Taking Back Time - Systems Automation with Ian Warrender

What if the biggest barrier to productivity isn’t workload but how we manage our time?

In this episode, we’re joined by Ian Warrender to explore how systems automation can help individuals and organisations reclaim hours lost to repetitive tasks and inefficient processes. We break down what automation really means in practice from simple everyday efficiencies to more structured, scalable workflows and why it’s less about technology and more about mindset.

Ian shares practical insights on identifying time drains, the three types of automation (including the often-overlooked “organic” automation happening already), and how to start small without overcomplicating things.

Whether you’re a business owner, part of a growing team, or just tired of doing the same tasks over and over again, this episode will give you a fresh perspective on how to take back control of your time.

If you want to know more about Kate visit AskMrsWatson.com, follow @askmrswatson on Instagram or follow The AskMrsWatson show on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AskMrsWatsonShow/. I'll also be on the TikyTok before too long as well so keep your eyes peeled!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Welcome to the tech show. We are talking to Ian Warrender today. Hello, Ian. Hi, Kate. It's great to be here. Uh, lovely to have you and uh thanks for agreeing to chat to us today. And uh you uh run an organization called Warrender Technical Solutions. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that first and then we'll get into our chat?

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah, no problem at all. Well, what Warrander Technical Solutions is all about is helping small to medium-sized businesses gain some time back and hope hopefully gain some clarity uh into their business. And I do that by looking at the business processes, looking at the business systems and the topic that we're going to be talking about uh today, automation. So just a tiny bit on the first two processes and systems. It's really about looking on the process side about what a business actually does, not what it thinks it does, not what its intentions is, but it's about what it actually does. Um, but then the assistance part of it is an extension of that, make sure that the digital tools that allow those processes to happen are efficient, suitable for purpose, um, and are cost effective for the business.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Exactly, because lots of people stumble on, don't they, with uh with systems because they're worried about the cost of it and they think the cost is primitive. Yes, the cost of them using those systems is actually hidden, isn't it? And they don't really realize how much it's actually costing them not to do the things that you're suggesting that they do.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Exactly. But also people have systems that can do all sorts of wonderful things that they're hidden in the background that they don't realize, or they might have two systems and one system's going to be doing everything they need to do. But these days, um, the past 15 years, the amount of web app systems out there have just ballooned. And so it sometimes can be complicated, especially for new businesses, to know which system is actually suitable for them, not just now, but as they're growing.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Exactly, because they can end up either spending too little or too much money, can't they? So, so let's um start with. We talked about automation there, and people often think of robots or complex systems. So, um, what would you say automation is really?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Automation really is just about making things more efficient. Um, it's not about robots um going off and physically doing things, although that is part of automation. You see that in factories. Automation is at its very simplest point of view, just removing repeatable manual effort. And so a very simple example uh from my past is people used to get a PDF report in and they used to manually type the information from that PDF report into an Excel spreadsheet. And automation is just taking that manual step out and finding a way to get the information out of that PDF into the Excel sheet or into other systems without the manual step of the person doing that. And so it's just about helping people be more efficient with the time and removing the manual effort.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

So, how can um people help you to help them when it comes to automation? What sort of things do you need to know and understand from them to be able to deliver what you know you can uh you can provide for them in terms of wins?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Well, it goes back to those three things I mentioned right at the beginning: the process systems and automation. The process part is always the key part of what I look at because when I do an audit on a business and I'm looking at how they physically do things, even the analog stuff, say for warehouse where they're moving things around the warehouse actual physical products, understanding how the information gets to that point, how the physical objects get to that point, helps me look at the data and understand how I can move that data automatically around the business to where it's actually needed.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

And I suppose it involves automation, also involves you being a people person, because um quite often I suppose people can be a bit precious sometimes, can't they? About any systems or, you know, this was something that Jim built 30 years ago, and you know, and all those kind of things. So you've got to be a diplomat as well, haven't you? And a people person, and there's all sorts of different agendas going on in organizations as well, isn't there?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

There is. And um the larger an organization gets, the more silo departments get. And uh the thing that people don't often realize is if your department's the most efficient department in the business, it's probably not helping people upstream or downstream. If you make yourself so efficient that everything you do is absolutely perfect, there's probably information missing downstream, or uh, you're not getting the information you need in a way you want it from upstream. And so it's about looking at the organizational as a whole, not just in a in a one particular area, or as occasionally happens with one particular person.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Definitely. And and in terms of the sort of size of business, obviously, in bigger businesses, you're gonna have different departments and different stakeholders, and how important is it to have that buy-in from the people that have got you in in the first place? Where perhaps they think it's gonna be, oh well, they think they have an understanding of it, put it that way. And then it seems that they go, well, this is a bit complicated, or well, this might cost X, Y, and Z, or how do you kind of address those things to show them what the I think the term is benefits realization, isn't it? Is is what you're gonna get back if you you to invest this, you know, how it's gonna be better.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

It's about removing the initial assumptions and initial um uh preconceptions that people have. People, especially managers, have a have an idea that they know what's happening in the detail within their within their department, when in reality they're looking at it from a holistic top-level point of view, and there will be things happening underneath that is really time consuming, really inefficient. And so for me, when I'm creating process maps and can show where those bottlenecks are and show where those inefficiencies are, and I can bring out where the assumptions and preconceptions are not aligning with the original intent. And then it's just about going, well, this is the issues we've found, and these are the solutions, these are the cost benefits of those solutions. If we can get people not spending two days creating a report, we can get those people actually analyzing the information that's in that report and moving the business forward.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

So is part of that conversation the cost of doing nothing as well? So if they say, Oh, thanks very much, Ian, that's all really interesting, and then and then they don't do anything, is there a conversation around the what happens if you do nothing?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Absolutely, and that's far more um valuable um in the 2020s than it was in the 1990s. Systems, automation, AI, they're all changing at a really, really fast pace at the minute. And if your business that's like the minute I just want to hold my costs, I don't want to move anything forward, you're gonna be left behind. And that cost of doing nothing is actually going to affect your business long term because catching up with these systems, um, AI and what your competitors are doing is much more difficult when you're starting further back.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Exactly, exactly. So, standing still, particularly at the moment, as you say, really isn't an option. We're talking about automation here and how we remove those efforts and effectively give people some time back as well. So, in our next little segment, we'll talk about time in more detail. So, yes, now our first segment, we talked about the sort of the and a various different, went off on various different tangents to talk about automation, but you've got an interesting view that automation isn't really about technology, it's more about time.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Well, it's the entire reason why I do what I do. I see a lot of people in their personal lives making sure that they don't waste that time that they have, that they guard their time, personal time far more. And they seem to, people seem to have a different aspect to time when they walk into an employment situation where they're getting paid, that they don't always want to protect their time in the same sort of way. But time is the one resource that we all have limited. There's only a certain amount of time that we're gonna be here. And utilizing our time, whether that's paid time or personal time, should be precious to all of us. If we're doing something that a machine could do, we're not moving ourselves forward, we're not learning something, we're not doing something that's gonna enhance ourselves. And in business, that's just as precious. And so the reason why I do what I do is to try and help people utilize their time better and make sure that they are developing themselves. And the way to do that is by giving people automation that uh that takes away some of that manual aspects, some of that, some of the the things that you're not learning. If you're just copying data from one system to another system, yeah, you're not learning anything, you're not moving yourself forward, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

And it becomes tedious and soul destroying, and all those other things that go with it, doesn't it? So it does it's about respecting your time. Absolutely, yeah. And we can't, you know, we've all got a limited time. I mean, you know, here we are in uh in April, and uh, you know, before we blink, it'll be Christmas again. So yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

And if people are spending, and I've seen this in businesses where you have admin staff and admin staff are some of your best resources because admin staff understand the underlying issues within a department or even an organization. And if they're spending three days doing repetitive work that isn't moving them forward or the business forward, that you're not learning, you're not utilising their expertise and their resources to actually learn about what the business could be doing better.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah, so you're not giving them that creative headspace. I think that's the thing about automation from from my perspective, and and what's brilliant about what you do is it's giving people more time, more thinking time, so that they can step, take a step back. Whereas if you're in it and you're just doing and doing and doing, and you're not necessarily either producing your best work, you know. So when you're up against the the kosh, as they say, that's when mistakes happen, that's when all sorts of other things happen that have, you know, unintended consequences and impacts, you know, around whether it's around the efficiency of the business or things like health and safety, people's well-being, it all kind of all ties in together, doesn't it? Automation is much more than bits of a machine working together, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 12:16

It is, it's definitely about that, giving people the time back, giving businesses additional time to do other activities and trying to move away from that Monday to Friday rinse and repeat every single week, 50 weeks a year.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Exactly, exactly. And of course, more time means more time to maximize growth and you know get more money in, and then you can spend it that all that extra time you've got, you've then got more money to go on holidays and do nice things like that, spend more time with a family or your friends or your dog or whatever it is you want to do. Or whatever it is, exactly. In the next segment, we're gonna kind of break down a bit of automation into you've identified three types, so uh, so we shall talk about that in segment three. So, in our previous two segments, we talked about um automation at a kind of in a general way. We talked about time and how important it is to save time, and but we're gonna break automation down a little bit more now. So you've identified in three types, which seem to be really useful. So, can you walk us through those three types of automation?

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Yes, no problem at all. Um, but so basically the three types of automation that I see within businesses there's organic automation, determined automation, and designed automation. So, organic is what people are doing naturally in their job. So it's where somebody is so used to a process or procedure that they find small shortcuts that they uh that the system can do, that they can do, that allows them to get to the endpoint um faster, which is absolutely brilliant. The issue with organic automation is it's usually only known by the person that is sitting there doing it. So if they go on holiday, somebody else tries to do the task, it'll either take them longer or they won't be able to get the same quality that the original person did.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yeah, it's that knowledge management side of things, isn't it? And it's that one person that then they they can't ever leave or go on holiday because everybody's reliant on them.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

They're so efficient, they're so good at what they do, they're they seem to be able to do things faster than anyone else. And it's because they've got so used to the process that they got the shortcuts around the system and the data that no one else is really uh isn't documented. Yeah, it's a dangerous place to be, isn't it? It is. Uh determined automation is where a department has taken it on themselves or a group of people in a small organization to bring in um improvements, be that a specific piece of software for what they do or a specific way of processing the information. And in a in some ways, it's good because multiple people are using it, in other ways, it's it's only for them, and so the information isn't being shared across multiple departments, and that's where the siloing comes into it uh a lot.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Yeah, exactly. So people not knowing and then thinking every why's why is everything falling over? You know, we're doing all this here, or this is what's happening over there, or this it's it's I think it's building that culture of trust as well, isn't it? And you being the kind of negotiator, really. So there's a there's an awful lot more in terms of people skills as well as your technical skills that I think is required.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

I would say exactly, and that determined um automation for department often is intermixed with the organic, so it's the department working as a whole to improve something, and then individuals doing that um improvement. It's good, both of those, it's good to see people trying to improve themselves themselves and their own time, but from an organization point of view, it can get either a silo or that individual working, which is where the final type of automation comes into it, which is a designed automation. And designed automation is where you step back from everything, and instead of trying to uh firefight and do the organizational fix the problem as you're going, you take a step back and go, what is the original intent of this process, of this product, of this service, and how can I use the systems and AI and all the technology available to us to actually enact this? And so you take away and you actually go in and design something to actually make those processes, those steps um faster. And that takes away a lot of that organic and determined automation, but it goes back to that people part that you were saying, because there's no point in me going into an organization and going, I've got the best way of doing this. The way you're doing it's completely wrong. I'm gonna completely re-automate it in the way that you wouldn't make it many friends that way, would you, with that approach? Yeah, exactly. Uh you know, I've seen so many businesses, I can automate this for you, and I'll do it in my style. It's about automating the existing culture, the existing data flow, the existing processes, and using the systems to allow that. And so it gets that determined automation we've talked about before with each department getting what they need, but from a top-level business point of view, so that all the departments can work together, and it also goes all the way back down to the organic one where you're talking to the people, and it's always the admin staff, there's always one person that um has been doing the admin for 20 years that kind of knows the ins and outs, yeah. At yeah, pulling out their knowledge and putting that into the automation and making sure that from the individual point of view they can get what they they need done, and from a business point of view, the business gets what they need out.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah, so it's getting buy-in really from the top to the bottom because you can have you know the the the most slick system ever, but if if people don't adopt it for you know whatever reason, and it's not because it's no good, it's because they're just kind of maybe digging the heels in or feel fearful or uh concerned. So it really is there's an element of uh a winning hearts and minds, isn't there?

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Yes, there is, and it's about having the right training, bringing people on board. The the thing that I often see with businesses that are going from a me a small to medium size is this expectation that there's a perfect system, that they're gonna buy this system, and the salespeople have said it does this, this is gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

It's gonna do everything, it's gonna make the tea, it's gonna yeah, it does everything, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

It does everything. Uh, and so they have the expectation they're gonna put this in and the business is gonna completely flow and there's gonna be no speed bumps. I've yet to find that system, and I've been doing this for 15 years. It's about finding the system that's closest to what you need with the automation to allow you to do as little manual as you can, and then working with the system and your processes to align as best you can. There's gonna be there's always gonna be bumps along the road, but as long as people know what those are, those limitations are, you can work with them to help them through that.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

And I think there's always a 1.0, isn't there? You know, where it there's so there's got to be that kind of evolution because things change and businesses change and circumstances change. I mean, reconnect speed at the moment in the environment we're in now with the the world of AI, which you know, there's no conversation I think either of us have, even if it's about a cup of tea or coffee that doesn't involve talking about AI at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

AI is everywhere, and AI um is really good for uh several things, but there is a there is a difference between traditional automation and AI automation. And one of the things on there is the decision making, and so it's not like you put an automated process and it's completely bug-free first time, you have to work through various different processes, but once you get it to a point it can work, it will repeat that process over and over again. AI, when it's incorporated into automation, it can produce outputs that are different each time. But unless you've trained that AI correctly, unless you know what decisions you're asking it to make, you can get outputs that you don't expect. And so there are limitations and cautions on how far you want to put that AI into your business and where you want the outputs to put to be.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Exactly. It's a it's a tool alongside everything else, isn't it? So um, yeah, so in our uh segment, a fourth segment, um, we're gonna talk about the hidden reality of automation. So um, so we'll see you the other side of the break. So, yes, here we are in second four, and um we um have talked about lots of things around people and automation and silos and tasks and and all sorts of things, and with a with a side order of AI. And when we're looking at things that are perhaps hidden. So um you mentioned the the hidden reality of automation, and that even when systems are introduced, people will still work around them. So why is it that they do that?

SPEAKER_00 22:04

It's about the it's about that continuous development loop. And so what you're doing when you're putting an automation in place is you're removing some of the manual steps that they were doing previously, but you're also giving them more time and more ability to look at their processes and their systems. And so there's always a natural evolution once you've got that automation in place to naturally go, what's the next shortcut I can take? This automation does X, Y, and Z. Actually, now I want to take a shortcut and I want to do this. So I want the AI to write the, I want the automation to write the email. I want the I want to do something. And so it's very rare that you get to a point where you remove any sort of human idea of the next shortcut because humans are lazy, and I'm absolutely thankful for that. Absolutely. We should be, and we should uh we should look at ourselves and go, what what's the next thing we can save time on?

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Exactly. That's it. And I think that's it's been able to do that in a structured way, isn't it? And that's why it's a kind of you know, the 1.0, the 2.0, etc. Because people quite often um with a desire to help and improve, but again, you sort of have these silos where where people have an idea and they go, oh, well, we'll do it that way, and then we'll do it that way, and then you end up developing the problems that were there initially. So it's it's kind of, I suppose, what would be interesting is to think about how do you how do you support people in terms of of them learning and understanding why it's best to say have a change control mechanism, for example.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

And that that comes from um having those relationships, and so with uh my long-term businesses, I recommend having at least an annual audit. But if you're having a significant change, so you've been a brand new system, having a quarterly and um a quarterly audit as well to see you're putting that brand new system, what's that had the change effect on the business, and what negative changes and positive changes, and how we can utilize those for the next next step, and talking to people and going, what problems you found, and what workarounds are you doing? And again, a knowledge base. So if somebody's found an interesting workaround within a particular system or eight output or whatever it is, having that so that other people within the business, providing it's controlled and it doesn't affect quality, um that can then utilize you know um triangle of efficiency, which is the uh cost, time and quality. And the thing about automation is you can actually improve the amount of time you're using and uh decrease the cost without actually affecting the quality, and so that triangle doesn't always work, providing you have the right um the right controls in place to not go off on a tangent and then disrupt your business in a way you didn't expect.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yes, the uh law of unintended consequences, isn't it? So um, so yes, I think there's there's a lot more in terms of perhaps when people are talking about automation and and uh thinking about you know systems and steps and things like that, but a big, big part of it is is people. So so have you got any sort of um uh tips for dealing with people?

SPEAKER_00 25:46

People on the shop floor are the much easier people to talk to. You talk to them as people, you talk to them about their frustrations, and if you talk to them long enough, they'll list off a whole heap of frustrations, many of which you won't be able to help them with. Um, and then you isolate the frustrations you can help them with. With the senior people um within the business, it's about being diplomatic, and so you don't want to go to them and say, Tom says that X, Y, and Z is rubbish or a stronger word than rubbish, you need to go to them and go, This is affecting your profitability because it's preventing per it's preventing department to doing this particular function. And for senior people, it's it's about money, and it shouldn't always be about money, but it really is about where the business can save money. And if the business can save money while reducing the frustrations for people um on the doing the day-to-day tasks, yearn for winner.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

No, that's that's ace. So in our in our last and our wrap-up sec segment, we've talked a little bit about AI, and I'm sure we'll touch on it again. But it would be good to um share with people that are listening um your process um at a at a high level, if you like. So when you go into the business, you know how how we where how it starts, what's your what's your process map for system implementation when you go in and then at what point do you, you know, hand it over your this this baby you've created, how do you support after that? So we'll talk about that in our uh final segment. So as we uh wrap up our time today, Ian, which has been absolutely brilliant, you've shared so much valuable information for uh for organizations large and small. If we were to to look at the the the Ian Warrander, the Warrander Technical Solutions Process Map. So from you coming into a business and from you exiting and supporting them, what would that look like?

SPEAKER_00 27:52

It's a lot of conversations at the very beginning, and so it's conversations with the people that brought me into the business with their concerns and their um assumptions about why what isn't working, that the reason why they brought me in, what they feel is the reason behind the chaos. And it's about breaking out from them their assumptions and then taking those assumptions and speaking to some key people. So, one of the first things I'll do is I'll have a free, no commitment um hour talk with the people that brought me into the business. I'll then let them know, depending on the business size, how many days I'll need to talk to various different people within the business. And when I'm doing those conversations with some of the key players, I'm creating process maps, I'm looking at how the jigsaw of the business fits together, how people flow, products flow, and more importantly, data flows through those the business. Once I've spoken to the key players, got the ideas and the frustrations, move from the assumptions that the people who brought me into the business had to what the reality on the ground is, I'll then create an audit report. And the audit report will start off with the where the assumptions came from and then how those assumptions meet with reality. And so, based on the process maps and the um blockages that seen with the data flows, product flows, people flow, and then look at what they're actually doing from a system's point of view. So, what systems are in place? Are they being used correctly? Are there the right systems? Because there's no point in putting automation in place if the systems aren't correct, because we're just trying, we're just papering over an existing blockage, an existing problem. Before I get to any sort of automation, I will uh map out a project plan of different phases. So phase one is always about getting the absolute biggest blockages that's creating in the business to move, whether that is an automation piece or a system piece. Phase two is about bringing the departments together, making sure that things flow between different departments. And phase three is about the individual or that organic element, um, but from a holistic top-level point of view, so that everyone can work with the system. And then from that training, monitoring, um, having some key people, normally three people within the business who can follow through on actions I give them and have an understanding about what the intention is, and then revisiting them initially every three months with a what's working, what's not working, what new frustrations have you got. And once you get in the flow of that continuous improvement that they can do themselves is changing that to an annual visit and going in and going, okay, what's working, not working. Some businesses, especially small businesses, have more um intimate relationship with in terms of when Microsoft changes something, I'll go in and make the direct updates um and things like that. But for majority of businesses, it's about those three months, one month, and one year um audits, and just allowing them then to breathe and to create new problems. Um, and new problems are always great because it means the business is growing and then how we solve them next time I come in.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

That's brilliant. You've very, very well explained that cycle. So it's really, it's really interesting, I think, to understand where it starts and where it's where it ends and where it's ongoing, and how um how you help that process. So, yeah, there's a lot of uh a lot of people's skills there as well as technical skills required. I think that much has definitely come out of our uh our conversation. So, so if people want to get in touch with you, Ian, you've obviously got a website, you've got socials, you're uh you're active on LinkedIn, so we did love watching your videos. So, do you want to give a quick lowdown of where we can get in touch with Ian if we want to to have a chat?

SPEAKER_00 32:17

So the website is warrender.ltd. Um, my latest videos are all up there, my latest services. I'm very open with costs because I believe that needs to be understood by everyone before going in. Um on social medias, I'm on everything. I'm on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, even on TikTok now. I don't get dancing by the way.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

Oh, TikTok, Ian's on the TikTok. Excellent.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

And Warrender Technical Solutions on all of those. If you search for technical solutions in any of those systems, you will get um content. Um and I try to put hints and tips out there and a weekly update on what I'm doing, and just try to help people uh the best way I can because that's what that's what I'm here for is to help people.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Fantastic, and that's a wonderful note to end on. Thanks so much for your time today, Ian, and uh joining us on the tech show. I'm sure we'll have you back.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

No problem, okay. It was a wonderful to be here, and thank you for the invite.