Small scripts, big impact: real-world examples in corporate environments
In the world of software development, big projects are often glorified: rewriting the entire application core, migrating to the cloud, implementing microservices. These are projects lasting months or years. But my experience tells me that the greatest satisfaction (and the highest ROI) often comes from 50-line scripts that solve an acute, daily pain.
You don't need to be a senior engineer at Google to create value. With a bit of Python and access to the right APIs, you can work magic. Here are three real examples of "micro-automations" that have saved hundreds of hours.
1. The IP Watchdog (Security)
Problem: In a company with remote work, how do you know if someone is connecting from a suspicious country? Manually checking firewall logs is impossible.
Solution: A script that runs every hour, downloads VPN access logs, and geolocates each IP. If it detects a connection outside the "whitelisted" (usual) countries, it sends an immediate alert to a security Slack channel. Cost: €0. Development time: 1 morning. Result: Real-time intrusion detection.
2. The Meeting Minutes Generator (Operations)
Problem: Everyone hates taking minutes. Meetings end, and agreements get lost in the ether.
Solution: Use the Teams or Zoom transcription API. A script collects the text, passes it through an AI model (like GPT-4) with the prompt "Summarize the agreements made and tasks assigned per person," and sends a formatted email to all attendees 5 minutes after the meeting ends. Company culture changes when everyone knows "the robot is taking notes."
3. The Invoice Reconciler (Finance)
Problem: The finance department receives PDFs from suppliers and has to check if they match orders in the ERP. It's a "grunt work" task prone to errors.
Solution: A script that reads PDFs (OCR), extracts the order reference and amount, queries the ERP database, and compares. If it matches to the cent, it marks the invoice as "Verified." If not, it moves it to an "Incidents" folder for human review. Suddenly, the accountant only has to look at the 5% of problematic invoices, not 100%.
Conclusion: The "Efficient Lazy" Mindset
Bill Gates said he would always hire a lazy person to do a difficult job because they would find an easy way to do it. This is the essence of corporate scripting. Don't accept repetitive tasks as "part of the job." If you have to do it more than three times, you can probably automate it. And the cumulative impact of these small victories is giant.