Latest Articles
- Information – an Office’s Gold
As America moves to service based industries the raw materials needed to bring a service or product to market is information. This is the “gold” in an office. With today’s technology we are able to collect, measure and quantify our leads and customers. The question then becomes what do we do with that information?
- BPs Lack of Seeing the Big Picture
No matter what side of the political fence you fall, BP failed to take the proper quality control measures. As the weeks pass more information is coming to light how the organization cut corners with safety to keep costs down. Safety is not the place to take short cuts. In the long run this can cost you thousands of dollars and possibly your business. In BP’s case it is running in the billions not to mention what it is doing for their stock value. The ramification of poor quality control is costly. So how could a corporation
- Make Your Bottom Line Grow
No matter what size your organization doing things as efficiently as possible is not only ideal it is necessary in the new world economy. One area that can be significantly improved is the office. In fact, 60 to 80% of costs associated with providing a service or product to market is administrative. If you were able to reduce these by one third how much could you increase your cash flow?
- Proper Planning Can Ensure Success
Planning is the backbone of success. Not doing it can cost thousands of dollars, man hours and resources. Proper planning can save you money, increase your cash flow and help fulfill your mission. Here is a simple tool to aid in ensuring your success.
- Working Between Departments Means Faster Cash Flow
When you look at a traditional organizational chart it has silos which contain various departments and the people overseeing and working in those departments. In today’s business climate where information is your company’s gold this can be troublesome. Why, because the right hand may not know what the left hand is doing. We have all [...]
Digital Information Management
This is by far becoming one of the biggest challenges for today’s organizations. As we transition a large part of our industry in the United States from manufacturing to services, information is becoming our valuable inventory and raw materials for our products. There are so many products on the market that deciphering what is the best tools for an office can be challenging to say the least. There is software for: accounting, sales force automation, customer relationship management and supply chain management to name a few.
Examining your flow and administrative processes gives you an opportunity to reevaluate your current software and tools. Ideally you only change the technology after you address all the low or no cost alternatives. In other words, take care of the low hanging fruit and flow issues before evening considering changes in technology.
Where technology can became a significant problem is incapability across systems. For instance, if one software program can not talk to another in the organization this creates rework, mistakes, overproduction, etc. of the information that the two systems need to share. The ability to share information across platforms and systems should always be an important consideration when purchasing software.
We assist our clients examine streamlining their workflow and how the current digital tools are performing. This can be as simple as some customization of a current program as well as discussing options such as creating a bridge across systems. We consult with our clients developing the criteria needed for maximum flow so the client can make educated decisions about upgrades or changes to software systems. Croll Productive Synergy is not an IT specialist; therefore we have colleagues who are IT professionals who can be brought in for additional analysis on a project if the services are not available in house.
As business grows and matures in the information age, your organization’s customer and internal information is extremely valuable. It should be treasured and utilized like the precious resource it is.
For more information about choosing a CRM tool read my article Evaluating Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
Excerpt from Hudson Valley Business Edge 2009
How to Evaluate Customer Relationship Manager (CRM)