Some claim that the key to success in any line of business is to have a unique product and people to sell, develop and maintain it.
This isn’t the entire truth, In order to succeed one also need to have a well-organized business process.
A business process is merely a series of activities within an organization that lead to a common goal. Meaning everyone is going in the same direction and have a mutual understanding on how. Even though an overall business process exist , each department e.g. Sales can have their own process as well. This can typically be more in depth on how to close sales, what offers to use, which probability to use etc. A common denominator for all processes is that they are based on experiences and best practices.
Does every company have a process?
Yes! But are they aware of it, no..
In short terms, they have a clear understanding on how they want to work and probably is working today, but this is not documented and written down anywhere.
So, how can technology and software support a company’s business process?
First of all technology can provide a common platform for a company to communicate and collaborate with their customers using the internet, e-mail, social media, portals etc.
There are various of ways of having software supporting business processes , but I would like to elaborate how we, in SuperOffice, do this.
We have a implementation framework as described in the 'Ensuring a safe CRM implementation" post and one of the activities in that framework toolbox is something we call a Business Analysis .
In short terms, the purpose of a Business Analysis workshop is to get answers to the following questions:
- How does the customer run his business?
- What type of process(es) will the solution be supporting?
- What specific objectives does the customer want to achieve from his investment?
- What business requirements does the customer have for the solution?
The actual workshop is non-technical and facilitated by us, together with representatives from the customers, that have an understanding and knowledge of their needs.
We use the brown paper methodology with sticky notes and draw a flowchart of the process. When we are finished, the customers haves a flowchart of their process and a well-documented template describing it.
The document created in the Business Analysis workshop is used throughout our implementation to ensure that our software is always supporting the customer’s needs and business process.
If you can offer your customers this value I can guarantee that you will have loyal and satisfied customers for many years to come.
If you are looking for support with your business processes and CRM needs, contact SuperOffice here >>
