and automation are not only a pattern — they’re remodeling how firms function.
In a earlier article, I shared a number of case research of AI Brokers supporting the sustainability roadmaps of small, medium and enormous firms.
That is a part of a 4-month exploration of how agentic AI can drive enterprise digital transformations.
All of it started after I found no-code instruments like n8n, which let you design and automate highly effective workflows with just some clicks.
My co-founder summed up the chance completely:
“We’d like a technique to deploy easy and environment friendly options to scale our provide of analytics and automation.”
So we started working.
We constructed case research and prototypes to indicate how these AI brokers will help clients speed up digital transformation.
At this time, AI brokers for workflow Automation symbolize over 60% of our income.
On this article, I need to share the within story of our explorative journey and the way we turned this chance right into a enterprise so you possibly can be taught to duplicate our method.
Removed from buzzwords and clickbait articles, we are going to take a realistic method to explaining how these instruments can deliver added worth to companies with out promoting goals.
In brief, we are going to cowl
- What sorts of examples and case research we shared to draw clients
- The issues prospects dropped at us (and the way we take heed to their wants)
- How will we promote these options (ROI arguments and enterprise affect)
Should you’ve been questioning the way to flip automation and AI brokers right into a worthwhile service, this text is an efficient inspiration to begin investigating.
How Case Research Introduced Clients to Our Door
Studying by doing
After I need to be taught a brand new device, I create case research.
When OpenAI launched its first GPT API, I began exploring LangChain with a case examine shared on this weblog.
It’s my favorite solution to flip curiosity into hands-on experience.
Due to this fact, my weblog comprises over 70 case research masking analytics for provide chain optimisation, logistics value discount, and sustainability.
So after I found AI-powered workflow automation with n8n, I replicated this confirmed course of:
- Study the fundamentals of the device
- Choose an instance of an operational or enterprise downside from the a number of tasks I carried out up to now.
- Construct a prototype and measure its affect
- Publish a case examine
My n8n creator profile grew to become a playground to attach enterprise and operational issues with real-world options.
This method sharpened my abilities and have become a lift to draw clients in search of sensible options to their issues.
The right way to choose your first case examine?
I began by specializing in the most vital ache factors I had seen throughout my 9+ years in logistics — throughout 3PLs, FMCG firms, and luxurious manufacturers.
What handbook processes have been draining productiveness and limiting capability?
One instance that got here to thoughts was from the distribution operations of a vogue firm in China.
The pallets, shipped from Europe, have been delivered by a truck within the morning.
Sadly, we weren’t linked to the provider through Digital Knowledge Interchange (EDI).
We needed to depend on e mail exchanges to know what we might obtain.
This meant warehouse admins needed to:
- Assessment the emails coming from the shopper’s logistics workforce.
- Manually enter order particulars into the system (PO quantity, supply date, SKU ID, portions)
What are the ache factors right here?
It is a bottleneck for the reception course of.
Certainly, if the orders should not keyed into the system, inbound groups can not obtain the pallets.
However extra importantly, this handbook course of impacts the productiveness of admin groups that spend time on duties that don’t present added worth.
Due to this fact, I used this instance to construct my first n8n automation.
It’s a easy workflow linked to Gmail that routinely analyses all of the emails associated to inbound orders.
A GPT-powered AI node analyses the content material of the e-mail to extract the order data.
The output is saved in a spreadsheet able to be loaded into the system by a script.
For extra details about this workflow, verify the entire tutorial right here
What occurred after I printed this workflow?
The Issues Shoppers Introduced — and How We Solved Them
After publishing, prospects from completely different industries and nations started looking for assist with comparable issues.
That is answering a standard downside: the shortage of interconnectivity between techniques.
Earlier than, firms would depend on handbook work to bridge the gaps.
Now, we will deploy AI brokers to automate these bridges.
A furnishings firm within the Netherlands contacted us.
Part of their worth chain (small suppliers) wasn’t linked through EDI.
Due to this fact, they relied on handbook processes to ship and obtain orders.
After a number of interviews with their IT workforce, we realized:
- The techniques might generate EDI messages
- However they couldn’t obtain or course of incoming messages
Due to this fact, now we have proposed a workaround
- The sender would generate the EDI message and ship it through e mail
- An n8n workflow would acquire the e-mail, parse the content material and save the outputs.
We’ve now eliminated a major ache level for the shopper by “partially” automating the method.
On this instance, AI brokers present an incredible added worth: adapting the device to the format of the EDI message.
This makes the device extra sturdy and adaptable to the completely different techniques their suppliers are utilizing.
For extra data on implementing this resolution (with the template out there), verify this tutorial.
This resolution has a number of benefits:
- It’s cheaper and simpler to deploy than correctly connecting the furnishings firm to every provider.
- This improves the info high quality and permits the corporate to allocate these information enter groups to customer support.
This was our first victory and proof that we will help companies with easy options.
For the next tasks, we developed a course of to qualify clients and standardised the options design.
- Outline the issue confronted by the shopper
→ We have to manually enter orders acquired from suppliers. - Discover the foundation trigger
→ Absence of Digital Knowledge Interchange (EDI) connections - Design an answer
→ AI-powered workflow automation to parse EDI messages.
However, how will we promote these options?
I’ll share our methodology for promoting these automation options within the subsequent part.
How We Promote These Options
After constructing and testing these automation prototypes, the following problem was clear: How will we place and promote these options to purchasers?
Contemplating that almost all of our leads come from my content material (In direction of Knowledge Science, YouTube, n8n Creator Web page), we developed three gross sales approaches tailored to the request of the prospect.
The concept is to adapt the gross sales pitch to clear enterprise outcomes and return on funding (ROI).
Method 1: Automate to Enhance Productiveness
That is the first concern of our clients.
They’re pressured to scale back prices by bettering the productiveness of their operators and admin groups.
Prospect: “A customer support admin can course of 6 orders per hour with our handbook course of. What number of orders are you able to course of with AI?”
When now we have a buyer with a case associated to productiveness, we focus our questions on:
- Defining the present workflow, together with each step with an in depth description (information enter, outputs, techniques used)
- Estimating the present productiveness (variety of actions per hour) and the workforce value ($/hour)
As an example, an company specializing in ESG consulting approached us to assist them automate their sustainability regulation monitoring course of.
They ask their extremely expert (excessive hourly value) ESG analysts to assessment the European Parliament’s exercise stories and choose these associated to sustainability.
Prospect: “We wish these analysts to concentrate on duties with greater added worth.”
We developed a workflow to fully automate this course of with an AI agent, offering a excessive return on funding.
ROI = Time Saved × Hourly Fee of Analysts
This easy calculation is essential to convincing the choice maker that it’s price investing assets and cash in implementing your automation.
To our prospect: “This resolution will prevent XXX euros monthly, you’ll recuperate your funding by YYY months.”
For extra details about this workflow, verify the entire tutorial
For some prospects, the precedence is bringing extra enterprise; we will additionally use AI.
Method 2: Automate for Advertising and marketing & Promotion
In my startup, LogiGreen, we have been the primary customers of this sort of workflow.
As a small construction, we don’t have the monetary means to recruit a whole Advertising and marketing and industrial.
How can we construct an automatic machine of content material distribution to extend our attain?
Due to this fact, we depend on automation to advertise our enterprise — a good way to create or curate partaking content material.
The screenshot above comes from an e mail generated by our absolutely automated e-newsletter.
- You could find hyperlinks to our web site within the header and footer.
- The distribution record consists of all our clients and prospects.
We use n8n with GPT-4o to automate this resolution.
This easy workflow makes use of a classification agent to curate an inventory of articles associated to sustainability coming from a number of sources (EU information, specialised journals, social media).
The AI agent handles the editorial decisions based mostly on the directions in its system immediate.
It is a wonderful means for us to create an internet neighborhood, keep prime of thoughts with our clients, and share partaking content material.
To our prospects: “With this content material creation machine, you possibly can occupy the area, present worth and create an internet neighborhood centered round your enterprise.”
We are actually promoting this “content material creation machine” to our prospects!
For extra details about this “automated e-newsletter”, verify the video under
Some prospects that contacted us mentioned their prime precedence isn’t just productiveness or advertising.
Method 3: Automate for High quality and Error Discount
They need to guarantee high quality and cut back errors, particularly in crucial reporting and compliance workflows.
As an example, a rising variety of firms must adjust to the Company Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)
This requires publishing ESG disclosures in machine-readable XHTML format, embedded with XBRL tags.
These stories should meet strict formatting and compliance requirements to be accepted by regulators.
Prospect: “We’ve points with formatting our stories accurately.”
To help this prospect, we developed an n8n workflow that helps sustainability groups and ESG consultants routinely audit these stories.
Their analysts must e mail a draft of the report back to a selected deal with.
The attachment is downloaded, and its content material is analysed to search out lacking values and format errors.
The output of this audit is distributed to an AI agent that can clarify, in plain English, the errors discovered within the report.
We place this product as lowering errors to avoid wasting money and time.
Earlier than having this device, they relied on a third-party firm to verify their stories.
By automating the audit course of, firms can:
- Keep away from pricey reporting errors
- Scale back the chance of regulatory non-compliance
- Speed up turnaround time on stories
- Unencumber professional assets to concentrate on evaluation, not formatting.
The Return On Funding right here comes from minimising rework prices and delays whereas growing the reliability of reported information.
For extra particulars about this automation, verify this tutorial (together with the n8n template)
You’ll uncover that the core block of this audit device nonetheless makes use of deterministic code (for reliability).
Nevertheless, AI is bettering the consumer expertise by offering explanations in plain English.
To our prospects: “You don’t have to be an XHTML professional to right the report.”
We’re promoting this to our clients: AI gives superior analytics-as-a-service capabilities to any firm.
Conclusion
Over the previous few months, now we have remodeled automation from a private exploration right into a promising enterprise provide.
By specializing in three key approaches — bettering productiveness, boosting advertising attain, and guaranteeing high quality — we helped firms throughout industries clear up actual issues, save time and improve their affect.
We don’t promote goals with AGI changing their whole provide chain departments.
The chance right here is big.
Companies search individuals who can bridge the hole between operational challenges and automation options.
Should you’re inquisitive about beginning your automation journey, I’ll present frequent updates on this weblog.
If you wish to implement these options for your enterprise, be happy to attach with me on LinkedIn.
About Me
Let’s join on Linkedin and Twitter; I’m a Provide Chain Engineer utilizing information analytics to enhance logistics operations and cut back prices.
For consulting or recommendation on analytics and sustainable provide chain transformation, be happy to contact me through Logigreen Consulting.
Samir Saci | Knowledge Science & Productiveness
A technical weblog specializing in Knowledge Science, Private Productiveness, Automation, Operations Analysis and Sustainable…samirsaci.com