Department Zero

Operating patterns

Four lanes. One question: what repeats?

These are real operating patterns, not tidy diagrams. Each one shows how the work runs today against how it could be routed — and every one ends with a decision that stays with a person.

01 / Sales

An enquiry arrives. Nine things happen before anyone calls.

Today · 9 manual steps

01Form email lands in a shared inbox
02Someone notices it between other work
03Search the CRM for an existing record
04Create the contact by hand
05Look up the company to size it
06Check which territory it belongs to
07Decide who should own it
08Forward the thread and hope it lands
09Owner reads back through for context

Designed · 4 system steps, 1 decision

01Capture, validate and de-duplicate
02Enrich and match to the right account
03Assign the owner by your own rules
04Brief them with the full context
Rep makes the callYou decide

42 hours is the average B2B response to an inbound enquiry. More than half of companies take five days or longer.

Industry benchmark

02 / Marketing

The campaign is ready. The assets are in six places.

Today · 7 manual steps

01Brief written in a doc, shared by link
02Assets requested in a Slack thread
03Copy returned by email, version unclear
04Someone rebuilds the latest version
05Legal and brand checks chased separately
06Approval given verbally in a meeting
07Launch checklist rebuilt from memory

Designed · 4 system steps, 1 decision

01Brief and assets assembled in one place
02Latest version resolved automatically
03Required checks raised as blockers
04Approval queue built for the owner
Marketer approves the launchYou decide

Version drift is what happens when approvals live in inboxes. The work is real; the rebuilding isn't.

Campaign operations

03 / Operations

A request comes in and one person becomes the bridge.

Today · 6 manual steps

01Request arrives by phone, email or form
02Details are incomplete, so someone asks
03Job is written into a second system
04Availability checked by messaging people
05Status chased on the day
06Customer updated manually, if at all

Designed · 4 system steps, 1 decision

01Intake validated before it is accepted
02Job created with the context attached
03Routed against real availability
04Status published without being asked
Manager handles the exceptionYou decide

One person holds the process in their head. When they're on leave, the handoff stops with them.

Key-person dependency

04 / Finance

A supplier invoice arrives. It takes nine days to pay.

Today · 7 manual steps

01Invoice arrives as a PDF attachment
02Fields keyed into the finance system
03Matched against the PO by eye
04Emailed to a budget holder for approval
05Chased when no reply comes back
06Queried where the numbers disagree
07Filed for the audit trail

Designed · 4 system steps, 1 decision

01Captured and read on arrival
02Fields validated against the PO
03Routed to the right approver
04Ledger entry prepared and filed
Finance approves the exceptionYou decide

$9.40 is the average cost of processing a single invoice. Best-in-class teams do it for $2.78, in 3.1 days rather than 9.2.

Ardent Partners, 2025

Good automation starts with the systems you already use.