Turn your manual processes into a modern operating system.

Fractional Chief Automation Officer. We map every process in your business - every step, system, status, and field. We then help implement the right tools, integrations and automations that turn them into a system embedded in your team. Understand what to automate, what to fix, what to leave alone.

See how it works
We work inHubSpotmonday.comAirtableMaken8nSlackNotionSalesforceXeroIntercom
The reality

Your operating system lives in 200 email chains.

Most companies run on email chains, stale Notion pages, and unread Miro boards. Tools get bought and barely used. Documents go stale in weeks. Meetings replace the system you should have built.

01
Six sources of truth, none current

Email threads. Slack DMs. Notion. monday boards. Support tickets. One person's head. Nothing is canonical.

02
Tools you pay for, nobody uses

Salesforce updated three times a year. monday boards abandoned by Q2. £200 per user per month. Nobody opens it.

03
Nobody owns the fix

Your COO is busy. Your team is shipping. An in-house ops lead is £100k a year. Nothing changes. Same problems, every QBR.

How we work

Map. Optimise. Run.

Three steps. One platform underneath. The operating system we build stays current after we leave.

01Map

Document what actually happens. In a platform that stays current.

Down to which view, which status, which field, which automation runs where. Not a flowchart, the real configuration. Every step, every system, every team, every conditional branch documented inside the Watermelon platform.

  • Workflow diagrams with branches, probabilities, and time per step
  • Field-level mapping: views, statuses, fields, and automations across your stack
  • Time, frequency, and annual cost per process
  • Owners and team responsibilities tracked, not assumed
FlowCompareTime & costSystems
Enterprise Deal · ApprovalsVariant: Baseline
▶Deal qualified in HubSpot~2 min
MAE drafts proposal in Notion~25 min
?Deal size > £25k?conditional
60% Yes
MLegal review~3 day
40% No
AAuto-send via Make~30 sec
6 steps · 2 branches~3h 12m per run
02Optimise

Find the waste. Make the build-vs-buy call.

Once mapped, the gaps are obvious. We score every process by time, automation potential, and risk. We make the honest call on what to build, buy, or leave alone. No vendor commissions. No platform allegiance.

  • Time and cost per process, rolled up by day, week, month, year
  • Coverage indicator: what is mapped vs still in people's heads
  • Risk register: low, medium, high, critical
  • Build-vs-buy recommendations grounded in your actual stack
FlowCompareTime & costSystems
Accounts Payable · Invoice Flow
Time per run
47 min
32m manual · 15m automated
78% coverage
Frequency
120/mo
Twice daily, weekdays
Cadence sourceHubSpot
DayWeekMonthYear
Hours & cost · annual
Total time1,128 hrs
Blended rate£50 / hr
Cost to the business£56,400 / yr
03Run

Implement, embed, and stay.

We build the automations, configure the tools, train the teams. Then we stay on. Your Chief Automation Officer keeps the system tuned, fixes what breaks, and evolves it as the business changes. Most consultants leave a deck. We leave a working system.

  • Make, n8n, Zapier scenarios built and owned by your team
  • Custom integrations where off-the-shelf falls short
  • Embedded CAO on a monthly retainer. Same person, every week.
  • Process registry stays live. Never goes stale.
FlowCompareTime & costSystems & people
Onboarding · Series B+
Systems4
HubSpot5 steps
Slack3 steps
monday.com2 steps
Airtable2 steps
People3
SKSarah K.Owner
TMTom M.Step
CSCS TeamTeam
Running. Last sync 2 min ago · 9 automations active
What you actually get

Everything an ops function needs. Nothing it does not.

A senior operator embedded. A platform that maps your operating system. Real automations running 24/7. One monthly retainer.

01
A senior operator, embedded

Your fractional Chief Automation Officer. Same person from week one. Senior, opinionated, on retainer.

CA
Your CAO
Chief Automation Officer, fractional
Online
02
The platform underneath

Every process, system, and dependency in your operating system. Mapped, live, integrated with your stack. Pulls from source so it stays current.

Processes
24 mapped
+3 this month
Coverage
94%
up from 38%
03
Automations that actually run

Make, n8n, Zapier, custom code. Built once. Owned by your team. Monitored monthly.

Invoice → Xero sync412 runs / mo
Lead → HubSpot enrich198 runs / mo
Slack handoff bot86 runs / mo
04
Direct access. No tickets.

Your CAO in a shared Slack channel. Same-day responses during business hours. No ticketing system. No account managers. No scope changes for every tweak.

You10:24
Can we add an approval step before the Xero push?
Watermelon10:31
On it. Routing >£5k invoices to Sam. Live by Thursday.
Where we fit

The honest comparison.

What you get with Watermelon vs the alternatives most leaders weigh up.

WatermelonManagement consultantWorkflow / automation software
Maps every process in a live system–As a deck–If you build it yourself
Continuously updated as the business changesEmbedded operator keeps it current×–Only if your team maintains it
Live system dependenciesAcross every tool in your stack×Documented in slides–Per-tool, not joined up
People and team dependency mapping–Interview-based×
Implements and runs the automations×–You configure it yourself
What we automate

Pick the workflow costing you the most.

We organise our work three ways — by area, by function and by industry. Start wherever fits how you think about your business.

Finance automation

Marketing automation

AI automation

By function

Guides

Browse everything we automate →

Talk to us

Tell us about the process costing you the most.

30 minutes. No pitch deck. No proposal tennis. We tell you what we would do, and whether you actually need us to do it.

or send us a note
Send us a message