{"id":6707,"date":"2026-07-29T12:53:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T10:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/?p=188398"},"modified":"2026-07-29T12:53:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T10:53:20","slug":"are-you-automating-work-that-should-not-exist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/mail\/are-you-automating-work-that-should-not-exist\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You Automating Work That Should Not Exist?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Table of Contents<\/p>\n

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Durban:<\/p>\n

<\/span>CAG Executive Question of the Week<\/span><\/h2>\n

Before you automate another task, have you asked whether that task should exist at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Finance Manager spends three hours every Friday combining information from several spreadsheets.<\/p>\n

Operations sends its figures in one format. Sales uses another. Someone manually checks the totals, corrects missing information and produces a management report.<\/p>\n

Then somebody suggests AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan\u2019t we automate this?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Probably.<\/p>\n

But that may be the wrong question.<\/p>\n

If the process itself is unnecessary or badly designed, automation simply helps the business do the wrong work faster.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/span>Arnold Muscat\u2019s Comment<\/span><\/h2>\n
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\u201cI think businesses need to be careful that AI does not encourage us to automate everything simply because we can.<\/p>\n

If somebody is spending three hours every Friday copying information between spreadsheets, my first question would not be, \u2018Can AI do this faster?\u2019<\/p>\n

My first question would be: why are we still doing it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometimes the biggest productivity improvement is not automating a task. It is removing the task completely.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/span>Automation Is Not the Same as Improvement<\/span><\/h2>\n

Business processes accumulate over time.<\/p>\n

A spreadsheet is created to solve a temporary problem. A manager requests another report. An additional approval is introduced. Employees create manual checks because they no longer trust the information.<\/p>\n

Years later, nobody remembers why some of these steps exist.<\/p>\n

But employees continue performing them.<\/p>\n

Common examples include:<\/strong><\/p>\n