Day 1 in Vienna: Your SME Doesn’t Need to Automate Everything, It Needs to Automate What’s Critical.
The first day at TEDAI Vienna was packed with presentations on how AI can automate workflows from beginning to end. Sounds futuristic, right? Yet, it generates logical skepticism in any SME director.
As an AI consultant, I see it this way: for a startup in Silicon Valley, “total automation” is a headline to secure funding. For your business in Mallorca, it is an expensive fantasy that distracts you from what truly matters.
The Mistake of Focusing on the Tool
Most SME directors I advise start with the same premise: “I want to integrate AI.” And the question I return to them is: “To do what?”
The true value of AI for a resource-limited company is not to eliminate the human, but to free up human time.
The key insight I brought back from Vienna is this: Total automation is an AI goal; cost optimization and resource management are business goals. And you must prioritize the latter.
The Trap You Must Avoid:
It’s not about automating 100% of a complex process. It’s about identifying the low-value bottleneck in your daily routine and putting the AI to work only there.
Think about your week:
- Does your administration team spend 5 hours a week doing tedious classification of emails or documents? (Low value)
- Do you take 2 days to generate the first version of a strategic report because you have to manually input data? (Low value, but high impact due to lost time)
These are your starting points. Not a redesign of the entire company’s software.
From Confusion in Vienna to Clarity in Your Office
My job as a consultant is to become your translator and executor. I hear the global AI ideas and adapt them to the “Day 1” reality of your SME:
- Identify Zero: Let’s find that process that consumes your time, stresses you out, and adds no strategic value. AI starts by driving that down to zero value (zero time, zero error).
- Minimum Viable Solution (MVS): I don’t propose a six-month consultancy. I propose a surgical solution, quick to implement, with a clear ROI in 30 days.
- Gain Focus: By automating that low-value process, your team gains the time and focus needed to dedicate themselves to what actually generates business: selling, innovating, or improving the customer experience.
If you leave an AI presentation thinking you must automate everything, you’re buying a problem. If you leave thinking: “What 3 hours of repetitive work can I kill tomorrow?”, you are ready to apply AI successfully.
My mission is to help you answer that question.