Workflow Automation Transformation

How a Custom Quote Tool Reclaimed 20+ Hours Monthly

THE ENTERPRISE GAP

Enterprise companies invest millions in workflow automation platforms. They have dedicated teams building integrations, optimizing processes, and measuring ROI down to the decimal point.

Small businesses? They're still copying and pasting between spreadsheets.

15% average productivity increase with AI assistance—but that stat assumes you're actually using AI where it matters. Most SMBs aren't.

THE SITUATION

A specialty manufacturing company with 35 employees had a quoting problem. Their sales coordinator—one of their most valuable team members—was spending roughly 25% of her week on manual quote generation.

The process looked like this:1. Receive customer inquiry2. Look up pricing in one system 3. Check inventory in another 4. Calculate shipping estimates manually 5. Format everything into a Word template 6. Send, track, follow up

Each quote took 45-60 minutes. On a busy week, that meant 15-20 quotes competing for her attention—and plenty of prospects waiting too long for a response.

THE APPROACH

We built a custom Quote Tool that collapsed this workflow from 45 minutes to under 10.

The tool integrated their existing systems (no rip-and-replace required) and automated the data gathering, calculation, and formatting steps. The sales coordinator's role shifted from manual assembly to quality review and customer communication.

THE TRANSFORMATION

The numbers told the story:

• Time per quote: 45 minutes → 8-10 minutes

• Weekly time reclaimed: 5+ hours

• Quote capacity: 2x output without additional headcount

• Response time to customers: Same-day turnaround became standard

But the real win wasn't just efficiency. It was what she did with the reclaimed time: deeper customer relationships, proactive follow-ups, and identifying upsell opportunities that had previously fallen through the cracks.

THE RESULTS

• Reclaimed 20+ hours monthly for higher-value work

• 2x quote output capacity without hiring

• Faster customer response times (competitive advantage)

• Reduced errors from manual data entry

THE SMB ADVANTAGE

Enterprise automation projects take 6-18 months and six-figure budgets. This took weeks and paid for itself in the first month.

That's not cutting corners—it's right-sizing the solution to the problem.

When you're a 35-person company, you don't need Salesforce CPQ. You need something that works with your existing tools and gets out of your team's way.

The gap between enterprise and SMB automation isn't about sophistication. It's about fit.