AI Automation for Shops

Automation Fundamentals The two-day seminar for shop owners who want to take recurring work out of daily operations: you learn which processes can be automated, which tools carry it and where automation costs more than it returns.

Automation Fundamentals at a glance

• Format: 2 days on site + self-learning track
• Level: Fundamentals to consolidation
• Participants: Max. 16 people
• Language: German
• Certificate: AEI certificate of participation
• Investment: €1,990.00 plus VAT

Most shops do not fail for lack of ideas, they fail for lack of hands. Someone maintains product data. Someone moves orders into accounting. Someone answers the same delivery question for the fifth time. Each single task is done quickly, in total they consume the time that growth would need.

Automation Fundamentals deals with that work systematically. You learn to spot processes that repeat, to describe them cleanly and then to decide whether they should be automated. The point is not technology for its own sake but the question of what each step is worth.

Who is this seminar for?

For shop owners, e-commerce managers and founders whose team is tied up in routine tasks and who want to know where automation starts to bite.

• Your team spends a large part of the day on recurring tasks.
• You want to know which processes suit automation and which do not.
• You use tools but selected them without a system.
• You want to use AI without losing control over the results.
• You are missing a sequence for which process to start with.

Your learning objectives

After this seminar you can:

• recognise which processes suit automation and which do not.
• describe what a process does today so that it becomes transferable.
• place whether fixed rules, a model or a human is the right choice for a task.
• assess which tool class fits your process instead of choosing by name.
• state how an automated process reacts when it fails.
• determine how you will measure the benefit of an automation after three months.
• build your own automation roadmap for the next 90 days.

The fields at a glance

• Product data: Creating, enriching and checking item data so that mandatory fields never depend on memory.
• Order handling: Handover to warehouse, accounting and shipping without anyone moving orders by hand.
• Customer service: Recognising and answering recurring questions, with handover to a person where needed.
• Marketing: Sending, following up and reactivating on events instead of on dates.
• Reporting: Combining figures from several systems so the report no longer has to be built by hand on Monday.
• Control: Checking whether an automated process still does what it should, and who may switch it off.

Programme: 2 days

Day 1: understanding, describing and choosing processes

09:30-10:30: Where work repeats in a shop

• Making routine work visible without spending a week taking notes
• Separating what costs time from what is merely unpleasant
• Understanding the difference between one-off, regular and event driven
• The most common misjudgements at the start

10:45-12:15: Describing a process before automating it

• Breaking a process into steps, trigger and outcome
• Collecting exceptions instead of overlooking them
• Spotting the decisions inside a process and naming them
• Checking whether the process is stable enough to transfer

13:15-14:45: Fixed rules, a model or a human

• Deciding when a rule is enough and when it is not
• Recognising where a model adds value and where it creates risk
• Building human review in where mistakes get expensive
• Comparing cost and benefit of the three routes

15:00-16:30: Tool classes instead of tool names

• Telling four classes apart and marking their areas of use
• Deriving requirements from the process, not from the vendor pitch
• Thinking about vendor dependency early
• Treating data protection and access rights as a selection criterion

Day 2: introducing, safeguarding, measuring

09:30-10:30: Automating product data

• Checking mandatory fields before an item goes live
• Generating descriptions and attributes and verifying them against the source
• Adding images and assignments by rule
• Knowing the limits of text generation and respecting them

10:45-12:15: Order handling and service

• Setting up handovers between shop, warehouse and accounting without manual work
• Recognising recurring customer questions and pre-sorting them
• Defining handover to a person, including a time limit
• Checking whether an answer is evidenced or could be invented

13:15-14:45: Failures, outages and responsibility

• What should happen when an interface does not respond
• Fixing retries, time limits and notifications
• Planning a switch-off before it is needed
• Naming a responsible person per process

15:00-16:30: Measuring benefit and building a roadmap

• Using time saved, error rate and lead time as the yardstick
• Checking after three months whether the process is still needed
• Spotting dependencies between processes
• Finalising your own 90-day roadmap

Our approach

We start with the work, not with the tool. Every participant brings a process from their own daily routine and reworks it during the seminar until it becomes a transferable description. Only then do we talk about tools. That order prevents the most common mistake: buying a solution for a task that has not been defined yet.

What you take with you

• A list of your recurring processes with effort and suitability
• A description template that makes a process transferable
• A decision aid for rule, model or human
• A failure and switch-off strategy per process
• A 90-day roadmap with sequence and ownership
• The self-learning track for deepening the material after the seminar

After the seminar

Automation only takes effect once at least one process is actually running. It therefore makes sense in the first weeks to implement exactly one process and review it after three months: time saved, error rate and lead time show whether the effort paid off. Anyone starting five processes at once cannot say afterwards which one worked.

The self-learning track accompanies that step with the templates from the seminar, including the description aid for processes and the grid for failure handling and switch-off. If you are unsure after implementing, you can discuss the process with the group and the trainer team.

Investment and dates

Participation costs €1,990.00 plus VAT per person and includes both seminar days, the self-learning track, the seminar materials and the AEI certificate of participation. Dates are added on an ongoing basis. On site or live online, maximum 16 people.