The ESSA method: start simple, automate smart, and avoid complexity in digitalisation
Don't automate what you should simplify first
Simplicity is your best friend in the world of digital transformations. But how do you ensure that automation, robotics, and digitalization don't create new, unnecessary complexity?
Processes grow, systems become fragmented, and inefficiency creeps in gradually. If you want to move in a structured way from the AS IS situation to a better TO BE situation, ESSA provides a practical framework for critically examining existing processes and improving them in a targeted way.
What is the ESSA method?
ESSA stands for Eliminate, Simplify, Standardize and Automate. The order is essential. You only automate after examining which steps can be removed, which can be simplified, and which processes, data, or systems need to be standardized.
This way, you avoid digitalizing inefficiencies or letting exceptions and historical ways of working unnecessarily end up in new software. ESSA helps you strip digital projects of dead weight and focus on what truly adds value.
Eliminate – What can be removed from your business processes?
Many organizations continue to hold on to unnecessary processes, reports, and approval steps. These may once have been useful, but today they can be more of a burden than an added value.
In this first step, you identify which activities, systems, and data no longer add value.
- Is this task still used for decision-making?
- Does this step deliver value for customers or internal processes?
- Can the same need be met in another, more efficient way?
Simplify – How do we make processes easier?
Complexity costs time, money, and energy. Many processes have grown organically over time and contain exceptions, deviations, and extra steps whose original reason is no longer clear.
By simplifying processes, you create more clarity and a better foundation for future digitalization.
- Reduce unnecessary forms and input fields.
- Limit exception rules that are rarely used.
- Reduce the number of approval layers in workflows.
Standardize – Can we make processes, data and systems uniform?
By defining clear standards, your organization can scale faster, integrate more easily, and achieve structural cost savings.
- Establish company-wide process standards.
- Implement uniform data definitions.
- Use best practices from other teams, sectors, or organizations.
- Limit local variants when there is no clear business reason for them.
Automate – What can be done smarter with automation?
Have you completed the previous steps and is the foundation solid? Then you can start automating in a targeted way. Technology then strengthens a well-thought-out process, instead of simply speeding up existing complexity.
- RPA: for repetitive and rule-based tasks.
- AI and machine learning: for analyses, predictions, and decision-support.
- APIs and integrations: for faster and more reliable data exchange.
- Workflow automation: for more efficient tracking of processes and approvals.
The right order
First eliminate. Then simplify and standardize. Only then automate. This way, you avoid digitalizing inefficiency.
The ESSA method applied with BPMN
Because one picture often says more than a thousand words, we make the ESSA framework visually tangible in BPMN diagrams. This way, you can immediately see which process steps add value, where there is room for improvement, and which activities deliver no added value.
By linking that analysis directly to the process model, the step from AS IS to TO BE becomes concrete and open for discussion. Teams don't just see what needs to change, they also understand why.
From process analysis to smart digitalisation
ESSA helps you deploy technology in the right place. Not every action needs to be automated, and not every exception deserves a place in your future system landscape.
By first taking a critical look at processes, data, and ways of working, you lay a simpler, more stable, and more scalable foundation for ERP, workflow automation, RPA, AI, and other digital initiatives.
Start with the right question
Don't just automate the existing process. First examine which process you'll actually need in the future.