Friday, March 3, 2017
Managing A Multi Location Business with Technology
Managing A Multi Location Business with Technology
Location Collaboration with Business Technology
by: Dalton Crosby
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| www.TekoaERP.com |
In order to keep up in today’s ever-changing business landscape; it is paramount to keep a mentality of expansion, but with this new growth comes plenty of challenges that will require creative, technological solutions.
Here are 4 of the most common business process issues that occur when operating multiple offices and their possible solutions:
1. Meetings.
In a traditional office, when a meeting needs to happen, everyone can just walk down the hall and sit in a conference room together. Often seen by the employee as a waste of time, a meeting must be done with extreme efficiency to be worth its time value of money. Adding an additional location can make this an even harder task as being in a separate physical setting might only add to the employee’s case of a meeting being worthless. In addition, if it becomes necessary to see work in real time, it could be expensive for a company to fly employees to a location to conduct meetings.
Solution: Implementing an effective system of communication for online meetings allow companies to meet face to face in an online conference call. It even allows employees to view each other’s desktops, making collaboration simple and safe with its built in security features. This technology is used by companies who have “$50,000 in travel savings” each year according to the Senior Director-International Finance.
2. Everyday Work.
In conjunction with meetings, it is the everyday work that becomes increasingly difficult to manage when operating a multi-office enterprise. In a traditional office, a worker could walk ten steps and ask their coworker a quick question about a projects progress, but when there is a physical distance, it becomes a time-consuming nuisance to try and always respond to an email.
Solution: Investing in a quality VoIP (Voice over IP) system allows employees to utilize simply picking up a phone and having direct communication with their coworkers. It also allows conference calls and the ability to transfer someone to different departments with the push of a button, which can make effective communication a lot easier.
3. Project Status.
Most jobs require multiple employees to work together to complete a common task. When you are in the same office, this is fairly simple as you know where to access data and what other employees have accomplished, but when you are across the country from your team, it becomes complex to know exactly where and how to access information and progress.
Solution: Installing an Enterprise Resource Planning System(ERP) that is right for your business can help cut costs and confusion by providing a central location for all of your company’s data. This can mean that everything from sales, to product costing information is available at the click of a mouse, allowing employees to understand their assignment and complete it in the timeliest fashion possible. Fast growing companies use an ERP system to manage their “real-time availability of data”, and as a company that has grown from 5 employees to 2,200 in less than 10 years, it is crucial to maintain this growth through their ERP system.
4. Manager Supervision.
As a manager in a traditional office, it is easy to see your employees and be able to manage their everyday operations, such as getting to work on time, and handling work hours appropriately, but when you are unable to physically be in the same office, it become hard to control.
Solution: To solve this issue, it is best to implement the mixture of the previous 3 solutions. By having meetings over a communication system, installing a VoIP structure, and by using ERP software, it becomes much easier to keep in touch with other locations. Even though you may not be able to physically be there, a high level of technological communication allows you to manage employees like you were.
Ultimately, the higher level of technology you implement in your business, the more successful you can be in managing a multi-location enterprise.
For more information about Cloud ERP Systems for Todays Enterprise, visit www.TekoaSoftware.com.
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