Kit Consulting: the Business Processes advisory service

What is Kit Consulting's Business Processes category?

In almost every SME I visit there are processes that "work" but that nobody actually designed: they've taken shape over the years, out of habit, and carry along useless steps, double controls and manual tasks that could be automated. The result is wasted time, errors and people doing low-value work. Sorting all of that out is what Kit Consulting's Business Processes category funded.

Kit Consulting is a public programme run by Red.es, sitting under Component 13 of the Plan de Recuperación, Transformación y Resiliencia (Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, PRTR) and funded with NextGenerationEU funds. Its logic is to pay for expert advisory work — the "what to do and how" — rather than the tool itself. If you want the full picture, you'll find it in my guide to what Kit Consulting is.

Business or production process advisory is, at heart, operational-efficiency consultancy: it looks at how work flows from start to finish and seeks to make it flow better. It connects directly with methodologies such as Lean and Six Sigma, focused precisely on eliminating waste and reducing variability. It's one of the most cost-effective categories in the programme because its improvements tend to be permanent: once a process is redesigned and digitalised, the saving repeats month after month.

What does the business process advisory cover?

The advisory follows a logical path, from analysis to action. In practice it covers four blocks:

1. Process map. The advisor draws how you work today: the actual flow of each key process — orders, production, invoicing, customer service — step by step, with owners and timings. Just seeing the whole process laid out on paper already reveals things you can't see from the inside.

2. Inefficiency analysis. On that map, the bottlenecks, duplicated tasks, waiting times and steps that add no value are identified (what Lean calls "waste"). This is the diagnosis that justifies every improvement that follows.

3. Redesign and automation. An improved version of the process is proposed: removing steps, reordering, and flagging which tasks are good candidates for automation with digital tools — often without coding, using no-code solutions. I develop this in process automation with no-code tools.

4. Implementation plan. A roadmap for putting the redesign into practice: what changes first, who's responsible, what tools are needed and how the result will be measured.

Deliverables: what do you walk away with?

The value of an advisory process is measured by what you walk away with. In business processes, here are the deliverables an SME should expect, useful also as a checklist for evaluating any process-consultancy proposal:

As with the rest of the categories, the advisory plans: it draws, diagnoses and proposes. Implementing the tools that automate the process is execution, and Kit Digital tends to be the better fit for that. Kit Consulting gives you the blueprint of the ideal process; building it comes afterwards.

Does it include automation?

Yes, but with an important nuance: the advisory identifies and plans what to automate, without necessarily automating it. That distinction matters. One of the most valuable parts of the work is flagging which repetitive, rules-based tasks are good candidates for automation — sending emails, transferring data between systems, generating documents, alerts — and which ones aren't worth it.

The good news is that today many automations are built with no-code tools, without needing to code or make large investments. The advisor steers you on what kind of tool fits and how to chain the tasks together, leaving a plan that's then executed. I go through it with examples in process automation with no-code tools. Automating a process that was previously chaos gets you nowhere: first you sort it out, then you automate it. That's why redesign comes before automation.

How does it differ from the AI category?

This is one of the most common questions, because both categories "improve how you work". The difference is in the approach:

The Business Processes category looks at how work flows and seeks to simplify it, reorder it and, where it makes sense, automate rules-based tasks. Its question is "how do we work, and how could we work better?" The tools it proposes tend to be classic automation and management tools.

The Artificial Intelligence category goes a step further: it introduces systems that decide, predict or generate based on data. Its question is "what can we predict, generate or automate intelligently?" I cover it in detail in Kit Consulting's AI advisory.

In practice they overlap and complement each other: redesigning a process often uncovers a task that's better solved with AI, and an AI project first requires sorting out the process it's going to be applied to. The sensible move for an SME is to start with processes — which give you the ordered foundation — and save AI for the points where it truly adds value. Having your processes in order is also, in fact, the best foundation for any digital project that comes afterwards.

An example makes it clear: imagine a complaints-handling process. The processes category would map it, remove redundant steps and automate alerts and data transfers between systems using fixed rules. The AI category, by contrast, could add on top an assistant that automatically classifies complaints by topic and urgency, or suggests responses. These are different layers over the same process: first the flow is sorted out (processes), then intelligence is added where it adds value (AI). Trying the second without the first usually ends in frustration, because AI amplifies both the good and the disorder you started with.

What kind of SME does it make sense for?

From my experience with companies in Castilla y León and the Canary Islands, process advisory fits especially well when:

You've grown without reorganising. Companies that have added customers, people and products while keeping the working methods from when they were half the size. "Homespun" processes start falling short and generating friction.

There's a lot of repetitive manual work. If your team spends hours copying data from one place to another, generating documents by hand or chasing information, there's huge potential for improvement and automation.

Errors and rework keep appearing. Orders that go wrong, invoices that need redoing, information that doesn't match between departments... these are usually symptoms of poorly designed processes, not clumsy people.

You want to digitalise but don't know where to start. Before buying software, it's worth understanding which process you want to improve. A bad process, digitalised, is still a bad process — just a more expensive one.

How to make the most of process advisory

Process advisory pays off far more if the company gets involved. Here's the advice I give to make the most of it:

Pick one specific, painful process. It's better to go deep on one or two processes that genuinely hurt than to spread the effort thin across ten. The one generating the most time loss or errors is a good candidate.

Involve the people who do the work. The best improvement ideas come from whoever runs the process day to day. An advisory process that only talks to management misses half the picture.

Measure the "before". To know whether the improvement works, you need to know where you started: how much time, how many errors, how many steps. Without a baseline, there's no way to prove the return.

Don't automate for its own sake. Simplify the process first; often, by removing steps, the need to automate shrinks. Automating unnecessary complexity is a costly mistake.

Plan the change management. Changing how people work generates resistance. Communicating the why and supporting the transition matters just as much as the technical redesign. It helps here to lean on good project management practices.

Examples of process improvement in an SME

The theory is easier to grasp with realistic examples of what process advisory usually uncovers and fixes:

The order that passes through six pairs of hands. In many companies, an order travels through emails, spreadsheets and hallway conversations before it's fulfilled. Mapping it reveals redundant steps and points where information gets lost. Redesigning it — with a clear flow and, sometimes, a tool that centralises it — reduces errors and delivery times.

Manual month-end invoicing. When someone spends whole days issuing invoices by copying data manually, there's an almost certain automation opportunity: connecting the order system to the invoicing system eliminates the typing and the errors that come with it.

Onboarding a new customer. Onboarding processes that involve gathering documents, creating records in several systems and sending out communications tend to be full of repetitive tasks that can be perfectly automated, freeing up the team for what actually adds value.

Scattered stock control. When inventory lives in people's heads and in notes, stockouts and excess are constant. Sorting out and digitalising that process gives visibility and saves money tied up unnecessarily.

The pattern repeats: inherited processes, full of manual steps, that once mapped and redesigned free up time and permanently reduce errors. That's the typical return on this category.

How much did the business processes voucher fund?

Kit Consulting worked with a voucher whose total amount depended on company size, with a cap of €6,000 per service. These were the three segments:

The processes category was, moreover, one of the most efficient in value-for-money terms, so combining it with another category — AI or digital sales — within the same voucher was a common move. The grant was awarded on a non-competitive basis (concurrencia no competitiva), on a first-come, first-served basis until funds ran out.

Current status of Kit Consulting and remaining funds

To avoid setting false expectations: Kit Consulting's ordinary application window closed on 31 March 2025, and the call is listed as closed on the Acelera Pyme electronic office. SMEs with a voucher are now in the execution and justification phase.

The 2026 development is Orden TDF/38/2026, de 26 de enero (BOE-A-2026-2069), which amended the programme's regulatory basis to allow the redistribution of remaining funds and to serve applications excluded for lack of budget. The order hasn't yet set specific deadlines or a procedure, so it's more accurate to speak of a "remaining-funds route" than a confirmed reopening. I keep this updated in Kit Consulting's 2026 situation.

My recommendation: sorting out your processes is one of the best-returning investments an SME can make, whether it's funded or not. Once a process is redesigned and digitalised, the saving repeats every month. And if the remaining funds materialise, you'll arrive with the diagnosis already done. If you'd like help putting order into how your company works, I'd be glad to lend a hand.

Looking for straightforward help putting your business processes in order? Let's talk for a free diagnostic of where you're losing time. Presence across Castilla y León and the Canary Islands.