Management

From Document Manager Magazine Vol 20 No 04 - July/August

However long it takes for the economy to recover, new business growth will come. But preparing for it means managers across an organisation need unprecedented insight into operational performance - and the ability to deftly seize new opportunities.

With continued economic uncertainty, fierce competitive pressures and dynamic changes in the business environment, strategic planning, agility and ready access to critical management information have become more critical than ever in protecting organisations' prospects. This is true whatever the measure of success is considered to be - whether shareholder value, top-line revenue growth, bottom-line profitability, market share or employee productivity.

Delivering healthy business performance by controlling costs, ensuring steady cash flow, and monitoring return on capital investment are still the cornerstones of successful enterprises. But astute management today demands much more than that. Remaining competitive and preparing for new growth demands that organisations continue to innovate, invest in strategic technologies and retain the right staff.

Successful strategic choices demand skill, experience and foresight, requiring that those driving decisions have up-to-date business intelligence at their fingertips. Being one step ahead of the competition relies increasingly on having superior business and market insight, being able to spot new opportunities and threats as they emerge so that companies can strike just at the right time with proactive or defensive action.

REAL-TIME PERFORMANCE DATA
It is no coincidence that market analysts have charted the rise of business intelligence and reporting tools to the top of many corporate agendas. The recent hype around 'big data' further fans companies' concerns about information management, i.e. a new determination that they are not only collecting limitless data, but are able to filter and harness this in a timely fashion to strategic and tactical advantage.

ERP providers such as SAP and Oracle have responded to these concerns, enhancing their reporting capabilities to give organisations the finger-on-the-pulse experience they crave. And, certainly, the degree of automation is advancing at increasingly higher speeds, promising to deliver near real-time insight into organisational, supplier and customer behaviour - the Holy Grail for corporate decision-makers. Yet there is still a way to go. Despite the increasing appetite companies have for more and more information, there is still a gap between the theory and the reality of having a truly interactive business dashboard. And what value is there in knowing your organisation has been undercut by the competition which has been offering a better service over the last six months, if there is no immediate mechanism to address the poor customer experience at the root of the problem?

JOINED-UP THINKING
The impact of this lack of integration or 'follow-through' becomes more acute as the complexity increases - due to the geographical spread of a business, its large service or product portfolios, the existence of very loose or indeed highly structured teams, and siloed information sources. The more intricate the challenge, the less obvious it is for organisations to know which way to turn in finding adequate solutions. This has led to a growing interest in business process outsourcing (BPO) and business process management (BPM) services, through which companies are able to offload their data processing and reporting needs to external specialists. In the case of CxOs, outsourcing data integration and content management activities offers a shortcut to the business intelligence they need. But it also offers much more than that. By drawing on joined-up information solutions and services, they have a real opportunity to not only measure and reduce back-office costs, but also to automate processes via the web - changing the way information is captured and served back to customers, and their associated experience.

A NEW TAKE ON OUTSOURCING
This is a completely different proposition to the outsourced operations of old, where call centres were sent off shore to keep costs down - often with disastrous results for customer service and brand perception. The new breed of outsourcing operation harnesses the latest business process management technology, allows for hybrid delivery mechanisms and fosters much closer working relationships - allowing different disciplines to share information more fluidly and productively.

Highly transparent working practices embedded within web-based BPM and content management systems, with strong links to ERP and CRM applications, ensure a single view of the truth. This means that C-level leaders are able to truly interact with all the business teams that are focused on customer delivery - not only to view what is happening in near real-time, but to influence key changes as useful trends appear. The positive side effect of this is that the enhanced reporting utilities doing the recording also provide real measurable data that enable managers to plan for further business success.

SHARED SERVICES MAKE LIGHT WORK
As new generations of directors move up through the ranks many of the old challenges will persist, and the scope for becoming swamped, even paralysed by information, is likely to increase rather than diminish. Yet the natural and enthusiastic adoption of consumer technology such as smartphones, tablets, social media and Web 2.0 applications by incoming employees is likely to result in a much greater and faster adoption of tools such as BPM and workflow to improve business performance.

This is true as organisations strive to enhance productivity and exceed customers' growing expectations using higher degrees of automation, but also as they explore new ways to promote and deliver better products and services - harnessing innovation and differentiation to sharpen their competitive edge. That customers are now so ready to engage with businesses and services electronically, and to serve themselves without human intervention, that the opportunities for organisations to efficiently capture valuable information at the same time, and deliver new digital service innovations, is growing at an accelerating pace.

FROM COST-CUTTING TO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
At a purely logistical and financial level, digital automation reduces the cost and drudgery of re-keying and processing critical data to produce associated business intelligence. At a strategic level, and especially as advanced applications and social media activity continue to make it ever easier for employees and customers to collaborate and exchange high-quality information, being able to quickly process the content and harness such channels offers new competitive advantage.

Ultimately manual data gathering, fragmented processes and information silos have no place in a digital world, and the sooner organisations realise this and change the way they interact with information, the more prepared they will be to capitalise on new growth opportunities when the markets finally pick up again.

More info: www.easysoftware.co.uk

Management