At some point in our working careers most of us have planted our initials on some form or memo to signify our approval. Yes, I agree that purchasing this $1mm piece of equipment is a good idea – MC. It’s not a legal issue such as when a contract requires a full signature, but it does indicate that we take responsibility for or acknowledge the contents of a document. There is a justified need for the initials. The legitimacy of digital signatures for legal documents has been debated in the Supreme Court and every major country in the world. Software solutions exist and thrive providing secure digital signatures that comply with the law. This is all positive for our economy as it makes business processes more efficient. Here is…
Don’t be Frightened, Be Practical
There is no denying that many businesses absolutely need automation in order to get to that next level of efficiency. Unfortunately, large companies with large budgets drove the development of most automation solutions and therefore, those solutions are very complex.
This legacy complexity creates an actual and perceived barrier to implementation. Small to medium businesses (“SMB”) don’t have the training and support resources, nor the cash runway to implement and achieve the promised benefits from automation. But SMBs, don’t be deterred, there are automation solutions that will fit your budget, workforce and customer needs.
The poster child of complex solutions for efficiency gains is an enterprise resource planning system or ERP. Software solutions have a tendency to be built to do everything, but as we all know, that can lead to an application that… All for one and one for all
For over 20 years our company has been providing services and solutions to the commercial real estate industry. It’s a very large industry. Depending on which stats you read, the U.S. commercial real estate industry is valued at over $15 Trillion dollars and growing by almost $70 Billion a year. That is the size of the U.S. stock market.
The commercial real estate industry is also very complicated. It consists of developers, investors, advisors, managers, brokers and lenders. These parties form partnerships, joint ventures, REITs, TICs and dozens of ownership structures. And all these interested parties can be involved in a single property and they all have one thing in common – they have a copy of the same lease document. At least it should be the same document.
All industries have challenges trying… It’s not so simple
At some point every business probably feels a bit undervalued or unappreciated by customers or maybe by the markets. This may or may not be justified, but we’ve all been there. Over the years we have gained a deep understanding and appreciation for one group of businesses in particular that might feel this way – manufacturers.
There is tremendous complexity in the manufacturing business model of sourcing parts, labor and materials, making something out of that and then selling and servicing that product. Then there are also government regulations and customer compliance requirements to factor in. There are highly complex software applications that help keep the cost of that seemingly simple widget at $2.00. It’s really not so simple.
It starts with design, which generates drawings and a parts list. Bids for the parts… Do you have a complete picture?
It happens every day in our professional lives, we need information to make decisions or to complete tasks. To assist us in this effort we try to use our memory, the internet and information stored away in filing cabinets, desk drawers and computers.
Sometimes decisions or tasks are completed quickly from a single source of information. For instance, “was customer order 12345 invoiced?” – you can easily look it up in “the system”. This becomes more complex if the question simply expands to “and was it correct?”. Just like that you need much more information to come to the correct decision. It would be nice if there was only one place to get the complete picture.
The task of confirming the invoice can be a challenge. A manufacturing business or a service business will… In documents we trust, data not so much
Some day in the future it is plausible that paper documents in the business world will disappear. Electronic documents, however, in the form of PDF’s, Word files or Excel spreadsheets, will continue to exist. In fact, it will be a very long time before documents, and the content of the documents, cease to be important in the business world.
Technology has enabled simple processes or transactions to occur entirely with online forms and direct data entry. But there are still many instances where the content in a complex document becomes the data for accounting or ERP systems or documents. It is easy to see what was keyed in, but In Documents we trust.
Some business processes are being converted to an entirely form based process where the concept of a document doesn’t pertain. Take… Folders and paperclips, the original workflow tools
I don’t think I would like to be in the folder, inter-office envelope, paper clip or staple businesses. They had a great run. They served a very good purpose. But it’s time to move on to new forms of workflow. Yes, that’s right, paper clips, folders and envelopes were the first workflow tools.
Paper clips and staples separated documents into relevant parts. Folders and envelopes kept the collection of information together as it moved through the company for decision making purposes. Plenty of business decisions still rely on a collection of data and documents. So where have all the folders and paper clips gone? To digital workflow packages, which are the new tools for business process.
Some business processes can be very simple and decisions can easily be made with limited information. For instance,… Technology goggles make work flow
The first thing that comes to mind when you hear about workflow is most likely order and process. There is validity in that thought. Workflow is intended to deliver efficiency and cost saving by using defined order and automated process. Defining what the process should be is the tricky but necessary part and it’s the fun part. Yes, fun. When you dig in and people realize how many time wasting tasks can be eliminated, you can feel the joy. So how do you re-connect the dots to create an effective digital workflow and really make work flow? Put on your technology goggles and look at the process.
The first step is to have the people involved in the process document how the process works. This will initially result in a small number of… The Next Big Thing
I participated in a webinar recently sponsored by Realcomm, an organization devoted to the advancement of technology for the commercial real estate industry. It was about the future and hype verses reality. My contribution was squarely on the reality side as I described how our real estate clients gain efficiency by using workflow to automate document oriented business processes.
You might think, “do we still have documents?” The answer in my world and the foreseeable world of our Fortune 5000 clients is, Yes. Documents may not be in paper form any longer, but documents of some type (spreadsheet, PDF contract, etc.), are the support for data and todays decisions. But to see the future, the next big thing, you need to believe in the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual…
Think Smaller, Deeper and Wider
These words, Better, Faster, Cheaper, are heard often during many corporate sales efforts – “our product will help you do that Better, Faster and Cheaper.” Everyone especially likes to purchase software that makes a process, Better, Faster and Cheaper. The key to achieving that promised success is know what the process is – really know and understand it.
There are plenty of examples where very complex software solutions were created that replicated an existing paper or manual process. The problem was that the process wasn’t fully understood and not very efficient in the first place so you have an application that may not be Faster, Better or Cheaper. You need to change the way you think when designing a workflow.
Breaking down a process step by step and understanding the rationale for each step… Collaboration – Group Chat vs Workflow
The past five or so years have been filled with plenty of talk about and some success in the area of collaboration. Collaboration being defined as multiple people fully engaged and involved in a single work effort. The end goal of any collaboration is that the combined effort produces superior results, ie. a better decision, a better product, a better presentation.
Much of the success in the field of collaboration has come in the area of communication, such as messaging applications like Slack or AIM. These applications improve the communication and are instant and flexible including group chats. Other areas of collaboration, like co-creating documents, such as a live spreadsheet or text document, have not been adopted as quickly. But this form of collaboration has historically been linear, passing from person to person….
How to prevent that sinking feeling
In an old paper based world, notification of new information meant extra copies of the document were placed on the desks of teammates. Otherwise, it required a hunch and a trip to the file cabinet or the random perusing of co-worker’s desks. In fact, it was probably not known that something new was available until it was a surprise – learned from a customer or worse yet, from the boss who somehow knew the facts.
Today, documents are digital and some might think that has solved all the problems. Not exactly, not even close. The only problem that has been solved is now there are less paper copies distributed. Information, including documents, can still go undetected and unknown. Surprises still happen and decisions based on incomplete information are still made, but it doesn’t…
Captains of Industry are Building Conglomerations
I heard a story about how there is a push to bring the “Hipster” crowd to Eau Claire Wisconsin, a family oriented, affordable, city of 150,000+ in Northern Wisconsin. My first response was that with current technology, people can choose to live wherever they want, so why not Eau Claire. Having this opportunity is not a new concept and in fact, people working remotely is very commonplace already.
However, what it brought to mind was that it’s not just your remote employees that you need to plan for these days. Today some portion of your business process may be outsourced and you need to plan for those workers as well. Where are those workers and how will they be included in the process? How does your technology support this new conglomeration?
Who is part… When Is Automated Workflow Justified?
There are dozens of processes that every employee must participate in during the typical work week. Review the budget, create the report, enter the new contract. When does it make sense to automate that process?
If the process happens every day all day, yes, automate it. If the process is complicated and prone to errors, yes automate that. What if the process only happens once a week or once a month? Let’s look at a few other key reasons to automate.
Having a flexible solution might help grow the company by attracting new business or expanding in a current area of focus. For instance, if a process requires a special skill set but those employees are difficult to hire, having a cloud based workflow might allow you to offer a work from home option.
Some… Active vs Final Documents – Co-habitation?
A technology issue that companies deal with on a regular basis is using one application for managing active or working documents and a separate application for the archived or final documents. Active being defined as documents in the creation or working stage and final being final or executed.
This situation exists because of how and why these documents are created, accessed and shared. Certain employees are document Creators and others are document Users and their needs are very different. The Holy Grail is one application to manage both. The reality is you need two applications. Let us explain why that is not a bad thing.
Speed and flexibility is demanded by the document Creators. The Creators just want to get their job done and get it done quickly. But that is inconsistent with the… - « Previous
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