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Where to start with digitalisation in a small business? With one process, not with the whole company. Pick the task that costs your team the most time each week, write down how it works today, and change only that step. Digitalisation here means replacing paper, memory and spreadsheets with shared digital tools for one job.
Digitalisation in a small business, without technical skills
You do not need to understand the technology to start. You need to understand your own work: which tasks repeat, where information gets lost, and which step makes your team wait. Those three answers point to the first process. Ask your team these questions in one short meeting, and write the answers on a whiteboard.
Take an electrical firm with six staff. The office manager writes quotes by hand, copies the customer details into a second file and then phones the customer to remember what was agreed. Nobody there opposes technology. They simply have no clear picture of which of those steps takes the most time, because nobody has written them down.
At this stage you do not have to buy software. You need a clear picture of one job. Once you know what the tool has to do, choosing it becomes much easier. A technical adviser is useful later, when you already know your goal.
Find the bottleneck, not everything at once
A bottleneck is the step where work piles up. In most small firms it is administration: quotes, invoices, appointments and replies to enquiries. Digitalising all of them at once overloads a team. Each change needs a decision, a trial and a short training session, and with six people that rarely fits into a single month.
Look for the step that repeats most often and holds up the next person. A quote that waits a week for a price check is a bottleneck. An invoice that is typed once and sent is not. Choose one bottleneck and leave the others as they are for now.
- Count how often the task happens in a normal week.
- Note who waits for its result.
- Mark tasks where the same data is typed twice.
Write down how things work today
Before you change anything, write the current process on one page. Use the words your team uses, not a template from a consultant. The goal is a list that someone outside the business could follow. This usually takes one afternoon, and it shows gaps that nobody had noticed.
List the steps
Write every action from the first contact to the finished job, one line per step.
Mark the handovers
Note each point where a task moves from one person to the next, or from paper to a screen.
Estimate the time
Write beside each step how long it takes and how often it happens in a week.
Find the double entries
Look for data that is written down more than once, such as a phone number on a note and again in a file.
Keep the page short. If it runs past one side of paper, you are probably looking at two processes. Split them, and work on only one.
Which first step has a clear result?
A good first step has a result you can check within a few weeks. The table compares three possible first steps for the electrical firm in the example. The question is not which tool is best, but which change gives the clearest result for the least disruption.
| First step | Effort | Clear result after a few weeks? |
|---|---|---|
| Quote template filled from one job record | Low, one afternoon to set up | Yes, time per quote can be compared |
| Complete system for all office work | High, months of setup and training | Hard to judge after one month |
| Photos and job notes recorded on site | Low | Partly, it depends on how often the notes are used |
In the example, the quote template is the first step. It covers a task the team already does, and the office manager can time the work before and after the change.
Who is responsible in the company?
Every change needs one person who owns it. In a firm of six people that is usually the owner or the office manager, and it should be written down. Without an owner, a new tool becomes one more place where data is typed twice, and the old habit returns within weeks.
- One named person decides on the first step.
- One named person trains the team and collects problems.
- The owner checks the result every month.
Bitkom said in its 2017 survey that every company should develop its own digital strategy (Bitkom, 2017). For a small firm, that strategy can fit on one page: the chosen step, the responsible person and the date of the next review.
Check the result after 90 days
The 90-day review shows whether the first step holds. Keeping at it is hard for many firms: KfW reports that 30 percent of companies recently carried out digitalisation projects, and that this share has fallen back to its pre-Corona level (KfW, 2026). Set the review date at the start, because a project that sits untouched for two months has produced nothing.
After 90 days, answer three questions. Did the step save the time you expected? Does the team use it without reminders? Is there a next step that is clearly better than the old way? If two answers are yes, pick the next bottleneck. If not, change the step or stop it. For a second view on your first step, contact us, or read about our services.
Questions on this topic
Where do I start with digitalisation in a small business?
Pick the one task that costs your team the most time each week, write down how it works today on one page, and change only that step.
Do I need a digital strategy before I buy software?
Not a long one. A single page with the chosen step, the responsible person and a review date is enough to begin.
How long should a first digitalisation project take?
Set up the first step within a few weeks and review it after 90 days. Projects that run for months without a result usually have too many goals.
Do I need an outside consultant to start?
Usually not at the start. Once you know the task and the result you want, an adviser can help you choose the tools.