Haute-Savoie automates production lines. Not the back office.
The Arve Valley is the world capital of screw machining. Over 600 companies, CNC machines everywhere, production processes optimized down to the micron. But behind the workshop floor, in the offices? Quotes go out by email, get manually entered into the ERP, then typed a third time into a tracking spreadsheet. Quality control produces a PDF that someone retypes into Excel every Friday. Nobody thinks this is normal. Nobody has time to fix it.
Tourism and outdoor are the same story. Rental businesses around the lake manage bookings across three platforms with a reconciliation spreadsheet that needs manual updating. Travel agencies working with Geneva clients juggle Swiss francs and euros in separate spreadsheets. Ski instructors send invoices over WhatsApp.
Salomon has entire teams dedicated to process automation. The 40-person subcontractor in Cran-Gevrier doesn't have that luxury. They have Sandrine who's "good with Excel formulas" and a client follow-up process that involves manually checking a shared file every Monday morning.
The Haute-Savoie paradox: cutting-edge industry, early-2000s admin processes.
What I do for Annecy businesses
Process audit and lost-hours mapping
I look at how your team actually works. Not the org chart, not the process documented in 2019. The reality: copy-pasting between the ERP and the tracking spreadsheet, follow-up emails sent manually, weekly reports that someone compiles on Friday afternoon. I quantify the time lost on each task and rank them by ROI. A screw-machining subcontractor in the Arve Valley once described their quality tracking process to me. Five manual steps, three different tools, two hours a day. Two hours a day, five days a week, fifty weeks a year. Do the math.
Building automated workflows
This is where the hours come back. I connect your tools so data flows without anyone touching it. The purchase order lands in the ERP, the quote generates itself, the client gets a confirmation, the tracking sheet updates. All on its own. For companies working with Swiss clients (and there are plenty in the Annecy basin), I also automate currency conversion, bilingual invoicing, and follow-ups timed to the Geneva timezone. I use n8n for orchestration, Google Apps Script for anything in the Google ecosystem, Python when the data processing gets heavier.
Monitoring and maintenance
Automated workflows break. An API changes, a file format shifts, a supplier redesigns their portal. I set up alerts so you know when something stops working before your clients notice. And I document everything. The goal is that your team understands what runs, can fix simple issues, and doesn't depend on me for day-to-day operations.
How it works
Tech stack
Frequently asked questions
Video calls, shared documents, async updates. Process automation is work on your tools and data, not in your offices. I connect to your systems remotely, deliver workflows, and we validate together on calls. For sensitive phases, I travel. But honestly, the subcontractor in Meythet doesn't need me at their desks. They need their processes running without manual intervention.
An ERP integrator sells you a license and configures software. I look at what happens between your software. The gaps in the flow, the manual steps nobody automated because they don't fit any standard module. That's usually where the lost hours are hiding.
Yes, and it's common in the Annecy area. Invoicing in CHF and EUR, follow-ups in two languages, slightly offset timezones, different document formats. These are textbook automation cases: clear rules, predictable conditions, zero reason to do them by hand.
A simple workflow (syncing two tools, automatic notifications) takes a few days. A broader project with multiple interconnected systems, a few weeks. The initial call is free and it's there to scope the project. If it's not worth the investment, I'll tell you before we start.