I’m Wayne, founder of Octane Interactive, a consultancy I started in 1999, and we build precision workflows for small and mid-sized businesses.
Britain’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of the economy, weighing in at 99.9% of all businesses.
Yet they face persistent productivity challenges.
All too often SMEs are dependent on a patchwork of off-the-shelf tools (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, CRMs, accounting software, et cetera), combined with written and printed collateral, to create fragile composite workflows, prone to becoming the cause of inefficiencies and wasted time. Workflows are essential and should not be the cause of uncertainties.
Octane makes the most sense when the task is to take aged business processes sometimes running on legacy systems and bring them into the modern era, without the cost spiralling into six figures.
Who does Octane work with?
Octane’s worked with SMEs in the Yorkshire and surrounding regions, from varied backgrounds such as manufacturing, healthcare, event management, and engineering.
Octane’s approach
Octane’s long been an advocate of digital transformation — not the fragmented spreadsheet here and an email there approach, but a coherent and comprehensive whole that unifies processes into a cohesive precision workflow.
Our approach has three distinct phases:
- First, we discuss with the directors and managers what it is the business does, and examine the existing workflow.
- Second, we speak with the team to establish what the ideal workflow should look like.
- Third, we build a workflow that’s as near a fit as is practical.
At this point the relationship is nascent and the burden of proof rests with Octane. Having identified the core parts, we take a MVP approach. MVP? We build a minimal viable product — a working prototype to demonstrate our understanding of the job.
Our approach is modular, in that we don’t build one big thing but a group of little things, charging for each stage of the build as we go along.
Having arrived at this point, it’s possible you’re thinking at least one of the following…
Common Objections & Misconceptions
“We already use Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace.” → Tools are great for documents, but they’re not workflows.
“We have a CRM already.” → CRMs track customers, but they don’t manage operational workflow.
“Off-the-shelf is cheaper.” → True upfront, but inefficiencies and costs compound over time, multiplied by n number of services used by the business.
“We don’t want disruption.” → Who does? Our MVP approach involves incremental and low-risk improvements, with a good ROI over time.
“We’re good as we are, thanks!” → So much as one instance of “Task X” could cost upwards of £4k per year.
“How much would something like this cost?” → A typical spend would be between £4k-20k depending on the specific requirements.
The average SME is already spending somewhere between ~£800-£16k per month on cloud services.
Octane stems the cost bleed by replacing and retiring some services, while reducing the time spent on existing tasks.
You take control of the workflow.