Build A Better Process Collaboration Model

You would be extremely hard-pressed to find a more prominent buzzword in the enterprise world right now than collaboration. Organizations all over the world are seeking to enhance their internal process collaboration model, and it’s no secret to software publishers who are rushing to keep up with their demands. Almost all new software being designed today is seeking to create greater transparency and communication inside of organizational business processes and the tasks that employees complete every day. This means creating a more accessible source of data (a single source of truth) for employees and stakeholders to access in order to shorten process life cycles and enhance current collaboration models.

We’ve discussed why this is a hot topic in several other articles (whether it be Millennials affect on the workforce, or why connected data is better). What’s really interesting about this influx of interest in business collaboration models is how simplistic and basic the root idea really is. Make things easier and more transparent to everyone inside of a process, and you’ll improve the speed and efficiency to which that task is performed. Pretty simple, right? With an effective process collaboration model you can use employee feedback to improve upon wasteful processes or sources of frustration as well; ensuring that your team stays happy with your software and continue to use it enthusiastically.

Unfortunately, as much as technology has helped businesses scale processes and improve businesses functions, it has also created a system of checkpoints for all the different departmental silos of the business. These checkpoints and waiting areas that stakeholders find themselves at (inside of processes) not only slow things down, they can cause opportunities to be missed and revenue to be lost, discouraging users. This realization is why so many businesses are now requesting enhanced collaboration models to be built within their software; starting with the technology that supports all the functions as they exist today.

Stop. Collaborate…. and profit?

Today, more and more businesses are seeking to make the speed at which communication occurs even faster inside of businesses process. The reason is simple—businesses want all the parties involved in a process to be able to communicate effectively and quickly to allow the process life-cycle to run its course in the most time-efficient manner possible. Basically, they want every process to go quickly! What’s more,  with strong business process collaboration and group input on decisions, everyone involved in a task is aware of how their work impacts the finish product and the others they work with.

This is the core idea behind all this collaboration talk. Businesses want things to move faster and stay successful at the same time. The phrase may be run into the ground at this point, but the whole ‘time is money’ idea still stands true today. Wasted time is the boon of profit, and businesses are looking to their process collaboration model to reduce it. What many fail to grasp in all of this is the need for transparency along with enhanced communication. How often do organizations preach the idea of thinking critically around how a process works to all of the stakeholders? It better be a lot, because it can be a critical piece of risk mitigation. Yet, if there is a lack of transparency within a process, silos can quickly form. These can be extremely harmful to your company; great ideas get stopped at the gaps and miscommunication results in data errors and costly mistakes. Then, when something goes wrong it becomes easy for departments to point fingers at each other, deepening the chasms within the business. This brings us back to the fundamental problem that began the article; a lack of community within your business.

Transparency must be combined with greater communication if an organization really wants to enhance its collaboration model inside of a process. So how does that work?

The role of software in collaboration

This need for a strong process collaboration model is not a new one, but technology is only now fully giving organizations the capacity to create the transparency and communication needed to do all of the things we listed above. Organizations like Microsoft, Salesforce, and Epicor (to name a few) all have built in social aspects to their enterprise software offerings now that lends to improving a company’s process collaboration model and fostering conversation between team members and stakeholders. These software functions allow businesses to effectively communicate all the important information around a process to the respective stakeholder; while keeping a record of the entire flow to provide full transparency to anyone involved. Feedback can be heard much more efficiently, and everyone involved in a process knows their role and how they need to work with others to get the job done quickly and successfully.

In the above demo of the Epicor Social Enterprise module, you can see an example of just how this technology can work inside of an ERP system.By demonstrating how businesses can use social technology inside of a modern ERP system to do many of the things outlined above, it’s clear to see that modern technology is being designed to support your efforts for a better process collaboration model, and to create a sense of interconnectivity and community within the system that runs your operations. If you’re looking into improving upon your collaborative process, consider enterprise software.

Scared of social?

Many businesses may hear the term social inside of this conversation and immediately think of Facebook and Twitter and other time-wasting activities that shouldn’t have a place in the business world.  This then leads to visions of employees and stakeholders sharing personal information and chatting about non-relevant information. However, this kind of thinking is truly reductive. The truth is that the value of social sharing and communication cannot be overstated when it comes to your business’ most crucial processes. The term social in this situation is speaking specifically to business process collaboration model best  practices: the ability to socially connect with all the parties involved in a process and collaborate around tasks, functions, and responsibilities. There’s reason to fear the ‘s’ word; you should be embracing it instead.

Wrap-up

Businesses that want a better collaboration model are going to have to work for it. Burdensome check points and waiting areas between your processes and departments are a product of the way that many conduct business today—a state of mind that can be hard to escape. Fortunately, most modern enterprise software should contain the ability to unseat these practices and replace them with a more collaborative model. However, we do always caution that software alone will not solve any challenges. Businesses must have a fundamentally perfect idea of how the software needs to work inside of their business to implement it (and its modules) correctly and to truly achieve great ROI on the software.

For more information about process collaboration models, or software and businesses processes that can increase revenue and decrease costs contact the Datix team today.