This is a real case study from one of our long-term clients.
Here are the numbers:
- Revenue: $10M → $15M (50% growth)
- Employees: 57 → 35 (39% reduction)
- Revenue per employee: $175K → $428K (2.4x improvement)
This isn't a Silicon Valley startup story. It's a custom manufacturing company in the southeastern United States — real products, real customers, real operational complexity.
This is the story of how technology transformation changed what was possible.
Where they started
When we first started working with this client, they operated like most successful small businesses: growth had outpaced infrastructure.
- Servers hummed in a back room
- Critical data lived in spreadsheets
- Manual processes held everything together
- Key knowledge existed only in people's heads
The business was successful — $10 million in annual revenue, 57 employees, growing steadily. But the owner knew they were approaching a ceiling. Growth required more people. More people required more management. More management required more overhead.
The trajectory was clear: grow the team linearly to grow revenue linearly. The math didn't lead anywhere exciting.
The transformation
Over several years, we systematically modernized their technology infrastructure. Not all at once — that would have been too risky and too expensive. Instead, we tackled the highest-impact areas first, building momentum and proving value before moving to the next phase.
Cloud migration (98% to AWS)
The first major initiative was moving from on-premises servers to Amazon Web Services.
What we moved:
- Databases and applications
- Employee desktops (AWS WorkSpaces)
- Phone systems (cloud VoIP)
- Document storage and backups
Why it mattered:
- Eliminated server maintenance overhead
- Enabled remote work before COVID made it mandatory
- Proved critical during a major hurricane (the business never went down)
- Scaled infrastructure without scaling IT headcount
Process automation
We identified repetitive, high-volume manual processes and automated them one by one.
Example: Invoice processing
The AR team processed thousands of invoices through a major retailer's portal — a 5-7 minute manual process per invoice. We built an automation bot that reduced this to a 2-second button click.
Impact: 15,000+ invoices automated, 1,500+ hours of manual work eliminated, $400,000 improvement in collections (because the team could now focus on actually collecting money instead of clicking through screens).
System integration
Disconnected systems meant duplicate data entry and unreliable information. We connected the systems that needed to talk to each other:
- CRM integrated with accounting
- Inventory connected to sales
- Customer data unified across platforms
Why it mattered: One source of truth. Less manual reconciliation. Fewer errors. Better decisions.
The results: by the numbers
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual revenue | $10M | $15M | +50% |
| Total employees | 57 | 35 | -39% |
| Revenue per employee | $175K | $428K | +145% |
| Infrastructure in cloud | 0% | 98% | — |
| Manual invoice processing hours | 1,500+/year | ~0 | -99% |
| AR collection improvement | — | $400K | — |
The 2.4x improvement in revenue per employee is the key metric. It means the business can grow without proportionally growing headcount — the fundamental shift that changes everything about the economics.
What made the difference
Technology enabled people, not replaced them
The goal was never to replace humans with machines. It was to free humans from mechanical work so they could focus on what humans do best: solving problems, building relationships, making decisions.
When the AR team stopped spending hours clicking through portals, they started actually improving collections. When the IT team stopped maintaining servers, they started improving business processes.
The right sequence
We didn't try to change everything at once. We started with the foundation (cloud migration) and built from there. Each phase delivered value on its own while enabling the next phase.
Trying to automate processes that run on fragile infrastructure is a mistake. We fixed the infrastructure first.
Long-term partnership
This transformation happened over years, not months. We stayed engaged through the entire journey — adjusting as we learned, fixing what didn't work, building on what did.
A one-time project wouldn't have achieved these results. A continuous partnership did.
The COVID test
The transformation paid unexpected dividends when COVID-19 hit in 2020.
Because the company was already cloud-first with AWS WorkSpaces, the transition to remote work was trivial. While competitors scrambled to figure out how to keep operating, this company barely missed a beat.
The technology choices made for other reasons — disaster resilience, operational efficiency — turned out to be exactly what was needed for a pandemic nobody predicted.
What's next
The transformation continues. We're now developing AI agents to further augment the workforce — identifying more repetitive tasks that can be automated, more processes that can be streamlined, more opportunities for technology to amplify what humans do best.
The goal isn't to replace people. It's to free them from the tedious work that consumes their time and energy, so they can focus on building relationships, solving problems, and driving growth.
It's the same philosophy that guided the original transformation: technology should make businesses more resilient, more efficient, and more human.
Is this your trajectory?
If you recognize your business in the "before" picture — successful but constrained, growing but linearly, held back by manual processes and fragile infrastructure — a similar transformation is possible for you.
The specifics will differ. Your industry, your systems, your challenges are unique. But the pattern is consistent:
- Modernize the foundation (cloud, integration, data)
- Automate the repetitive (processes that don't need human judgment)
- Free humans for human work (relationships, decisions, growth)
The technology exists. The approach is proven. The ROI is real.
We'd be happy to discuss what this might look like for your specific situation. Sometimes a conversation is enough to see whether there's an opportunity worth pursuing.
Entvas Editorial Team
Helping businesses make informed decisions
