First published as a white paper “How the Hidden Costs of Inefficient Workflows Drain SME Profits — and How to Fix Them” on the 2nd of November 2025 “The Obstacles” is the second chapter.
As the landscape continues to shift we have to adapt and navigate what was once familiar to find a path most optimal to our businesses.
The SME workflow problem
SMEs are underserved compared to large enterprises in terms of workflow design and optimisation. Generic software forces SMEs to adapt their workflows to the tool, as opposed to the tool fitting the hand that wields it.
Common issues:
- Having to add the same data across multiple systems.
- Subscription creep from multiple tools with overlapping features and concerns.
- Maintaining old systems that are expensive and slow.
- Cognitive overhead from learning to use multiple systems.
- Lack of integration and incompatibilities between disparate systems.
- Unforeseen GDPR implications introduce compliance risks.
- Processes still reliant on paper, spreadsheets, and email.
- Complex oversight — knowing what’s been changed by whom, where, when, for what reason and so on.
Communication fragmentation:
- Using multiple tools for different types of communication (email, Slack, Teams, project tools like Jira or Trello).
- Important decisions often become scattered across different channels.
- Managers are forced to reconstruct the reasoning behind decisions, slowing projects, and creating risk.
SME productivity lags behind larger businesses. According to the British Business Bank (2023), UK SMEs contribute around 50% of GDP but suffer from a productivity gap compared to large enterprises, with output per hour up to 20–30% lower.
SMEs often lack the resources to make the most effective and efficient use of their time. When jobs overlap, priorities become blurred, everything becomes urgent, and it’s less like work than it is becoming lost in a hedge maze of our own making.
The Hidden Costs of “Task X” And How Little Inefficiencies Grow Big
Think of “Task X” as the real task, once we acknowledge the inefficiencies that come with it, slowing people down and draining their focus. In practice, these inefficiencies tend to look like:
- switching between multiple platforms to complete a single task;
- re-entering the same information in different systems;
- using outdated or incomplete information because sources aren’t synchronised;
- chasing updates or approvals across email threads and chat messages;
- sifting through printed materials instead of using a searchable digital data store;
- relying on slow, imprecise search functions;
- hunting for the correct credentials to sign into an important service;
- transferring data between incompatible systems, by hand;
- repeating routine steps because automation isn’t available;
- searching for the latest version of a document or file;
- waiting for software or files to open, build, load, or download…
We often accept these as features of the terrain, but it’s best to think of them as obstacles — things to be avoided, circumvented, and sometimes removed. Here are two simplified common examples…
At the team level:
| 5-minute task done 3 times a week by 5 staff members | that’s 75 minutes a week |
| At £70 / hour, that’s £350 / month | ~£4,200 / year |
| If streamlined to 3 minutes | the saving is ~£1,680 / year |
At the executive level:
| A director spends 30 minutes / week compiling a report from different sources in different formats | |
| At £120 / hour, that’s £240 / month | ~£2,880 / year |
| If streamlined to 25 minutes | the saving is ~£1,440 / year |
The major costs come in the delays to decision-making, the disruption to strategies, and the ripple effects across the team.
Of course, these numbers are educated guesstimates based on past experiences, but imagine 5–10 recurring instances of Task X across 5-10 employees, project managers, and directors, resulting in tens of thousands of pounds drained on an annual basis.
All hours shouldn’t be billable, because some time must be spent attending to organisational activities…
A simplified example of non-billable but essential organisational time:
• A project manager spends 120 minutes per week creating and managing tasks across Kanban boards and Gantt charts.
• At £70 / hour, that’s £560 / month — time that might look unproductive on paper, but is a vital investment in the business.
Imagine the consequences of not allowing sufficient time to perform these essential tasks: missed deadlines; duplicated effort; and expensive rework.
If the task is to create a square and we begin by cutting corners, it’s almost inevitable that we end up with a production line manufacturing circles.