Remember, remember the 5th of November. An old saying but one we hear at this time every year. Today as we hear that statement I was wondering how the term could be related to the business world. It is a statement that sounds like a warning and indeed given the history could be taken in a very sombre way. I could make analogies this week on “don’t watch your business go up in smoke” or “make sure your working week goes off with a bang” but I wouldn’t want to be that obvious. Instead, I am going to focus on the Remember, Remember part of that statement and not so much on the fireworks.
Do you have set tasks and dates that you need to remember? Key business activities that need to be completed by a certain date each week or month. In the financial world I am thinking about accounting close dates. In sales and marketing, records in a CRM system need to be updated following sales meetings or with marketing campaign activity. Professional services companies need to accurately forecast and measure their resource time, plan projects and prepare invoicing and billing records. My colleague Daniela commented on this in her Time Is Money blog earlier this week.
In the business world the list of tasks and information to remember is endless. I could write a long extensive list of them all but instead it would be more beneficial for me to report on the points that could potentially have a huge impact on your business. The three I mention above merely scratch the surface but they are a good place to start.
Let’s take financial close as an example. I wrote last week about how this can be a very frightening prospect when information needs to be investigated and details checked, double checked and triple checked before the actual task of closing your accounts can be completed. Having a system in place that you are confident contains the up to date information required to complete your financial close removes the doubt and uncertainty around these tasks. This ultimately streamlines processes and ensures valuable resources are focused on meaningful tasks for your business and not wasting time. The results are increased productivity and efficiency.
In marketing, data is key. Marketing managers can have processes, campaign plans, content plans and strategies in place but if the database this is being marketed to is not accurate then the result is a lack of lead generation. Ultimately the company can look totally unprofessional. Take the example of sending campaigns out to a full database with no ability to segment the data. Marketing could be campaigning on one topic to contacts that sales are already engaged with on another topic. The result is that the opportunity will look elsewhere as the company appears to be chaotic and that sales and marketing do not communicate with each other. Before campaigns can start, a marketer needs to remember to contact all sales people to ensure the target list is accurate and that the right information is being sent to them. An integrated CRM system solves these issues as all records are kept up to date in real time by both sales and marketing. Marketing can be confident that when they segment a list within the database, they know it is accurate and they are targeting the right people with the right information.
What do professional services organisations need to remember? Time is their priority. Time people spend on projects, availability of staff and project planning. It’s difficult to manage a project when the information on all of these areas could be in multiple systems and in some cases kept up to date on paper files. An integrated system would allow all of that detail to be available instantly. Who is working where at any given time and how much time has been dedicated to an individual project to aid payment to staff and billing and invoicing to clients.
I have talked through examples of 3 key business processes – finance, sales and marketing and professional services timekeeping and billing. Your business may require a portion of these or you may have grown to a size where all of these functions need to be managed efficiently.
To go back to my original analogy of Remember, Remember. It is not possible for people to remember all of the manual processes and checks required to complete these activities and be able to perform them well. Time is wasted on the manual checking and re-checking. If an integrated business management system was in place, then resources aren’t wasted, they are focused on the important activities. The systems aid these functions, they don’t in any way replace them.
So this week, perhaps we should remember, remember that sometimes the best results require the best tools possible. After all, this week we commemorate the fact that Guy Fawkes’ tools failed him. Had he been working with the best then the 5th November might have been remembered for very different reasons but that’s a more frightening a prospect than last week’s Halloween blog.
If you are struggling with your business management tools and processes, don’t forget to download our latest White Paper on the many challenges businesses face.
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