Automate Everything, If You Can: The New Imperative for Enterprise Resource Placement
- 7 hours ago
- 4 min read
A Blog Post by David A. Duryea | Enterprise Transformation Orchestrator
"Productive Performance = (Functional Capability × Efficiency) / Investment" — The Core Business Model Performance Equation
In my first book, Do The Right Thing in Business Improvement, I introduced the Core Business Model and the performance equation that has since become the foundation of how I approach enterprise transformation. The equation is deceptively simple — but the implications run deep. Every variable in that formula points toward the same strategic conclusion: the most productive enterprise is the one that maximizes capability and efficiency while relentlessly reducing the investment required to deliver both.
The emergence of AI infused processes and that insight leads directly to the central thesis of my next book: Automate Everything, If You Can.
This is not a technology manifesto. It is a business strategy framework — one that gives enterprise leaders, CIOs, and program directors a structured, disciplined way to evaluate every business process against a clear enablement spectrum and chart a migration path toward the most functional, efficient, and profitable configuration possible.
The Problem Most Enterprises Are Ignoring
The majority of organizations today operate with a patchwork of process enablement — some functions fully manual and onshore, others partially outsourced, a few automated in isolation. The problem isn't any single process. The problem is the absence of a coherent placement strategy that treats the entire process portfolio as a system.
When resource placement decisions are made reactively — one process at a time, one budget cycle at a time — the enterprise loses. It pays too much. It misses performance gains. It creates interdependency risks. And it falls further behind competitors who are making these decisions with a framework.
The Enablement Spectrum
The foundation of the resource placement strategy is understanding the four primary enablement states that any business process can occupy:
1. Manual Internal (Onshore) Human-operated processes performed by internal staff at primary business locations. Highest control, highest cost, most exposed to labor market volatility.
2. Manual External (Near Shore / Offshore) Human-operated processes performed by third-party providers — near shore for time-zone and cultural alignment, offshore for cost arbitrage. Requires strong governance and placement strategy discipline.
3. Automation Internal (On-Prem / Internal Systems) Technology-enabled processes operating within the enterprise's own infrastructure. Requires capital investment and internal capability, but preserves control and reduces ongoing operational cost.
4. Automation External (Third-Party Full Automation) Fully automated processes delivered by external platforms, SaaS providers, or managed automation services. Lowest internal investment, highest dependency on vendor stability and contractual governance.
Each state carries a different performance profile when run through the equation: Functional Capability × Efficiency / Investment. The most optimal placement for any given process is not universal — it depends on a set of critical enabling factors.
The Placement Decision Framework
Moving a process from one enablement state to another is not simply a technology or HR decision. It requires evaluation across ten critical factors:
Core Business Model Alignment — Does this process define competitive differentiation or is it operational infrastructure?
Performance Model Impact — How does placement affect the performance equation for this process specifically?
Basic Business Objectives — Does placement serve near-term revenue, growth, or margin targets?
Security Requirements — What data sensitivity, regulatory exposure, and cyber risk profile does this process carry?
Current Human Skills — What is the internal capability gap or surplus, and what transition investment is required?
Industry Demands — What are peers and competitors doing? Where is the industry's center of gravity moving?
Government and Regulatory Requirements — Are there jurisdictional, compliance, or data sovereignty constraints?
Supply Models — What third-party provider landscape exists, and at what maturity level?
Transition Ability — What is the realistic change capacity of the organization?
Risk Factors and Capital Availability — What is the enterprise's appetite and financial position for transformation investment?
These factors populate the Enablement Matrix — a structured analytical tool that scores each business process against each factor to produce a recommended placement state and migration pathway.
The Change Cycle: From Where You Are to Where You Should Be
No enterprise moves from Manual Internal to Full External Automation in a single step. The resource placement strategy is a journey, not a destination. The change cycle maps the realistic migration paths:
Manual Internal → Manual External (Near Shore) — immediate cost relief, moderate transition risk
Manual External → Automation Internal or External — leverage placement discipline to fund the automation investment
Automation Internal → Automation External — shift capital expense to operating expense, reduce maintenance burden
Any State → Keep — some processes are correctly placed and should be protected, not disrupted
The cycle is iterative. As the enterprise matures, as technology costs fall, and as regulatory environments evolve, placement decisions are revisited. The goal is not a one-time transformation — it is an ongoing operating discipline.
The Strategic Payoff
When an enterprise applies this framework at scale — evaluating all business processes through the Enablement Matrix and building a multi-year migration roadmap — the performance equation transforms:
Functional Capability rises because processes are placed in environments optimized for their requirements
Efficiency rises because automation reduces cycle time, error rates, and exception handling
Investment falls because manual labor costs, infrastructure overhead, and reactive problem-solving costs decrease
The result is a measurable, compounding improvement in productive performance — the very outcome the Core Business Model predicts and demands.
What This Means for the CIO and Enterprise Leadership
For financial services, capital markets, and regulated industries, this framework carries particular urgency. The pressure on operating margins is relentless. Regulatory complexity is increasing. Talent markets are volatile. The enterprises that will outperform their peers over the next decade are those that treat resource placement as a strategic discipline — not a back-office efficiency exercise.
The question is not whether to automate. The question is: do you have a structured strategy for deciding what to automate, when, in what sequence, and with what governance?
Automate Everything, If You Can provides that strategy.
David A Duryea is an Enterprise Transformation Orchestrator with 38+ years of experience and 75+ enterprise transformations across 11 industries. He is the author of Do The Right Thing in Business Improvement and is currently developing his follow-up work on enterprise resource placement and performance optimization. Inquiries welcome.
Previous posts in this series:
The Core Business Model: Why the Performance Equation Changes Everything
Enterprise Transformation Orchestration: The Role No One Has a Title For
From Stalled to Scaled: Recovering a Cross-Functional Program
