We have an "internal systems" team at my current company to solve this problem. The product manager for the team knows everyone and keeps tabs on what's being done that could be automated. It's not used to replace people (at least it hasn't been yet) rather it's used to allow the team to stay the same size and scale up their operations to meeting the growing business demands.
I think many companies could benefit from a team like this.
Ha, I'm happy this exists. I created this department at the company I founded at and directed it for some time. We call it the internal tools department. It still exists today and is run by a former employee of the department. It's very valuable for us.
This is great. How do they deal with the on-going maintenance of the tools they build? Do they move to the main product team or does the internal systems team continue to maintain them?
I think many companies could benefit from a team like this.