results – Cooper Mann Consulting

January 3, 2014June 13, 2017

Degrees of Success: Improving Productivity and Performance through Process Automation

Few businesses use just one solution to get all their work done. In most cases, the business must at least communicate, produce information and account for financial activities – and each of these functions has a software product or service associated with delivering the required capability. While every business uses technology at some level, some businesses have more success than others in developing streamlined and efficient processes guiding the various tasks and activities performed throughout the day. Sometimes the problem stems from a lack of understanding of the importance of process automation, and sometimes it’s the software.

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The success (or lack thereof) in streamlining a business process is often enabled by the tools supporting it, yet the truth of software and systems is that not everything is easily integrated and not all business workflows actually “flow” smoothly. In many cases it is left to the human user to connect the processes and keep the work flowing, creating the opportunity for missed deadlines, duplicated or erroneous data, and a greater dependency on individual worker knowledge than is good for the business.

The better alternative may be the adoption of workflow and automation tools to assist with bridging and scheduling of repetitive tasks, building the knowledgebase of process and task flow supporting business sustainability efforts and easing the burdens of training new employees. Process automation helps to improve productivity, it’s just that simple.

If the time is taken to really consider the variety and numbers of repetitive tasks employees perform throughout the day, the cost in time, lost productivity and data errors or omissions would likely add up to far more than initially expected. People tend to adapt to using the tools they are provided, and will find ways to get things done (whether it’s the most effective way or not). The end does not always justify the means, and many businesses ultimately find that it is here – where individual worker initiative and unguided action are most prevalent – that the operation fails to accomplish stated goals.

In order to create a sustainable operation with consistently high levels of production and performance, the business must establish a complete framework for process automation and support. Where existing application and software functionality is not able to meet the requirement, the business should implement specialized tools to bridge the gap and embed the process knowledge in the system.

Scheduled reporting, customer and product data synchronization, import/export routines, data maintenance routines – these are among the tasks and processes which represent the regularly-performed work that may be sucking the user productivity and performance out of the business. It’s a matter of degrees of success, and productivity improvements introduced through comprehensive process and task automation can make the difference between a little success and a lot.

Make Sense?

October 7, 2013

Marketing and Sales Needs System and Process Automation

Running a business means finding and keeping customers who will buy from you. This isn’t necessarily easy, particularly with the number and variety of “impressions” people get throughout their day. It used to be that simply locating a business in the right place would generate drive-by traffic, with location being the key to generating impressions and causing people to actually stop and shop. Impressions – yes, those brief instances where your brand or service is viewed – count.

The entire lifecycle of the customer relationship starts with the first impression, so it needs to be a good one. Marketing impressions expose your business and products to prospective customers, with efforts oriented towards the generation of sales leads. A lead is a business or individual that may ultimately develop into a sales or business opportunity. Rather than attempting to engage with businesses or individuals one at a time, businesses use marketing to target large groups in hopes of earning the permission to engage group members in more focused or individualized sales activities. When the business earns the ability to communicate directly with a prospective buyer, a sales lead is generated, and the business now has a prospective customer and the potential to make a sale.

Sales leads don’t stop becoming leads just because they purchase from you. Every customer remains an ongoing opportunity to generate new business directly or indirectly via referrals or recommendations. The best case scenario for your business is when you know when and why your customer buys from you, when the customer wants more, and that they will refer their friends or business associates to you.

Part of the problem with marketing and sales is that there are often too few people and/or resources to apply to the task. Most businesses aren’t in the position of simply throwing money at a problem (which rarely actually solves the problem), so it becomes essential that you find a way to get the job done with the same or fewer people and resources. The keys to solving this problem are systems and processes (automation). Automation doesn’t always mean that there is an “automatic system” somewhere which performs all of the tasks for you. In most cases, it simply means that the process is structured, efficient, and is able to be effectively repeated without significant deviation or loss. Structured systems and processes, along with a strong commitment to capturing activity data and measuring results, is the foundation which will support growth.

Marketing Automation Explained (Infographic) | The automation of business function is set to be the new trend in 2014. There are already dozens of sales, marketing and finance automation options, and for good reason: The quantifiable returns they provide are undeniable. Here is a look at marketing automation and how it works.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227923#ixzz2ghHq9Qpn

From the very first impression through the conclusion of the sale and ongoing, it is essential to capture the data which describes the activities and events around doing business with your customers. It is important to track unsuccessful efforts as well as those which are successful. By understanding what does not work, you develop valuable insight which helps refine the process and the approach, resulting in fewer wasted efforts. The accumulated data tells the story of how you earn new business and how you create a customer relationship, which helps you understand how and where you are successful in earning new business and why you are able to retain loyal customers.

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet Make Sense?

September 25, 2013September 25, 2013

Enterprise Functionality for Small Business | Relating to Customer Data

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Many small business owners are under the impression that most powerful business process management solutions are just for big businesses. A common misconception, for example, is that robust CRM products with turn-key functionality are too complicated and expensive. This misconception leaves most small business owners to frequently turn to inexpensive online solutions or to their favorite email client in order to store and manage customer information. In today’s competitive business environment, the intelligent and innovative use of technology and business information is often the determining factor between success and failure. Now more than ever, small businesses must leverage tools with the same capabilities as their enterprise counterparts in order to help the business perform at levels necessary to drive growth and maintain profitability.

The data developed within the solutions supporting various business processes is the key which unlocks business intelligence. This data may only be captured and used if the systems and tools in place allow for it. With far too many small business CRM solutions, the assumption is that simplicity of use is the equivalent of less functionality. Approaching the problem from the standpoint of what most small business owners KNOW they need to know, developers have sometimes failed in delivering the capability (and resultant data) small business owners didn’t know they needed or would benefit from. What business owners need to know about is the customer.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions help businesses identify, acquire and retain customers. Almost any business relationship or interaction represents a customer opportunity. Present customers are customers now, past customers are not just past customers but prospects and everyone else is a prospective future customer. Consider that vendors or resellers are different types of customers, too. Even employees and coworkers can be seen as “internal” customers. Keeping useful and relevant information about these various “customers” and documenting how the business interacts with them is essential to understanding the entire relationship lifecycle, which is a step towards understanding the business better.

When a small business elects to use a software solution to handle the various interactions with customers, it is often approach in pieces rather than in a comprehensive manner. Traditionally, Contact Management solutions are applied to sales efforts, providing tools for communicating with leads and prospects as well as current customers. However, related information is also often stored in accounting systems, which handle billing and payment processes involving customers (clients, suppliers, employees, etc.). Some businesses also may use other systems for time management, service or work order management, project management and to archive related documents and emails at various levels of the relationship, where customer information is used and data is created. With segmented pieces of information in numerous databases, it is hard to achieve true Business Intelligence and a comprehensive view of the entire operation. Smaller companies can easily miss out on the benefits that their enterprise counterparts possess.

It’s not really unusual for businesses to store some of the same information in several systems, generally in order to support specific job functions for workers in those areas, and delivering data on the equivalent of a “need to know” basis. For most small businesses, though, an integrated Business Management system that provides CRM as a component of its overall offering could be the answer to providing a single comprehensive solution for all departments. An integrated solution of this sort would seamlessly integrate with the accounting, email, and document management products Small Businesses use every day. Examples of such solutions include, but are not limited to, Results CRM, Method CRM and LeGrand CRM.

Beware, however, that not all integrated CRM solutions are created equally. If your organization delivers billable services, make sure that the integrated CRM system that you select can take a billable appointment that was scheduled in the CRM system and automatically place that on an invoice for you – without duplicate data entry and manual tracking of timesheets – so you’re not leaving money on the table. If you manage projects, make sure that the CRM system has the cohesiveness to include project and resource management functionality so that the full business relationship – from sales to the delivery of services to billing – can be managed and tracked in one system without duplicated data entry.

When systems are not tightly and intelligently integrated, sharing data between them becomes very problematic. Without the ability to check for duplicate records or properly map data points and related fields between systems, there is a great potential for errors in or duplication of data. The result could be a large amount of unrelated and unusable information, which is often what happens when list or transaction data is simply copied between applications without the necessary logic to understand changes in various records, record types, or record states.

There’s a reason why “legacy” integrated software solutions made sense for businesses, and why many enterprises continue to hold on to their solutions – they include the wide variety of tightly integrated functionality and logical data sharing that has been a benefit to the business for years. As organizations seek to start up or reassess their software and systems, they would be wise to keep in mind that generating “big” data with a bunch of loosely connected applications isn’t enough. The data must be intelligently related – just like the business and the customer.

A tightly integrated and well-managed CRM and Business Management solution, whether in-the-cloud or on premises, is not out of financial reach for small business. While a solution of this type is not free, the reasonable investment in a quality solution will provide the Business Intelligence necessary to build and maintain a competitive advantage.

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet Make Sense?