Bottlenecks are killing your margins. Workflow orchestration can fix them (2025)
If you're running a service business and things feel slow, chaotic, or just harder than they should be, know that you’re likely in the majority, not the minority.
We see this all the time. Work stuck in inboxes. Tasks bouncing between teams. No one knows what’s done, what’s overdue, or what’s about to blow up next. Meanwhile, your people are working flat out just to stay afloat. It’s not sustainable, and it’s hurting your customer satisfaction scores.
The problem? You don’t have control over your processes.
Service delivery is full of repetitive, multi-step processes that need to run like clockwork to be a success. But if you're relying on spreadsheets, emails, and muscle memory to hold it all together, you're setting yourself up for delays, mistakes, and rising costs.
This is where workflow orchestration comes in. It gives you structure, visibility, and real control over operations, so services run smoothly, teams can breathe, and clients stay happy.
10 bottlenecks service providers can’t afford, and how orchestration fixes them
1. Invoice approvals
The finance team is always chasing. Approvals are delayed, payments go late, and suppliers start chasing you. Sound familiar? It’s a mess.
Workflow orchestration puts a proper process in place. It routes approvals automatically, flags delays, and shows exactly where things are stuck. No more email tennis. No more guesswork. Payments are then made on time, suppliers are happy, and finance teams spend less time chasing updates.
2. Support tickets
Tickets come in from every angle. Email. Chat. Portals. And it’s never clear who’s picking up what. Urgent issues get buried, and SLAs get missed.
With workflow orchestration, you can route and prioritise tickets automatically, based on urgency, availability, or skillset. Nothing slips through the cracks, and your response times actually mean something.
3. New employee onboarding
HR, IT, Facilities… Lots of different departments are involved in employee onboarding, and if one person drops the ball, the whole thing stalls.
Orchestration ensures every task lands with the right team, at the right time, with reminders to keep things moving. New hires have everything they need from day one and can get started right away.
4. Customer complaints
It’s not always clear which person or department should handle some customer complaints, particularly if they involve multiple departments. Consequently, a complaint can end up getting bounced around different teams, duplicated, or missed altogether.
Workflow orchestration makes sure complaints are automatically assigned to the right team or individual, based on the issue and urgency. Progress is tracked, flagging any delays, and preventing customer issues from escalating any further.
5. Compliance checks
Organisations are under pressure to abide by strict regulations such as GDPR, which affect contracts, policies, and regulatory documents. These are often time sensitive, but without a clear workflow, these can end up sitting unnoticed in someone's inbox for days. This lack of visibility and accountability can mean deadlines are missed and companies risk non-compliance.
Orchestration keeps your checks tight. Tasks are assigned with deadlines, tracked to completion, and escalated if they stall. It’s accountability by design.
6. Manual data entry
Copy-paste admin still clogging up your day? That’s time you’ll never get back.
With orchestration, integration is a doddle so systems can talk to each other easily. Data moves automatically, accurately, and at speed. Your people can finally stop doing repetitive robot work.
7. Contract renewals
Renewals creep up, get missed, or rushed through last minute. That means lost revenue, panicked approvals, or interrupted services.
An orchestrated renewal process kicks off early, assigns responsibilities, and keeps everyone in the loop. You stay ahead of deadlines and in control of the conversation.
8. Marketing campaign chaos
Between copywriting, design, approvals, and scheduling, there are a lot of moving parts to any marketing campaign. It’s easy for tasks to get delayed when assets go astray or launches to get pushed back because someone didn’t realise they were causing a hold up.
To keep things on track, workflow orchestration can be implemented so tasks are assigned in the right order, automatically triggering the next step when the previous one is completed, with clear deadlines so everyone has full visibility into campaign progress.
9. Expense claims
If you still need to chase receipts or nudge managers to approve expenses, your expense claim process doesn’t work.
Orchestration collects the info, flags what’s missing, and routes it to the right approver automatically. Claims move fast. Employees get paid on time.
10. Delivery delays
Whether it’s stock, scheduling, or transport, if any link in the supply chain fails, the whole thing grinds to a halt.
Orchestration keeps delivery workflows tight. Each step is tracked. Delays trigger alerts. You spot issues early and fix them before they hit the customer.
Warning signs that you’ve got a workflow problem
You don’t need a 6 audit to determine whether or not your workflows are, ahem, not working. If two or more of these feel familiar, you’ve got a problem..
- You’re constantly chasing people for updates
- Tasks live in inboxes or on spreadsheets
- Approvals drag, stall, or disappear
- You’re using multiple systems that don’t talk to each other
- You’ve got automation, but no orchestration, things are still disjointed
The impact of solving bottlenecks with workflow orchestration
Let’s stop talking theory and look at a real-world example of orchestration fixing actual service problems. When EY deployed Enate’s orchestration platform, they didn’t just tidy up their ops. They saw real, measurable results:
- 75% improvement in work allocation efficiency
- 64% improvement in visibility
- 54% less time spent managing admin tasks
That’s not nice-to-have. That’s a complete 180 in how they run operations, and how profitable they are because of it.
What to look for in a workflow orchestration solution
Not all orchestration tools are equally. The last thing you want is to try and fix chaos just to wind up with more complexity.
You want something that actually solves your problems, doesn’t take two years to roll out, and doesn’t require an army of developers to keep it running.
Here’s what actually matters..
Full visibility across workflows
You should be able to see what’s happening, where it’s happening, and who’s on it, without chasing people or digging through systems. Real-time visibility means fewer surprises and better decisions.
Automated task routing
Manual task assignment? Forget it. Look for a platform that sends work, tickets, forms, approvals, whatever, straight to the right person (or automation) without a manager needing to play air traffic control.
Low-code, not high-maintenance
You shouldn’t need developers for every little tweak and flex. A decent platform will let your operations teams build and adapt workflows themselves, quickly and safely.
Easy integration with your current stack
Whether you’re running Salesforce, SAP, Outlook, or a mix of old and new, your orchestration layer should slot in without drama. If it can’t talk to your systems, it’s not going to work.
- Scales with your business
- Processes change. Teams grow. Clients demand more. The right platform should flex as you scale, without needing a rebuild every time something shifts.
