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Adapting Successfully To Digital Transformation

Posted on by Brian Kinney

Technology—namely business management technology—has a unique impact on every small business. Drilling down one layer deeper, technology has a unique impact on every employee and customer. Drilling down yet another layer, technology has a unique impact on every single action (and non-action) taken by every employee and customer.

Technology plays a vital role in shaping and defining the way a small business operates, at levels big and small.

Just as technology has a unique impact on every small business, every business is also unique in where it stands in terms of its respective technology life cycle. At some level, every business is at a different stage of digital transformation.

A study conducted by Deloitte found that nearly 80% of small businesses are not taking full advantage of the digital business management tools at their disposal. 

Some businesses make the most out of using the bare minimum level of technology (i.e. Microsoft Office, Google Drive, basic shared calendars, etc.) while others have adopted various ERP, CRM, and marketing technologies. Chances are, you find yourself somewhere in between. Even if you’ve only begun to scratch the surface in researching integrated business technologies (kind of like what you’re doing right now) you’re well on your way to the top of the small business technological adoption curve. 

Before you arrive at the moment of “Yes, that’s the technology I want and need. Let’s put it to work,” there are a few things to consider. It starts with taking a step backward and performing some holistic analysis of your business as it is, and your business as you want it to be in the future. 

Assess The Status Quo

Before you can start assessing the future of your business and the way that technology will have an impact on that future, you need to take account of your business as it stands currently.

Not just the technology used in your operations, but the logistical processes, financial decisions, employee roles and responsibilities, and anything else that has a meaningful impact. 

business management operations software

Take note of every detail. Not just your inventory and related physical components of your business, but the intangible ways you go about your day, the ways your employees go about theirs, and everything in between. Analyze what’s being done on a daily basis, and what isn’t.

You’ll most likely find that the insights you uncover will range from good to bad and everything in between. Let’s go over how you should handle each:

For any positive findings about your business’ status quo that you uncover, you want to leave those mostly untouched. However, it’s still important to keep in mind the ways that technology could improve upon them. Just because these findings are positive in the current moment doesn’t ensure that they will stay that way forever as your business grows.

For any negative findings, it’s important to launch a full-scale revamp. Why and how are these findings hindering the overall health of your business? Is it a human, logistical, or technological problem? Is it a combination of these factors? This is where it becomes critically important to take a step back and figure out exactly what can be done at every level big and small.

Aside from sitting down with everything involved in the aspect of your business that you’ve found to be a hindrance, one additional decision you could make would be to contact a professional business technology consultant. They will be able to provide you with an objective perspective of your business while at the same time providing you with expertise in terms of how technology can help alleviate the problems at hand. 

Create Goals

The changes you make within your small business—technological or otherwise—are only as good as the reasons why you’re making those changes. Change for the sake of change doesn’t cut it. Meaningful changes that serve a bigger purpose with an easily quantifiable end result will prove to be changes worth making.

Successful group managing goals for digital transformation

That being said, what are the goals that indicate success for your business? If and when you achieve them, what are some other goals you will outline each and every day in order to maintain that success? At what point will you be devising new goals to accomplish?

Obviously, generating a higher revenue is the end objective for every small business. The goals involved in getting to that final destination are what will vary. Selling more products, hiring additional/specialized staff, and acquiring better leads are some of the typical means to this end.

A major component of goal setting isn’t just about defining the objective you wish to achieve—it’s about setting smaller, more granular goals on how those overarching goals will be accomplished.

For example, if your large, overarching goal is to acquire more customers, your granular goals should look something like this:

  • Develop valuable, gated content on your site that contains relevant search intent
  • Use project management tools to define your budget and medium(s) for marketing the aforementioned content
  • Utilize automation technology to send automated emails and drip campaigns to prospect information collected from the gated content
  • Ensure that a system is in place where all sales staff have access to up-to-the-minute information on leads
  • Ask for and analyze customer feedback on sales staff/process/experience in order to figure out what’s working and what can be improved upon
  • Be able to quickly view daily, monthly, quarterly, and yearly sales figures at a glance

Not every list of goals that your business puts forth will look like this. Some may include many more steps, some fewer. However, using this framework of focusing on the process minutiae in order to accomplish the larger objective, you’ll be able to hone the best technologies and processes to accomplish your goals.

Data Flow Between Systems and People

Even the most basic small businesses have several departments. Executive-level management, accounting, field employees, mid-level management—the list goes on.

Every department needs to communicate and collaborate with one another. Interdepartmental communication has always had its challenges, but given the drastic increase in some employees working from home while others are not, these challenges have been exacerbated.

business management software data management

The flow of time-sensitive information not only depends on the people involved, it now further depends on the technology used to effect that communication. Think about your own business. If tasked with retrieving information from another department, how long would you anticipate it to take to receive that information? Minutes? Hours? Complete uncertainty?

If the answer is anything above “just a few minutes” your department may find itself working in an information silo. Odds are, if one department finds itself here, they all do. 

Data silos aren’t some malevolent concoction drawn up by a disgruntled executive looking to inflict stress on his employees. They are simply a natural result of business process development. People primarily work and share information and collaborate with people in their immediate cluster of co-workers. While it’s not anyone’s fault that data silos exist within your organization, it doesn’t mean that they don’t cause problems. 

Areas Negatively Impacted By Data Silos

Productivity

Even in the most segmented businesses with the most specialized, sequestered employees that don’t share many commonalities among the tasks they perform (think accountants vs crane operators) there will be data that must be shared across departments.

The longer it takes to find information, the longer it will take to complete tasks. Simple as that. Over time, this will cause backlogs, delays, and other inefficiencies that will have a negative trickle-down effect across your entire business.

Data Accuracy and Analysis

When you were younger (or as an adult, we don’t judge) have you ever played the game “whisper down the lane?” Sometimes, the game is also called “telephone.” 

If you’re unfamiliar, the objective is for the first person in line to privately repeat a phrase to the next person in line, with every person in line privately repeating it to the next person, eventually making its way to the final person in line. Nearly every single time, the phrase is slowly—yet unintentionally—manipulated and altered so much so that it barely resembles the original phrase uttered by the first person in line who conceived it. 

When small businesses don’t have a single, centralized, data storage and communication hub that contains a single, accurate version of the truth, this same phenomenon occurs. Disconnected email chains, handwritten notes, and duplicate files are just some of the many ways that data can be misinterpreted as it passes from one person to another. 

Culture

business culture communication cartoon among three people

Beyond the technological component, communication between departments is also largely dependent on the interpersonal relationships developed between employees.

Working from home, this has become a challenge, but a far from impossible one to meet.

Regardless of geographical circumstances, members of departments often cling to their data out of fear that it will be altered by someone lacking appropriate skills or context. While taking ownership and pride in work is important, it’s just as important to have trust in members of other departments when handling data. 

When projects, documents, or other relevant information needs to be handed off to a different department, it’s important for employees to recognize that that data is safeguarded and that a proper history of edits and alterations can be recorded. A little healthy competition and chest-puffing between departments isn’t always a bad thing, but it’s important that constructive collaboration is always the top priority.

Wrapping Up

Digital transformation sounds complicated because, well, sometimes it is. Taking a step back to take a holistic look at everything going on within your business will certainly shed some light on things you were unaware of before. That’s a good thing—albeit sometimes painful if not all of those things you find are “good things.”

Technology impacts everything. From the little things people do when they clock in each day to the year-over-year goals and strategies you put forth, technology can be a catalyst to make sure your business is operating as efficiently as possible.

The great thing about integrated business management software technology at the core of your business is that it has a cyclical, reverberating effect—it allows your business to run more efficiently which streamlines your workflow, therefore creating more productivity among your employees, which allows your business to run more efficiently, which streamlines your workflow…you get the idea.

The Hidden Value of Integrated Software Systems

Posted on by Brian Kinney

Running a business is a high-stakes balancing act. Accounting, inventory, talent acquisition,  and customer relationship management are just some of the countless items that business owners, operations managers, and other executive-level employees need to manage and master simultaneously. 

In addition, you have to actively keep in mind the most important rule of all: in order to succeed, you need to keep moving forward. 

It’s easy to get lost in the sea of tasks and responsibilities that come with the territory of operating a small business. Even with reliable employees to delegate to, the hardest-working small business owners and executives still struggle to sort through and properly prioritize everything that needs to be done. There’s no one size fits all method to success—every business in every industry (not to mention every business owner and executive) is different. The challenges each face are different, sometimes drastically so, and will require different solutions.

When time is of the essence—which almost always seems like the case—it can be tempting to just simply get to work. Simply “getting to work”, implies answering the first email that you see, handling the first employee request you receive, or otherwise jumping into the throes of daily labor. In other words, many people responsible for overseeing numerous tasks and departments default to focusing entirely on a single task without always keeping in mind the bigger picture of what needs to be accomplished. 

Integrated Software Systems Help You Work Smarter

Abraham Lincolns stands with axe

Abraham Lincoln is often quoted as having said, “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six sharpening my axe.”

There’s something comforting about working hard. It provides purpose, clarity, and the peaceful satisfaction of pure, unadulterated accomplishment. Hard work is the foundation of any business and is a core personality trait of any successful businessperson. Hard work is the foundation of anything worthwhile and substantial in this world. 

For someone whose job description centers around a singular or just a small handful of tasks (i.e. making cold calls, assembling a product, or counting inventory) putting your head down and getting to work is typically the best course of action. 

But those who manage small businesses at a high level know all too well that their job description is never just one thing. It’s about being a career chameleon—sometimes the job calls for being a marketing director, sometimes it calls for being an accountant. Other times it calls for being a hands-off facilitator that’s able to successfully delegate and put others in a position to succeed.

Because small business leadership roles are so prone to widely fluctuating responsibilities, it’s not (just) about hard work. It’s about smart work. 

It’s not about any one email, sale, or decision. It’s about all of them. It’s about how they affect each other, how processes are able to cohesively mesh with one another, how action items are prioritized, and how keeping a big-picture perspective at all times enhances the effectiveness of your business strategy. It requires every small decision to be made with the business’ overarching, long-term goals in mind.

Analyzing Unintegrated Software Systems and Inefficient Processes

Sometimes, it even requires taking a further step backward to understand how and why tasks are completed, and whether the processes for completing them can be improved upon.

integrated business software

Taking a step backward to address the big “whys” and “hows” of the processes and procedures within your business is often one of the most difficult things for business owners to do.

When your business is already successful, it actually makes this process of introspection and analysis a bit harder. The “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality reigns with authority in the headspace of many business owners.

It isn’t about fixing something that is broken—don’t change what your business does (selling car parts, repairing computers, shipping home decor, etc.) but rather it’s about updating and adjusting the processes, methods, and integrated business software solutions surrounding how your business goes about achieving these goals.

For example:

If you have been successfully reaching customers via word of mouth in order to sell your products, you may want to ask “How can I market my products more effectively, profitably, and on a larger scale?”

Suppose you have been successfully tracking your inventory and sales by utilizing spreadsheets and actual sheets of paper. In that case, you may want to ask “How can I more reliably sort, analyze, and keep my data safe?”

If you have been successfully sending field technicians to their job sites but have been exclusively using text messages and phone calls to communicate financial, customer, and job site data, you might ask “How can I implement a more streamlined system for transmitting sensitive data from the field to the office and vice versa?”

What do the processes described in these common scenarios all have in common? 

  1. The processes being relied upon are unintegrated and disconnected.
  2. These processes are centered around outdated technology or inefficient methodologies.
  3. The unintegrated and antiquated nature of these processes does not allow for a clear, big-picture focus to be implemented at every level of decision-making and action, hindering growth, scalability, and profitability.

For small businesses, the first step to moving forward should be to take a step back and analyze the process-level improvements that can be made in terms of utilizing technology to optimize workflows and processes.

This isn’t to say that every procedure within your company needs to be overhauled or that every piece of technology your business owns is now rendered useless—it’s about making sure that every procedure within your company is connected in the most optimal fashion, and that employees are going about their business in the most efficient way possible. From accounting to CRM to projects to onboarding, the interconnectedness of data points and information is a catalyst for better strategic and financial outcomes.

For small businesses, it pays to take note of the strategies large enterprises are backing:

  • Data-driven companies are growing at a rate of about 30% annually.
  • Data-driven companies are 20x more likely to attract customers and 6x more likely to retain them.
  • 91.9% of leading companies are accelerating their “big data” investments.

It’s worth noting that these organizations have a (much) higher budget than small businesses do. They will be able to leverage gargantuan data sets from across the globe faster than any small business is capable of. That doesn’t diminish the fact that the strategy of utilizing fully integrated systems is a winning one. In fact, there are many ways that small businesses can put the same strategies to work.

Before these organizations implemented innovative, integrated business management technology in order to leverage their data, they made the important first step that we discussed earlier: taking a step back to assess what improvements could be made to their existing processes and operations and what downsides arise due to disconnected systems. 

Let’s take a look at some of the most common challenges caused by process inefficiencies at the technological level and the effects that addressing these problems at their root can have.

Challenges Caused By Disconnected Software Systems

Delayed Data and Reporting

Having accurate data is good—but having accurate, real-time, and easily accessible data is great. When relying on various and scattered spreadsheets, text messages, and emails to find important information, both accuracy and efficiency suffer, leading to slower overall time to task completion.

In all, businesses lose about 20% of their potential revenue due to poor-quality data.

This could potentially have a trickle-down effect in all phases of your business. For example, an incorrect or lagging inventory count will throw sales numbers into a state of confusion, therefore increasing the amount of time accountants spend trying to find accurate information. They’ll need to consult various records in order to rectify the numbers. Not only will this result in wasted time, it could potentially result in a customer not being able to fulfill their order due to incorrect inventory figures. 

Wasted Productivity

Time is always of the essence—when it comes to the information that your business needs to function each day, the less time that can be spent searching for the accurate version of said information eats into productivity. In fact, if there are multiple versions of the same data at all, that should be an indicator that this is a process to be improved upon.

business management efficiency integrated software

Wasted time hurts businesses in more ways than one. When employees at all levels are utilizing inefficient processes, it not only takes away from additional productivity, it lowers the overall accuracy of the information, therefore leading to an increased lack of productivity by having to solve errors when they arise. Yes, errors are inevitable, but taking substantial efforts to reduce their frequency and severity will pay off in the long run.

Increased Cost

While faulty data and decreased productivity lead to reduced revenue, there are other elements that can lead to inefficient processes and systems that generate an increased cost.

Odds are, you utilize some sort of technology to manage your customer data, accounting needs, and other standard types of operations. Are these technologies built to connect to each other? When something goes wrong, is there a single entity you can contact, or will you have to spend additional time and money on customer support from various technology providers to get to the root of the problem? Have you had to spend additional time both learning and teaching your employees the ins and outs of several, separate software systems?

With the ever-increasing costs associated with goods and labor, it’s imperative that the technology your business relies on to function properly provides a net positive cost-benefit ratio.

Wrapping Up

Integrated software systems technology can and should be used as a boon to improve your business at a holistic level. At the end of the day, technology is a means to an end—that end is making your business operate more efficiently and profitably than it did the day before. 

Contractor Management Software: Benefits and Advantages

Posted on by Reesa David

The world of construction and contracting contains a lot of moving parts, literally and figuratively. Tools, materials, and machines need to be transported, assembled, and installed at every job site. 

Beyond the physical labor lies the real headache of contracting—legal documents, compliance measures, appraisals, estimates, budget reports…the list is seemingly endless.

Every business that handles construction and contractor management does things a bit differently. Some have completely integrated business management software solutions while others still rely on manual, analog business practices. 

The reality is that most businesses find themselves somewhere in between when it comes to technological integration.

Benefits Of Contractor Management Software

Construction and contracting companies (and businesses in other industries that rely on various types of contract work) share a common goal, no matter the specifics of the project, customer, or client—that common goal is creating value and increasing revenue.

construction and contractor management software

Experts on construction and contracting productivity estimate that 35% of construction time is spent on non-productive activities. It’s not necessarily the activities, objectives, or the people themselves that are inefficient—it’s the methods and processes that cause stagnation. 

Contractor management software helps businesses streamline the processes that their business already accomplishes on a daily basis. Job costing, equipment tracking, and estimating are just some of the processes that contractor management software helps your business improve upon.

Have you experienced the pitfalls of tracking equipment with pencil and paper? Have you had to repeatedly run the same numbers to make sure you’re still under budget? Have you had to pause your labor to call your office staff numerous times from the same job site on the same day to acquire crucial information?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, it’s time to consider exploring the use of contractor management software within your organization.

On the other hand, if you haven’t experienced any of these headaches yet, consider yourself lucky. You have the chance to proactively build better processes before any of these hurdles arise.

Better Communication, Better Bottom Line

Communication is important in every line of work. However, when it comes to working with a variety of subcontractors and contracted parties, communication takes on an increased importance.

Quality communication—or lack thereof—has a tangible impact on job sites. In construction and engineering projects, 52% of rework is caused by poor project data and miscommunication. This translates to nearly $31.3 billion in rework in the U.S. alone in 2022.

construction professionals communicating over blueprint

By utilizing the tools that contractor management software offers, you won’t have any ambiguity about budgets, schedules, or the status of work. 

Imagine this: many businesses use emails to send documents, isolated hard drives to store files, text messages to share images and status updates, paper and pencil to sign out equipment and materials, and expensive third parties to craft contracts. 

Using so many disconnected software systems (not to mention some entirely paper-based systems) leaves the door open for errors, delays, and miscommunication of all kinds. Contractor management software puts everything you need in one place, able to be accessed anywhere, anytime, without the high risk of errors and faulty data.

Reduced Risk Exposure

The task of maintaining full legal and regulatory compliance is a multifaceted, challenging endeavor. Businesses deal with complex and oft-changing tax codes, strict OSHA regulations, and countless types of insurance guidelines. 

It’s easy for disorganization to run rampant if your systems and processes are not efficient and in unison. Though it may be tempting to safe keep all pertinent company documents in your private, isolated filing cabinet, it’s important to understand that there is a better, safer, more effective way. 

One of the biggest benefits of contractor management software is that you’ll be able to set parameters for your organization’s specific compliance requirements. From there, you can upload documents and let automation handle the rest.

With a quick search query you’ll be able to:

  • Make sure that all of your contingency workers have their certifications up to date
  • Verify specific tax considerations for each job site
  • Manage documents relating to incident reports and insurance claims

Beyond the increased level of organization and speed of access, your documents will be safer, too—a cloud-based, cryptographically protected, backed-up document storage solution will make sure that your data is never lost or damaged. 

Compared to the single, lock-and-key filing cabinet, contractor management software is a much better solution for making sure that you and your employees are fully protected, both physically and legally.

Better Talent Acquisition and Onboarding

Your employees are the lifeblood of your business—making sure that your pool of prospective talent stays warm should be of the utmost priority. 

The hiring and onboarding processes are never without hiccups and a substantial time commitment. This becomes even more true when your business relies on the services of subcontractors and freelancers. 

Hr Manager Hand Hold Cv Resume Of Construction Worker Over Group Of People Different Professions Choose Candidate

Building a better and more efficient hiring process takes time, energy, and yes, money. Investing in your employees and their well-being begins before they officially sign on—it starts with the hiring process itself.

The good news is that your talent acquisition solution doesn’t have to break the bank. Instead of relying on costly sites such as Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and LinkedIn to manage your hiring processes, you can (easily and cost-efficiently) handle it internally. Better yet—most of the process can be automated.

Beyond cost savings, you’ll be able to find candidates that truly match your organization’s needs.

The best contractor management software solutions offer an integrated HR portal that handles everything you need to attract, hire, onboard, and retain top talent. Create job postings, store background checks, resumes, and other documents, and automate recruiting workflows by position. 

Operational Overview

While delegation and trust are important qualities of being a business leader, it’s still just as important to maintain an accurate, informed overview of all of your business operations.

Though you may not be directly involved in certain aspects of a project lifecycle, it’s still crucial to be able to access all of that information at a glance. 

Let’s take a look at this example:

A customer drastically changes their mind about the direction of a project. In the beginning, they were looking for something “simplistic”, but things have changed—new decision-makers have been appointed, and they have their own vision of how things should look. They’re signing the checks, after all, so you do your best to accommodate.

Your project manager comes to you for input about the client’s requested changes. 

“We’re going to need a bigger daily budget, more highly-specialized contractors, new materials that need to be shipped from halfway across the world…”

As you’ve probably witnessed firsthand, the list of variables that change during the lifecycle of a project is seldom only three items long. If your processes are disconnected and disorganized, the logistics of making these changes a reality will be a major headache.

Double-checking figures, searching for missing documents, scouring through old text messages and emails, manually taking inventory—in all reality, these few hang-ups only scratch the surface of what you’ll need to account for.  

Project managers, and employees in helmets

Contractor management software keeps the small details neatly organized while never losing sight of the big picture. Create interactive workflows, organize tasks for each employee with smart labeling technology, and easily adjust job scopes and timelines.

Not only will this make you and your workers’ lives easier, but it’ll also provide your client with up-to-the-minute, fully transparent information. 

Even after the contractors are done, it’s important to remember that they’re not the only people involved in the business surrounding buying, selling, and maintaining it. It’s important to make sure that the software you choose to help increase efficiency and boost profits also acts as software for real estate development teams that are affiliated with this property.

Contractor Management Software Keeps Your Business Moving

Contracting is never a one-size-fits-all industry. No matter the project, there will always be changes, updates, and hurdles. This will never change. As a leader, your job is to navigate these choppy waters with planned precision and professionalism. 

Contractor management software helps immensely—it allows you to plan ahead while being able to make adjustments with ease. It allows you to intuitively remove inefficiencies in order to cut costs. It also allows you to plan for the future by ensuring that your pipeline of contractors and subcontractors is skilled and plentiful. 

all in one contractor and construction management software

If you find yourself consistently looking for a better, less stressful path to completed jobs and sustained success, contractor management software will allow you to accomplish just that.

Automation: Linking Manufacturers and Localization

Posted on by Julie Basello

For a long time, manufacturers have operated within the parameters of globalization as a necessary strategy for success in a worldwide marketplace.

What is the definition of globalization? According to the World Economic Forum, globalization can be defined in simple terms as “the process by which people and goods move easily across borders. Principally, it’s an economic concept – the integration of markets, trade, and investments with few barriers to slow the flow of products and services between nations.”

manufacturing management software

In manufacturing, globalization has long been a strategy. Because of this strategy, products produced in large factories in low-cost areas such as Asia have benefited consumers. Low costs for doing business have generated operational cost savings that have been transferred to end users. The volume of available products has also been a benefit to consumers.

Yet globalization may be moving past its prime in terms of effectiveness in the world of manufacturing. Labor pools are dwindling and costs of doing business continue to rise. There is a shift towards localization happening in manufacturing.

This shift provides economic opportunities for companies of all sizes and it’s changing how manufacturers are doing business. When you add automation into this shifting paradigm, it becomes even more effective.

What is localization?

In manufacturing, localization is having a network of smaller manufacturing facilities around the world rather than a few large production centers. Why is localization important in manufacturing? It allows manufacturers to be closer to where their customers are. With a localization strategy, large companies can still think globally but build locally. This is efficiently achieved through automation in the form of micro factories.

What is a microfactory?

Microfactories are smaller factories that utilize automation rather than human labor, saving money while increasing the quality of production and consistency of output.

Normally, smaller factories serving regional markets would seem at odds with the goals of large companies with production centers. Through automation in the form of microfactories, however, large companies can effectively achieve localization strategies. This opens the door to lower costs, more efficient operations, and greater scope of use for manufacturers. It gives large companies the best of both worlds.

Microfactories have another added benefit in the world marketplace. They even the playing field because they make manufacturing more accessible to businesses that can’t afford massive manufacturing overhead but still have products to produce.

Small businesses looking to better utilize automation can now utilize the scale of manufacturing for their products without the overhead costs that exist in a global strategy. With machine automation and localization, and the cost efficiencies that accompany them, manufacturing becomes accessible to just about anyone.

There are many cost benefits to automation as it affects localization. But there are other benefits for manufacturers as well. Proximity to customers means businesses can be more in tune with customer wants and needs. Marketing plans can be geared towards a specific regional audience and campaigns can be responsive to what customers respond to.

manufacturing management software profit

Globalization is losing the impact it once had in a world where consumer demand for authenticity and affinity is steadily increasing. Automation, as a bridge for manufacturers, increases the ability for companies of all sizes to embrace localization and succeed in a rapidly changing marketplace.

5 Things All In One Business Management Software Does Better

Posted on by Scott Hammer

As your business grows, your processes become more complex. Spreadsheets just don’t get the job done anymore. And separate software subscriptions tend to tie up processes more than they tie them together. Here’s what all in one business software does better than any other ERP solution on the market.

Data Flows Are More Intelligent

All in one business management software handles data better than separate applications, documents or spreadsheets. The reason is simple: if all core business functions are connected, information flows freely throughout the system. Imagine financial data natively working with sales, project, and inventory data. 

When you have a single data source, information never gets lost. That’s a far cry from the typical office scenario: your accountant “owns” your financial data in one system, while your project manager “owns” project data in another system. How easily can those two work together if they use completely separate systems, with different interfaces?

All In One Software Means Native Integration

While there are software products that claim to be all in one business solutions, the reality is quite different. Most products assembled to be comprehensive business software are actually cobbled together from systems that have been acquired or adapted. 

If your software systems have been developed in silos, how can you possibly expect it to break down the silos in your own company?

True all in one business software means that every line of code was developed by the same team. It means the interface is the same, so every employee in your company can use it, regardless of job function. When your project team needs support, they’re not calling someone completely different than your accounting department called the week before.

Saves You Money

When your business can no longer run on spreadsheets or filing paperwork, you have two choices: move to a single system or purchase upwards of ten different software products. (If you’ve done the latter, go ahead and count how many you’re currently using).

As the products pile up, so do your subscription costs. As you count the number of software products you’re using, it might be worth adding up your total monthly payment. When you’re done, do some comparative pricing and see how much an all in one business software can save you.

Support is Actually Supportive

When you use all in one business software, you can ditch your list of phone numbers and emails for every software you use. You can stop the live chats, support tickets, and any other method you use to seek help from the many different groups that support your products.

all in one business management erp

Having software vendors with in-house support means you only need to rely on them for anything you need. It’s especially helpful to have an advisor assigned to your account who understands any support issue you could possibly have. That way, you won’t get passed around between support departments. You won’t speak with someone who lacks information about your support history. The best software support is there for you, 24/7.

Offers More Coherence

Coherence in what, exactly? You name it.

Document storage, internal communication, scheduling, user experience… the list goes on. It doesn’t take a team of IT experts to use a great all in one solution— this type of software is designed for every employee. The interface is simple, and so is the way data passes through it. 

Imagine how much more helpful your employees could be with any team in the company when they use the same software to perform their job functions. That value goes way beyond time saved. It’s also about team building and coherence in company culture. After all, your employees spend a lot of their day using software. Make it an outstanding experience.

Conclusion

As your company searches for ways to handle a growing workload, customer base, and data complexity, consider your options. You can pay more for software, only to end up with more confusion. Or, you could house all of your company data in a single solution. 

The truth is, there are very few actual all in one business solutions out there, especially at a price point that will generate a quick ROI. But they exist, and a little searching and comparison will go a long way in easing the growing pains of your business.

Striven Earns 2 Top Software Awards

Posted on by Scott Hammer

Lumberton, NJ, August 27, 2019- Striven ERP was recently presented with the Rising Star and Premium Usability awards following an independent review of its software application by Finances Online. These awards represent the impact Striven has made on the business management software market and the excellent user experience the software provides.

A Top Evaluation for Striven

According to Finances Online, the Rising Star award “is given to new SaaS products that recently got increasingly popular on the market, are currently getting very good traction with the customers and are viewed as a service that’s really efficient for solving problems users face now.” The Premium Usability award “is granted to products that offer an especially good user experience. [Finances Online] evaluates how easy it is to start using the product and how well-designed its interface and features are to facilitate the work process.”

“We believe the user experience is a valuable commodity, and a good ERP system should properly leverage it,” said Pashupati Shrestha, Director of Product Development. “Based on user feedback, we have re-engineered our features to be easier, faster, and more productive. We are constantly sourcing ideas and recommendations from our customers, and implementing them with each new release to make Striven a best-in-class ERP software.”

In its independent review, Finances Online further highlights Striven’s capabilities to help companies boost sales. They note that Striven’s CRM tools let users “leverage data and sustain and ensure new customer relationships.” Among other features, the review team adds that Striven helps users improve planning and collaboration. They write that “the software gives you an array of tools you need throughout the project management cycle: from planning and scheduling to tracking and managing, controlling and analyzing, and closing.”

Outstanding Customer Satisfaction

The review also reports a 96% user satisfaction rating from Striven users. After gathering and aggregating customer reviews, comments, and application reviews across a wide range of data sources, they have found hundreds of positive mentions of Striven.

The Finances Online team concludes its review by citing Striven’s ability to be a single solution for businesses. They write that Striven is a “centralized system that can offer users the power to unravel data, manage projects and teams, and connect and sustain customers for the vitality of the business. It removes the need for separate and disparate systems, making it easy for you to access a single version of the truth, avoid duplication of process results, and save your business money.”

“We’re honored to have earned these awards,” said Chris Miles, CEO of Miles Technologies, Striven’s developer. “We feel they reflect Striven’s competitive advantage and emphasize our mission of helping people accomplish more.”

About the Review Team

Finances Online is the fastest-growing independent review platform for B2B, SaaS, and financial solutions. When evaluating software, their experts perform a thorough and unbiased analysis of each product’s main functionalities and features. They also take collaboration features, customization, app integration, customer support, and mobility into account for their reviews.