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| Business Processing Re-Engineering |
What is Business Process?
Every business operates on a set of processes - whether documented or not - that drive all critical business operations, including:
- sales and business development
- new customer acquisition and implementation
- product and/or service delivery
- customer service and support
- billing
Most companies set up their own unique business processes based upon the make-up of their workforce, the types of services offered, mix of internal and outsourced resources, contract and billing terms, and a host of other factors.
More often than not, these critical business processes evolve over time as resources, products, services and customers shift. Most companies wait far too long before going through the exercise of reviewing their internal processes to identify hidden areas of inefficiency or gaps in their workflow. And the bigger your company gets, the more likely it is that your service levels, profitability and employee morale will increasingly suffer from ill-defined or inconsistent business processes. More resources are poured into figuring out HOW to get things done, instead of actually doing the work!
How Autotask Works With Your Business Processes
Autotask becomes the platform on which all of your business processes work in a seamless and integrated way. Imagine everyone in your organization - including project and implementation teams, service and support teams, sales and business development people, the finance department, everyone - all working off the same system, and having access to the same critical customer and business data - in real time whenever they need it.
Now, imagine the same system into which everyone can enter time spent on tasks, assign or review tasks and assignments, pass documents and information among each other, track expenses, and document their work.
Finally, imagine the same system being able to generate real-time reports of the status of every project, who's available to do what, which service tickets are open and overdue, what's billable, what's a risk, and a thousand other key business metrics.
You've just imagined what it's like to have Autotask helping you to run your business better. Every piece of our web-based software can be uniquely configured in such a way as to mirror your own existing business processes, and often times automate pieces of them while eliminating duplicate data entry from multiple departments.
How Well Are YOUR Processes Documented?
We know from the experience gained in setting up Autotask for hundreds of different kinds of companies that very few organizations have gone through the exercise of documenting their critical business processes. And, ironically, the very act of configuring Autotask actually forces our new customers to think about their businesses, and try to figure out (often, on-the-fly) what the existing work flow is... whether or not it's the BEST way to get the work done.
Generally what happens in situations like this is that the company starts using Autotask, and for the first time starts seeing areas where the company is not profitable, time that is not being billed, resources that are not being properly used.
The experience of one of our customers, Widespread Technology, is typical:
"We went through the Autotask implementation but never really knew we had weak spots in our business processes. As soon as we started using Autotask and getting back some of the reports and views from the dashboards, it became clear that we needed to change the way we were doing things, and make sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to do. We brought in the Professional Services team from Autotask to help and it's made the difference between losing money and making money."
How We Can Help You Improve Your Business Processes
Autotask's Professional Services Team offers a customized service that analyzes and documents your current business processes, and identifies potential areas for improvement. We will provide an easy to understand flowchart showing your existing workflow, recommended changes, and ways to configure Autotask to maximize the automation of your work flow. This information also can be used in a variety of other ways, including:
- training new employees faster
- ensuring that you are taking good care of your customers
- eliminating surprises
- preventing issues from falling through the cracks
- improving efficiency and capturing more billable hours
In order to get the input we need to start the process, we'll ask you to assemble a cross-functional team who would be available for one or more "discovery" conference calls. We'll also ask you to assign a "Champion" for the project - the decision maker who will make the calls when multiple options or solutions arise.
We'll then give you a simple Discovery Form to complete, providing the answers to critical questions about your resources, customers, services and existing processes.
We'll gather all the information you provide us, digest it, and deliver back to you with any recommended changes to your workflow, as well as some concrete suggestions for reconfiguring Autotask to best drive the improved processes.
What to Expect When We "Re-engineer" Your Business Processes
This is not an intellectual exercise. We have very rigorous expected outcomes from our Professional Services engagements. Here's what you can expect:
- Dramatic and tangible improvements to your business operations in a short time
- A road map to help you meet future business needs
- Higher end-user adoption rates and more efficient use of your Autotask investment
- Knowledge transfer to help you implement or further optimize your solution on your own
- Best practice dashboards and metrics to help you manage your business
- Ensuring cross-functional stakeholder buy-in
- Ensuring technology is in alignment with business goals and objectives
Who Needs Business Process Re-engineering?
While almost every company could benefit by regular objective and critical reviews of their business processes, there are some clear warning signs that existing processes are in dire need of review and improvement.
Here are the top 7 warning signs:
- You have experienced a dramatic increase in the number of customers you are serving, and things are starting to fall through the cracks. Your customers have to call you to remind you that a problem has not been resolved or a project has not been billed.
- Whenever you go on vacation, you come back to unresolved problems.
- Nobody in the company knows what everyone is doing at any given time, and who might be available.
- You are working with multiple software systems, duplicating data entry, handling too much paperwork, or having difficulty managing multiple processes at the same time.
- You are spending 80% of your effort on only 20% of the work.
- You can't get the information you need to effectively manage.
- Parts of your organization don't have access to the data they need from other parts of your organization.
Request Your Business Process Review Today!
To learn more about our Business Process Re-engineering Process, contact Sarah Kearney, Professional Services Coordinator at +44 (0) 203 00 63147, ext. 1318, or your Autotask Sales Executive or Account Manager. Let us make your business run. Better.
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