The problem with searching “process automation company”

Type “process automation company” into Google and you’ll get a strange mix of results. Some are industrial automation firms who design control panels and PLC systems for factory production lines. Others are global RPA giants selling six and seven-figure bot platforms. A few are big consultancies who will happily scope you a six-month discovery phase before anyone writes a single flow.

None of that is what most Operations or COO buyers actually need.

If your problem is that expense approvals still involve someone manually chasing emails, or your onboarding process lives in a spreadsheet with a dozen tabs, or files are scattered across a server nobody can search – you don’t need a factory automation specialist and you don’t need an enterprise RPA licence. You need someone who knows Microsoft 365 inside out, because the tools to fix this are very likely already sitting in the licence you’re paying for: Power Automate, PowerApps, and SharePoint.

This matters because the term “process automation company” covers wildly different disciplines. Getting it wrong means paying industrial-automation prices for a problem that Power Automate solves in weeks, or handing a Microsoft 365 project to a vendor whose real expertise is PLC programming for conveyor belts.

What “process automation” actually means inside Microsoft 365

A spreadsheet that tracks a process is rarely just a spreadsheet. It is usually a queue, an approval route, a source of record and a workaround for a system nobody has had time to improve.

Inside Microsoft 365, process automation means replacing that spreadsheet, that email chain, or that manual approval with:

• Power Automate flows that route approvals, send reminders, and update records automatically
• PowerApps that give staff a simple form-based front end instead of a spreadsheet or paper form
• SharePoint lists and libraries that act as the structured, searchable source of truth behind the automation

Manual approvals and data entry for things like expense claims or new starter onboarding consume staff hours every week and generate constant chasing and status queries. That’s the pain a Microsoft 365-native automation company should be solving first – not with a new platform, but with tools your business has already licensed. If you want to see what this looks like in practice, we’ve broken down real examples of operational workflows you can automate with Power Automate and gone deeper on what process automation actually looks like for expense approvals.

Step 1: Work out which category of “automation company” you’re actually looking at

Before you compare quotes, sort vendors into the right bucket. Searches for a process automation company tend to surface three very different types:

Industrial and factory automation firms. These companies design control panels, PLC and SCADA systems, and physical production-line automation. If your problem is a manufacturing line, this is the right category – but it has nothing to do with approvals, onboarding, or intranets.

Enterprise RPA and BPM vendors. These sell bot platforms and large-scale process re-engineering, usually with long implementation timelines and a big-team delivery model.

Microsoft 365 specialists. These build automation directly inside the Microsoft 365 tools you already pay for – Power Automate, PowerApps, SharePoint – rather than introducing a new platform or a large delivery team.

If your organisation already runs on Microsoft 365, that third category is where you should be shopping. It’s also where the pricing tends to look completely different, because you’re not licensing new infrastructure, you’re building on top of what you have.

Step 2: Check who actually delivers the work

This is the question most buyers forget to ask, and it’s the one that matters most. Many process automation vendors sell you a senior consultant in the pitch, then hand delivery to a junior team – or an offshore delivery centre – once the contract is signed.

Ask directly: who will be building my flows and apps, day to day? At ThePoint, projects are delivered by a senior consultant, 100% UK-based, from the first conversation through to go-live and support. There’s no handover to a junior team partway through, and no offshore delivery model. If a vendor can’t answer that question clearly, treat it as a warning sign.

Step 3: Get a fixed price, not an open-ended discovery phase

Big consultancies often start with a paid discovery or scoping phase before you know what anything will actually cost. For most Microsoft 365 automation work – an approval flow, an onboarding app, a small PowerApp – that’s unnecessary overhead.

Look for a process automation company that can quote fixed prices for defined pieces of work. Automations from ThePoint start at £500, and SharePoint intranet builds from £2,500, so you know the cost before work begins. That doesn’t mean unlimited scope for a fixed fee – it means a clearly defined piece of work, quoted plainly, with no surprises.

Step 4: Ask what happens after go-live

No internal SharePoint or Power Platform expertise is one of the most common reasons automation projects stall after launch. A flow breaks, a business rule changes, someone needs a new field on a form – and without in-house skills, every small change either goes to the back of a large consultancy’s queue or gets shelved indefinitely.

A good process automation company should offer a support model that doesn’t require you to hire a Power Platform developer internally. Monthly retainers (Foundation, Growth, Strategic tiers, from £799 to £2,800) give you direct, on-demand access to a senior consultant for ongoing fixes and new development, without the overhead of a permanent hire.

Step 5: Make sure legacy workflows keep working during the transition

If you’re still running Nintex or K2 workflows, don’t let a vendor force an all-or-nothing migration. Those platforms need to keep working reliably while a pragmatic path to Power Automate is planned and executed – not ripped out overnight.

Ask any prospective vendor two things: can they support what you have today, and do they have a realistic migration plan for moving off it? If the answer to either is vague, keep looking. For a detailed comparison of the two platforms, see Power Automate vs Nintex: should you migrate legacy workflows in 2026.

Step 6: Confirm the automation will actually solve findability, not just approvals

Automating an approval process doesn’t help much if the underlying documents and data are still scattered across an unstructured file server, or split between SharePoint, email, Teams, and old policy libraries with no way to search across them. One client summed up the before-and-after directly: ThePoint transformed their chaotic file server into a structured SharePoint intranet.

When you’re evaluating a process automation company, ask whether they think about the whole picture – workflow automation and the underlying information architecture – or just the flow itself. If you want to understand this relationship in plain English, our guide to workflow management in operations covers it, and our breakdown of whether you need a separate workflow management tool if you already have Microsoft 365 is worth reading before you buy anything new.

Step 7: Ask how they’ll get your team to actually use it

Teams not actually using the intranet or tools that were rolled out is one of the most common ways automation investment gets wasted. A flow nobody trusts gets worked around. An app nobody was trained on gets ignored in favour of the old spreadsheet.

Adoption isn’t an afterthought – it should shape how the whole project is built, from who’s involved in requirements gathering to how rollout and training are handled. A senior consultant leading the project end to end, rather than handing it to junior staff partway through, makes a real difference here, because the person who understood your process at the start is still the person building and explaining it at the end.

A quick checklist before you sign anything

Run any process automation company through these questions:

1. Do they specialise in Microsoft 365 (Power Automate, PowerApps, SharePoint), or are they an industrial automation or generic RPA vendor?
2. Will a senior consultant deliver the work, and is delivery 100% UK-based?
3. Can they quote a fixed price for defined pieces of work, rather than an open-ended discovery phase?
4. Do they offer ongoing support without requiring you to hire an internal specialist?
5. Can they keep legacy Nintex or K2 workflows running while planning a migration?
6. Do they think about findability and structure, not just the automation itself?
7. What’s their plan for making sure staff actually use what gets built?

If you’re comparing intranet platforms as part of this same decision, our comparison of SharePoint intranet software against Claromentis, Unily and Interact is a useful companion read.

FAQ

What does a process automation company actually do?

It depends heavily on the type of company. Industrial automation firms design physical control systems for manufacturing lines. Enterprise RPA vendors sell bot software for large-scale process re-engineering. A Microsoft 365 process automation company, like ThePoint, builds automated approvals, forms and workflows directly inside Power Automate, PowerApps and SharePoint – tools most businesses already have licensed.

Who are the top RPA companies, and do I need one?

The large RPA and industrial automation names that dominate ‘top automation company’ lists mostly serve enterprise-scale bot deployment or factory control systems. If your problem is manual approvals, onboarding, or scattered files inside Microsoft 365, you don’t need enterprise RPA – you need someone who can build directly on the Microsoft 365 tools you already pay for.

Is process automation only relevant to manufacturing or industrial businesses?

No. Office-based process automation – automating expense approvals, onboarding, holiday requests and similar workflows – is a completely different discipline from industrial control systems, and it’s usually far cheaper and faster to implement because it uses tools already inside your Microsoft 365 licence.

How much does Microsoft 365 process automation cost compared to enterprise RPA?

Enterprise RPA platforms typically involve new software licensing plus lengthy implementation. Automation built inside Microsoft 365 uses tools you already own, so costs are usually limited to the build itself. At ThePoint, automations start at a fixed price from £500.

Can a process automation company support our existing Nintex or K2 workflows while we plan a migration?

Yes – and it’s worth asking any vendor this directly. Legacy Nintex and K2 platforms often need to keep running reliably while a realistic migration path to Power Automate is planned, rather than being switched off abruptly.

Will staff actually use what gets built, or will it end up like our last rollout?

Adoption depends on how the project is run, not just what’s built. Having a senior consultant lead requirements, build and rollout end to end – rather than handing it off to junior staff – is one of the biggest factors in whether a team actually uses a new tool every day instead of reverting to the old spreadsheet.