and automation are now not only a pattern — they’re reworking how corporations function.
In a earlier article, I shared a number of case research of AI Brokers supporting the sustainability roadmaps of small, medium and enormous corporations.
That is a part of a 4-month exploration of how agentic AI can drive enterprise digital transformations.
All of it started once 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 want a way 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 may help clients speed up digital transformation.
At present, 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 may be taught to copy 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 desires.
Briefly, we are going to cowl
- What forms of examples and case research we shared to draw clients
- The issues prospects delivered to us (and the way we hearken to their wants)
- How can we promote these options (ROI arguments and enterprise influence)
When you’ve been questioning the best way to flip automation and AI brokers right into a worthwhile service, this text is an efficient inspiration to start out investigating.
How Case Research Introduced Prospects to Our Door
Studying by doing
Once 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 study shared in this blog.
It’s my favorite approach to flip curiosity into hands-on experience.
Subsequently, my weblog comprises over 70 case research overlaying analytics for provide chain optimisation, logistics price discount, and sustainability.
So once I found AI-powered workflow automation with n8n, I replicated this confirmed course of:
- Study the fundamentals of the device
- Decide an instance of an operational or enterprise drawback from the a number of initiatives I performed up to now.
- Construct a prototype and measure its influence
- Publish a case research
My n8n creator profile turned 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 on the lookout for sensible options to their issues.
How one can choose your first case research?
I began by specializing in the most important ache factors I had seen throughout my 9+ years in logistics — throughout 3PLs, FMCG corporations, and luxurious manufacturers.
What guide processes had been draining productiveness and limiting capability?
One instance that got here to thoughts was from the distribution operations of a style firm in China.
The pallets, shipped from Europe, had been delivered by a truck within the morning.
Sadly, we weren’t linked to the provider through Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).
We needed to depend on e-mail exchanges to know what we’d obtain.
This meant warehouse admins needed to:
- Evaluation the emails coming from the shopper’s logistics crew.
- Manually enter order particulars into the system (PO quantity, supply date, SKU ID, portions)
What are the ache factors right here?
This can be a bottleneck for the reception course of.
Certainly, if the orders are usually not keyed into the system, inbound groups can not obtain the pallets.
However extra importantly, this guide course of impacts the productiveness of admin groups that spend time on duties that don’t present added worth.
Subsequently, I used this instance to construct my first n8n automation.
It’s a easy workflow linked to Gmail that robotically 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 whole 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 related issues.
That is answering a standard drawback: the dearth of interconnectivity between methods.
Earlier than, corporations would depend on guide 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.
Subsequently, they relied on guide processes to ship and obtain orders.
After a number of interviews with their IT crew, we discovered:
- The methods may generate EDI messages
- However they couldn’t obtain or course of incoming messages
Subsequently, we now have proposed a workaround
- The sender would generate the EDI message and ship it through e-mail
- An n8n workflow would accumulate the e-mail, parse the content material and save the outputs.
We have now now eliminated a major ache level for the shopper by “partially” automating the method.
On this instance, AI brokers present a fantastic added worth: adapting the device to the format of the EDI message.
This makes the device extra strong and adaptable to the completely different methods their suppliers are utilizing.
For extra data on implementing this answer (with the template accessible), verify this tutorial.
This answer has a number of benefits:
- It’s cheaper and simpler to deploy than correctly connecting the furnishings firm to every provider.
- This improves the information 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 assist companies with easy options.
For the next initiatives, 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 basis trigger
→ Absence of Digital Knowledge Interchange (EDI) connections - Design an answer
→ AI-powered workflow automation to parse EDI messages.
However, how can 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 can we place and promote these options to shoppers?
Contemplating that almost all of our leads come from my content material (Towards Data Science, YouTube, n8n Creator 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 cut back prices by enhancing the productiveness of their operators and admin groups.
Prospect: “A customer support admin can course of 6 orders per hour with our guide course of. What number of orders are you able to course of with AI?”
When we now 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, methods used)
- Estimating the present productiveness (variety of actions per hour) and the workforce price ($/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 price) ESG analysts to assessment the European Parliament’s exercise reviews and choose these associated to sustainability.
Prospect: “We would like these analysts to deal with duties with increased added worth.”
We developed a workflow to utterly automate this course of with an AI agent, offering a excessive return on funding.
ROI = Time Saved × Hourly Charge of Analysts
This easy calculation is essential to convincing the choice maker that it’s price investing sources and cash in implementing your automation.
To our prospect: “This answer will prevent XXX euros per 30 days, you’ll get well your funding by YYY months.”
For extra details about this workflow, verify the whole tutorial
For some prospects, the precedence is bringing extra enterprise; we will additionally use AI.
Method 2: Automate for Advertising & Promotion
In my startup, LogiGreen, we had been the primary customers of this sort of workflow.
As a small construction, we don’t have the monetary means to recruit an entire Marketing and industrial.
How can we construct an automatic machine of content material distribution to extend our attain?
Subsequently, we depend on automation to advertise our enterprise — an effective way to create or curate partaking content material.
The screenshot above comes from an e-mail generated by our totally automated e-newsletter.
- You’ll find hyperlinks to our web site within the header and footer.
- The distribution record contains all our clients and prospects.
We use n8n with GPT-4o to automate this answer.
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 method for us to create a web-based group, keep prime of thoughts with our clients, and share partaking content material.
To our prospects: “With this content material creation machine, you may occupy the area, present worth and create a web-based group centered round your small business.”
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 essential reporting and compliance workflows.
As an example, a rising variety of corporations must adjust to the Company Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)
This requires publishing ESG disclosures in machine-readable XHTML format, embedded with XBRL tags.
These reviews should meet strict formatting and compliance requirements to be accepted by regulators.
Prospect: “We have now points with formatting our reviews appropriately.”
To assist this prospect, we developed an n8n workflow that helps sustainability groups and ESG consultants robotically audit these reviews.
Their analysts need to e-mail a draft of the report back to a selected handle.
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 may 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 reviews.
By automating the audit course of, corporations can:
- Keep away from expensive reporting errors
- Scale back the chance of regulatory non-compliance
- Speed up turnaround time on reviews
- Unlock skilled sources to deal with 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).
Nonetheless, AI is enhancing the consumer expertise by offering explanations in plain English.
To our prospects: “You don’t should be an XHTML skilled 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, we now have remodeled automation from a private exploration right into a promising enterprise provide.
By specializing in three key approaches — enhancing productiveness, boosting advertising attain, and guaranteeing high quality — we helped corporations throughout industries clear up actual issues, save time and improve their influence.
We don’t promote desires with AGI changing their complete provide chain departments.
The chance right here is big.
Companies search individuals who can bridge the hole between operational challenges and automation options.
When you’re interested in beginning your automation journey, I’ll present frequent updates on this weblog.
If you wish to implement these options for your small business, be at liberty to attach with me on LinkedIn.
About Me
Let’s join on Linkedin and Twitter; I’m a Supply 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 at liberty to contact me through Logigreen Consulting.
Samir Saci | Data Science & Productivity
A technical blog focusing on Data Science, Personal Productivity, Automation, Operations Research and Sustainable…samirsaci.com
