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Businesses: You need to connect to compete

20th Jun 2013
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FinancialForce.com president and CEO Jeremy Roche explains how connected apps and devices are improving cross-departmental communication and collaboration.

More and more companies now use social media and mobile devices to improve collaboration. The sales and marketing get most of the headlines when it comes to connected apps and devices, but a truly customer-centric organisation would also plug into back-office departments including finance and HR. Soon, enabling cross-departmental, cross-geographic collaboration will no longer be an option.

As analyst Phil Wainewright has said, businesses must connect to compete.

Many have tried to define what a connected enterprise is by talking solely about technology; but that’s upside down.

A truly connected organisation sees itself as a customer-focused enterprise. It operates around the customer, whether it’s with interactions through social networks or behind the scenes in managing customer transactions.

It is committed to maintaining a comprehensive view of its customers in order to serve them best, which in turn serves the bottom line. Once your organisation has this view, it’s clear why connected apps need to be part of your corporate strategy.

Connected apps are particularly adept at knocking down barriers between people and departments and the back-office has the potential to be the biggest beneficiary. The move to more immediate communiation will shift finance from a command and control centre, to an active participant and enabler in critical business conversations.

Peviously disconnected departments such as sales and finance can collaborate better on issues that matter to them and the business as a whole. In addition, management can get a better understanding of the business by 'listening' to the cross-channel chatter between departments.

Teams can escape the black hole of 'Reply all' email and participate in real-time group discussions wherever they are. More importantly, they can do so within back-office applications, and comment on specific customer activity or the transaction that generated the conversation in the first place.

So far back-office departments have been the laggards in adopting connected apps, particularly mobile. According to one survey, most accountants think of “social” as a distraction or a serious security threat. In another, finance ranked second to last for use of social media among all corporate job functions.

But let’s not just call out the accountants. A report from McKinsey Global Institute points out that while almost any human interaction in the workplace can be socialised, only 5% of all communications and content use in the US happens on social networks and that figure is bound to be even less in the UK.

That’s simply not good enough. Far from a distraction, connected technologies represent one of the greatest opportunities to boost productivity in the enterprise.

To make the back-office an effective participant, organisations across every department need to redefine customer experience as customer interactions at every touch point, from support, marketing, sales, to billing and collections.

The good news is that there are a growing number of mobile and social-embedded back-office applications that offer a seamless gateway for those in accounting, billing, services and support. These systems incorporate the financial and back-office aspect of the customer relationship into the domain of the front-office and visa versa.

They offer a way for departments to leapfrog to more central and strategic roles where their customer insight plays an integral role in creating a true 360-degree view of customers for the entire organisation.

The bottom line is understanding and commitment. Understanding the 'why' behind building a customer-centric enterprise is first.

Committing to connecting sales, support and finance to create a synchronised view of customer activity, billing and product usage is a next step.

Are you considering buying shiny new iPads for employees? Without thinking through the first two points, you’re likely to do no better than improve corporate Angry Birds scores.

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