Sharing critical data with customers empowers them with information and in turn gives you a more loyal customer

When developing custom software, it's important to identify and prioritize the steps of the operations which are being automated.

The difference in a good service and a great service is collaboration. The operations team must collaborate to share data, notes and documents during the fulfillment process. 

• Better collaboration and organized communications produce better products and services

• The team is empowered, well informed and knows their responsibilities & priorities

• Track the process, Review the process, Learn from the process and Improve the process

• Sharing critical data with customers creates a loyal bond and gives you a competitive edge

Optimal Process Team Share is a secure web based collaboration tool which allows users to share Data, Notes and Documents. You define each user's role and they will be able to view and update exactly what they need and nothing more. Branded to your company and customized according to your business rules and data requirements. Extend information to your staff, customers, vendors and partners as needed. Use it on your desktop or on any mobile device.

The Southern Growth Studio, Otherlands, and Optimal Process continue their exciting, informative business lunch series.

Rethinking Business will provide key insights and breakthrough inspiration for business leaders who have professional or personal ties to Midtown or Downtown Memphis.

The featured speaker will be Jay Morgan, SVP at Merck. Jay will be discussing "Design Thinking".

A FREE LUNCH will be sponsored by Optimal Process. The event is limited to the first 30 people who sign up, so RSVP now on EventBright.

See you at noon on June 13th.

OPI is now implementing its latest tool for several clients. This data collaboration tool allows data to be stored and shared securely on a cloud server. Open projects or orders and swap notes. Upload a file and attach it to an open project or order. Admins can configure users determining what and how they can access data. We feel this tool is the basis for collaboration along many types of business to business relationships. Tell me about your data collaboration needs.

I am so pleased with our first ever "Rethinking Business" luncheon. The event was March 18 at Otherlands and was very well attended. We had an overflow crowd, who knew we needed more SRO space? Thanks to Southern Growth Studio and Otherlands for partnering with us on this project. Now, its time to start planning the next luncheon in mid June.

Here is some info about the Luncheon:

Rethinking Business :: A Free Business Lunch

The Southern Growth Studio, Otherlands, and Optimal Process kicks off an exciting, informative business lunch series.

Rethinking Business will provide key insights and breakthrough inspiration for business leaders who have profressional or personal ties to Midtown or Downtown Memphis.

The first event will feature the founders of the Southern Growth Studio, Jocelyn Atkinson and Michael Graber, discussing their findings from a recent trip to Zappos and the Downtown Project of Las Vegas. These revolutionary examples of growth, culture, and start up zeal contain lessons the Memphis business culture can adapt to its own growth goals. More here: http://www.memphisdailynews.com/news/2013/feb/6/economic-development-through-entrepreneurism

Fulfillment software ties together many aspects of your business. It is certainly an effort to create, enhance and maintain software but the benefits of having customized fulfillment software that fits your business and corporate culture far out way the costs.

There are many variations of fulfillment. We will define fulfillment as every process from the time the customer makes their first touch of our company until their product or service is delivered. This excludes any marketing which is done prior to the customer reaching out to our company. Once the customer has reached out and touched us in any way (phone call, email, web site, meeting, etc) then fulfillment has begun.

Typical steps of fulfillment:

Inquiry Communications

Detail Correspondence

Presentations

Quote

Engagement

Invoicing

Scheduling

Source or Build Product or Service

Deliver

Customer Service

We are taking the customer from their initial interest to the receipt of our product or service. The processes to handle this are diverse. We want to explore the effectiveness of creating custom software applications which support these processes.

Creating and enhancing custom software for your business is like hiring and training an employee and making them more valuable for your company. Engaging all employees on enhancing the system gives them the ownership and inspiration that will in turn bring efficiency and benefits to the company. The more we focus on what it takes to do fulfillment, the better the process becomes. We become more efficient and we produce a better product and service. As with any innovation, we will more cheaply produce a better quality product and service. This is a competitive advantage. Our system becomes a knowledge resource that is able to collaborate amongst staff, vendors and customers. It tracks and reinforces innovation. Matching the system to our business process brings efficiencies. New employees will learn both the system and the business practices simultaneously because they are one in the same. There is no superfluous information and the correct info is there when they need it. Custom software provides an interface to your other internal systems as well as your vendor's and customer's systems. Engaged and inspired employees are happy employees.

To begin the process of creating a custom fulfillment system, you should assemble a team and set your goals. When assembling a team to develop custom software, you must choose a diverse group that collectively knows your business from a high level all the way down to every detail as well as a technical group who knows how to create and maintain the software. The software team may be an outsource group but your organization must provide them the business rules and work with them every step of the way. Its important to set goals for the specific benefits you want to achieve and a budget. Your resources (team) and these goals will set in motion the necessary components to assure your system is implemented as desired.

Fulfillment is central to your company's success. Innovation, however small or large, is the most important accomplishment an employee can bring to a company. Giving them the platform and opportunity to implement this innovation is paramount. Assembly your team and set your goals and push on.

Steve Cantor


Steve Cantor is president of Optimal Process which is a software development group that provides Software Development Services.

Your business provides a valuable service to your customers. It must or you wouldn't be in business. When you have circumstances which interrupt your service then your customers are effected and even more import their customers are effected. Your customers understand to a point that “shit happens” but they have to look out for themselves. If your service interruption effects their customers significantly they will be forced to consider other solutions.

An absolutely uninterpretable business service is impossible. Or better stated, it is impractical. You must prioritize which parts of your business you want to make less interpretable. You should focus on these priorities until you are satisfied. Then move on to the lower priorities.

To provide an uninterpretable service you must consider all the possibilities of interruption. Weather related issues like power failure, flood, tornado, etc. Human resource issues like someone is sick or dies or simply disappears for whatever reason. Infrastructure issues like equipment or software failure. In most cases redundancy is the strongest defense. Having an alternate facility, duplicate equipment and depth of resources is a great concept but often too costly. You must come up with creative ways to have something close to full redundancy without having the additional cost of it. Using an outsource firm is an effective way to handle certain functions on a regular basis with some plan in place for them to handle other services should it become necessary. Typically it's some combination of all these that's the best solution.

Explaining your business continuity plan to your customers is important. They will appreciate your policy and understand the additional costs that it requires.

Creating a business continuity plan and implementing one are two different things. An untested business continuity plan is purely academic. Just like any other business process, knowing what to do and doing it are quite different. You should work through your business continuity procedures and mimic reality as close as practical. Don't create a flood but do consider everything that would happen in a flood and determine how you will work around it and do it for some test period.

In summary, you should identify the threats, prioritize them, define procedures to work around the situation and perform the procedures for a test period. Then do it all over again until you are comfortable that you have a plan in place which will provide business continuity for your operations.

Steve Cantor


Steve Cantor is president of Optimal Process which is a software development group that provides Software Development Services.