Top 5 Trends for Driving Business Results through By George Wellock, Senior Management Consultant
Improved customer experiences, enhanced supply chain efficiency and greater employee retention are some of the many benefits behind five trends for driving more business results through a common tool called “process mapping.” An investment in process mapping provides a visual story of a company’s daily operations that delivers benefits on multiple levels and paves the way to stay ahead of the competition. Consider the following trends: Trend 1: Improve customer interaction by streamlining CRM workflows Want to simplify how employees interact with customers more consistently and provide the same experiences time after time? Many companies are developing workflow configurations in their CRM systems to do just that. Using process mapping techniques, these critical processes are standardized and simplified using CRM best practices and provide a visual tool that results in improved procedures. Process mapping allows all customer service reps to deliver a superior customer experience and points to cross-selling and up-selling opportunities to enhance the CRM value proposition.  Trend 2: Better meet customer requirements by increasing end-to-end supply chain visibility Supply chains are very complex processes and require good visibility from end to end in order to successfully meet all customer requirements. To gain visibility, process maps can be developed to provide a view of how things flow and allow numerous opportunities to streamline and simplify these complex process flows. This visibility provides the tools to develop process consistency, regardless of the expansiveness of a supply chain. Once standardized, visibility can be enhanced through the development of consistent benchmarks and robust metrics that drive stronger results. Trend 3: Eliminate waste and improve profitability by driving greater supply chain efficiency and accuracy The consistent challenge for any supply chain leader is to drive out waste and improve profitability. This simple mapping tool offers a way to locate the biggest opportunities and supports a continuous-improvement culture. The unspoken benefits of streamlining a process include improved cycle time, better on-time delivery, cost reduction and heightened customer satisfaction. Process mapping opens the window to these opportunities and keeping process maps current supports ongoing improvement initiatives. Trend 4: Create strategic partnerships and build trust by extending supply chains Companies are extending their supply chains through strategic partnerships to gain competitive advantage to all members of the relationships. To optimize the extended supply chain, businesses can use joint process mapping tools and share their best practices with each other. Partners can methodically streamline the interfaces between multiple sites and organizations and heighten consistency to build trust in the relationship. Trend 5: Retain key employees and increase employee Involvement by process mapping A final trend in most businesses is the need to retain the best employees and key stakeholders. Process mapping techniques provide a wonderful way for any organization to keep key employees involved and improve the business at the same time. The best participants in any mapping event are those closest to the process and giving these key resources the opportunity to build process best practices energizes teams and enhances employee loyalty. Companies should not overlook process mapping as a critical ingredient in their continuous-improvement game plan. Give Pragmatek a call to learn more and ask questions. |
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