BUSINESS AUTOMATION AND RPA COMPANIES
Why RPA Projects Stall After Go-Live, and What the Owner Can Fix
A client's finance head calls on Monday morning because the invoice bot failed after the vendor portal changed its login page. Your developer is already mid-sprint on another client. Nobody agreed who pays for this fix or how fast it happens.
For founders of automation firms we work on scoping and quotation, support and maintenance terms, developer utilisation, and handover routines. We design the format and the routine and coach your managers in it. We do not build bots or choose your technology stack.
Discuss your priorities ↗COMMON CHALLENGES
The pressures
we often see.
- 01Projects are quoted on the process as described in the first meeting, and the exceptions found during build become unpaid work that the delivery lead absorbs quietly.
- 02Support after go-live is promised informally, so a portal change or a new invoice format turns into unpaid fixing that crowds out paid projects.
- 03Developers are billed to projects on paper, but nobody tracks how many hours each week go to rework, waiting for client access or demos.
- 04Process knowledge sits with one analyst who wrote the design document, and when that person leaves, the bot becomes hard to maintain or explain.
- 05The founder still joins every client escalation, because there is no named account owner with authority to negotiate scope.
OUR FOCUS AREAS
Where the work
usually starts.
- 01The process discovery sheet: volumes, exceptions, systems touched and sign-off from the client's process owner before quotation
- 02A change request log with date, effort estimate, client approval and whether it was billed
- 03Annual maintenance terms: what a bot fix covers, what counts as a new request, and the response order for failures
- 04Developer utilisation by week: billable, rework, idle waiting for access, and internal work
- 05Handover pack for each bot: run book, credentials owner on the client side, exception list and known weak points
- 06Payment milestones tied to signed UAT, so that go-live delays do not freeze collections
- 07Account ownership: who speaks for the client relationship and who may agree to extra scope
- 08Pipeline review: proposals sent, awaiting client data, and those that stopped after the discovery workshop
START THIS WEEK
Things you can do
before you call anyone.
- List every live bot and mark which ones have a written support agreement. For the ones without, note how many unplanned hours went there last month and who gave the instruction.
- Ask each developer to log time for one week under billable, rework, waiting and internal. Hypothetical example: 40 hours with 9 in rework and 6 waiting means 15 hours need an owner.
- Take your next proposal and add a short exceptions section the client must sign. Include a line saying what happens when the source application or portal changes.
A PRACTICAL ENGAGEMENT
Start with the priorities
that matter most.
We begin by understanding how your business runs today, find the gaps, and agree the scope in writing. Recommendations are shaped around your team, your resources and your goals.
- A scoping and discovery template that records exceptions and volumes before a price is fixed
- A maintenance and change-request policy sheet for clients, plus the internal log to track it
- A weekly utilisation view for developers and analysts with the categories defined
- A bot handover checklist and role chart for delivery lead, analyst and account owner
Not the right fit when: Skip this for now if your issue is a failed bot that needs technical repair or a contract dispute with a client. Those need your engineers or a lawyer first.
Explore a business audit ↗LET’S MOVE YOUR BUSINESS FORWARD
