Eliminating paper-based business processes from your company may be one of the best software development projects to undertake in times of pandemic! Have you thought about it?
We have written in previous posts that Digital Transformation is taking place on two main poles or towards two main goals, if you prefer:
From these two main poles a large number of Communication, Marketing & Sales and Development projects and activities are derived in organizations, but unfortunately, many of these projects and activities still rely on paper business process.
Paper-based Business Processes in Customer Experience
Being able to communicate in real time and at any time with Customers allows you to ensure Customer / Consumer Satisfaction and also, to benefit from invaluable Customer Intelligence.
This implies to maintain a permanent or almost permanent communication channel with Customers. This also signals for many companies the need to implement new digital communication tools such as Social Media, Chats, Digital Forms, Forums, etc., and Sales tools such as a secure eCommerce website or digital inventory (SAQ), for example.
You will understand that it is difficult to be agile and efficient if internal communications are still contaminated with “paper”. And it will be necessary to first improve internal communications before improving it externally. A very simple way to do this is to remove paper from the equation. GE’s big boss in the 2000s, Jack Welch, understood this and made it a global priority across all GE’s business units.
Certainly, on an environmental level, it’s a good thing, but the greatest benefits are not at that level. The objective of this initiative is to improve Customer Communications and Customer Satisfaction and ultimately, to increase Sales.
True that replacing a paper communication with an email will generally be more efficient, but it is not as simple as that. Often, the process itself will have to be improved to eliminate paper.
For example, if a department within an organization sends a paper credit approval to the credit department, this implies that the data from that application is not scanned and the data will certainly have to be re-entered by the credit department and probably re-entered by another department later on, etc. You see what I’m getting at, it’s the Domino effect.
In addition, it is essential that Sales Reports, Sales Projection Reports, Customer Needs Surveys, Customer Satisfaction Surveys, Chat and Forum Conversation Analysis and of other digital platforms on which Customers / Consumers engage the conversation with the company or between themselves be accessible in a digital format so that it can be thoroughly cross-analyzed and presented in meaningful reports and in Dashboards, for example.
We are talking here about both structured and unstructured data. According to Harvard Business Review, cross-industry studies show that companies use, on average, less than 50% of their structured data for decision-making and less than 1% of their unstructured data is either analyzed or used.
There is a huge potential for significant intelligence to be discovered here. Of course, sales reports by Customer, by Territory, by Products/Services are essential, but conversations in Chats, Forums, Social Media and other digital platforms contain gold mines of information about why Customers buy a product, love a brand or why they abandon them.
Customer Experience Intelligence data (structured or unstructured) should be available to Customer Service and Sales & Marketing. For the company to take full advantage of it, it must be digitized and undergo an automated process of in-depth analysis. Here, more than anywhere else, it is time to say goodbye to paper!
So, if you set yourself the goal of totally removing or at least reducing the use of paper in your organization in terms of Customer Experience, this amounts to saying that you want to optimize most or almost all of your Sales & Marketing and Clientele Service business processes. Take it step by step, starting with what is most profitable and/or damaging.
Paper-based Business Processes in Product Development
In the 21st century, an efficient and competitive company must be able to develop and market new Products / Services as demand evolves; in short, to meet demand and follow the evolution of the market… in real time.
It must therefore know and follow in real time the evolution of the Clientele needs as well as the evolution of the market.
On the one hand, the Product/Service Development Department must have access to the Marketing Intelligence of the Sales & Marketing Department. It must have access to Sales reports, Sales projection reports, Customer needs surveys, Customer Satisfaction surveys, analyses of chat conversations and forums and of other digital platforms on which Customers / Consumers engage the conversation with the company or between themselves.
All these reports and surveys must be digitized to be integrated into an automated process of in-depth analysis (Deep Learning & AI) that will allow to extract the Intelligence, highlight the data and significant conclusions regarding the evolution of the market that will, in turn, enlighten the Department in its crucial decisions regarding the priorities for the development of new Products / Services and production schedule.
On the other hand, to be able to improve Product / Service Development in terms of quality but also in terms of production and marketing, it takes agile and efficient processes… that be paperless, certainly!
Did you know that the government is helping you financially turning your Digital Transformation with the C3i?
The Government of Quebec has introduced a new Tax Credit (C3i) that essentially aims to support businesses in their Digital Transformation.
The C3i is a tax credit that can be claimed by eligible corporations in all sectors of activity for their acquisitions of specified goods (including manufacturing and processing equipment, computer equipment and certain management software packages). C3i replaces the Investment Tax Credit.
Whether you want to set up a large Digital Transformation project or simply want to set up an eCommerce website, the Tax Credit (C3i) is for you.
And the C3i will apply equally well to the automation of business processes involved in the Digital Transformation of your business.
In short, there has never been a better opportunity to digitally transform your business… by eliminating paper-based business processes, among others!