duplicate handling, retries, and visible status. A connector that runs once in a demonstration is not the same as a workflow the team can depend on.
Modernize when the application is the constraint.
An unsupported runtime, brittle dependencies, or business rules that cannot be changed can make another automation layer a poor investment. Consider a targeted upgrade or phased migration before adding more connections.
TARIY’s SMART Flex engagement focused on updating legacy education software. Preserving institution workflows is a different task from designing an application from scratch. A modernization plan should identify what must continue to work and how changes will be checked.
Use AI for a specific information task.
AI may help interpret a request, retrieve knowledge, or draft a response. Fixed routing or approval rules often do not need it. Define where a person reviews the output and how uncertainty or failure is handled.
A workflow needs ownership and recovery regardless of whether a model is involved. The team should be able to see what happened, identify unfinished work, and resolve the exception.
Choose the smallest useful improvement.
Compare integration, targeted modernization, and replacement using business value, supportability, continuity, implementation cost, and ongoing maintenance. The first step may be an assessment or one connected workflow.
TARIY’s larger automation and modernization engagements typically range from $20,000 to $80,000. The scope follows the system and process assessment. Bring one important bottleneck to a project fit call rather than trying to redesign every operation at once.