IS IT ALWAYS THE BOTTOM LINE THAT MATTERS?

In my experience the answer to that question is, yes and no.  At times what might matter is technological advantage, data security, regulation compliance, or efficiency via workflow or automation improvement.  The bottom line will always matter, but it will never be paramount over successful operation of the business.  Without the later there is no bottom line to be concerned with.

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Workflow and automation improvement are a key interest of mine.  Capable people who identify areas where the bottom line can be improved come spontaneously from all areas of the business.  After all, we all want to work smarter not harder.  Adding an automation improvement rather than another admin assistant as your company grows alleviates frustration, helps the role owner maintain control over processes and quality, and you guessed it, helps maintain or improve the bottom line. 

Developing and implementing company-wide policy allowing all areas of the business to identify workflows that would benefit from change, and channeling those requests for fulfillment in a timely manner is the crux of ITIL Foundations.  It is also, a low-level activity that may not be a priority for stakeholders involved with high-level, high-priority business matters.

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Placing the right people in your business to create and maintain a channel of continuous process improvement for every activity, working through and over silos, requires someone who can relate to the problem, propose potential solutions if none are offered by the source, dig deep for relationships and causal effect, then locate the correct resource to institute resolution.

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Process improvement implementation may not be speedy, but it should never become stalled.  Policy, authority, cooperation, multi-threading, detail, access to appropriate resources, and singular vision are required.  A lack of any requirement filling a process improvement role will lead to failure.