Corporate software for growth
When creating a company, each account seems to be a challenge to fate - the manager is seeking the maximum opportunity to optimize costs. It is not known what will happen next, and what kind of airbag is needed. On the other hand, the company needs to provide employees, employees with workplaces, computers to equip desktops, computers ... And here begins saving on software: from email clients and office applications to antiviruses. About CRM, ERP and accounting systems, and speech, as a rule, not talking. And in vain.
Like any cybernetic system, an organization has several stages: formation, growth and development, termination of activity. And the key goal of the company is to delay the last stage as far as possible. There are many ways to do this: conversion, adaptation, development of complementary goods and services, and so on. However, in modern conditions of progress and high speed of changes, an important role is played by the formation of a competent IT infrastructure, which allows you to manage resources with high efficiency and saves time for maneuvering in the market if necessary.
Let's look at the life stages of the organization and try to determine the basic requirements for the software at each stage.
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Obviously, this is a responsible and serious stage: you need to adjust business processes, form the product life cycle, recruit staff, develop the first prototypes and conduct the first sales. At this stage, the entire strategy is built, which in many respects will determine at least the initial growth zone. It is at this stage that companies face legal and economic problems, look for ways to circumvent the difficulties, and build relationships with the market.
And what happens to the software? Alas, at the initial stage of the formation of the company (if it is not an IT business and not production), minimum attention is paid to accounting systems, CRM and control systems. Simply put, they are ignored. Business owners are wary of investing in corporate software, it is difficult for them to predict further development and payback. Meanwhile, this is the stage at which it is critically important to begin building infrastructure. The sooner a company learns to collect and analyze information, manage personnel technologically and build real business processes, conduct electronic document management, the easier it will be to develop and adapt to all changes in the competitive environment.
We in Ruli24 repeatedly analyzed the reasons for refusing automation at an early stage. And the reason is the same: the fear of losing investments in software. The company can not withstand the competition, close, change the form, change the owner, and the money spent on software will not be justified. This is partly why we divided the system into modules (from the minimum set for small teams to large-scale solutions for factories and banks) and offer Ruli24 by SaaS - you do not buy licenses by paying for the entire project, but use them as much as you need. With all the criticism of the software rental model at the beginning of the company's operations and the conditions of uncertainty, it is fully justified and economical.
To understand the importance of automating company management in the early stages, let's look at a few diagrams. By the way, these are real-life schemes reflecting the state of affairs in the respective structures.
Project Organization Process Diagram
Diagram of the processes of an ordinary commercial organization
Production organization process diagram
As you see, the number of processes depends strongly on the type of company’s business and each institution will have its own - whether it is a bank, university, or advertising agency. Accordingly, the requirements for corporate software are different for everyone - the main thing is that the modules should cover all existing processes; without this, the management automation will be not only incomplete, but also ineffective.
But business is not limited to processes - each company goes through several stages of development and these periods also determine the requirements for automation. Each organization goes through four main stages of development: orientation, frustration, integration, production. Together with the company, both the level of working maturity and management style are developing. And together with it, when going from stage to stage, crises are overcome. In order not to go the distance, both the company and its management should strive to develop in a spiral, passing stage after time again, but at a different, higher level of competence. So, for example, for a self-developing organization it is necessary to ensure the development and creation of new products on stages of the production of other products. Then the development will be systematic and progressive. In order not to load you with long descriptions of the theory of management and motivation, we suggest considering the scheme.
You ask, what have CRM, xRM, ERP and general corporate software? The fact is that a good comprehensive solution is created by the vendor just taking into account all aspects and interrelations of the subjects and objects of management. If you manage information, company and personnel separately, you will never be able to collect the metrics necessary for the timely identification of crisis and transitional periods. Similarly, without proper automation, problems will arise with the collection of requirements for new products and processes. That is, by avoiding automating at least one or two aspects of management, the entire corporate information system can be made ineffective and useless.
This is a stage of development, awareness of the mission, completion of the formation of a strategy. At this stage, the company declares itself as an active player in the market, increases its customer base, and builds long-term development plans. At the same time, an organizational culture is being formed, areas of responsibility are being consolidated, and staffing is becoming sustainable. The spirit of the team-family, sadly, goes away and is replaced by the formalization of relations. Inspiring manager becomes a good (and sometimes bad) manager, now the head of the company and top management are entrusted with the task of monitoring the quality of the product and the economic performance of the company.
If the company develops correctly, and all the necessary software was introduced during the formative stage, the requirements for the software change.
At the growth stage, there are cases when a company changes structurally and this is also a reason to return to the vendor and reconsider its approach to CIS. For example, there was a small design bureau: files, projects, task and contact management, and accounting. The earned capital is reinvested in development and now the bureau is already acquiring a printing house (warehouse and production) and simultaneously opens a small store with postcards, calendars and other printing services. This is the case when you need to connect profile modules (warehouse, production, orders), change business processes, create integration with trading equipment.
Sooner or later, the stage comes at which the payoff comes for the attitude to data and automation. This is not the pathos of the vendor - it is the law of the market. Whatever the company produces, whatever degree of perfection the product may be, in case of unwillingness to diversify and unwillingness to change, it is expected to be either deep stagnation or death. Before our eyes, the legendary Nokia company left the market - it was too late for her to understand that it was necessary to turn around. I do not think that this was due to poor data handling, the reasons are much deeper. However, let us return from the fate of empires to urgent matters.
So, at the first and second stages corporate software was not implemented or was used formally. At the time of maturity and the emergence of requests for change from the market, there is a need for a basis for making decisions - namely, in analytics. If the data was collected incorrectly, the company is left alone with difficulties, it does not know its consumer, its market, it even happens that it cannot build sales dynamics and profitability dynamics. The knowledge and experience gained here are decided. Similarly, complimentary services products (pre-sales) are based on the analysis of information from past periods.
What should be in the third stage for the company to continue to develop in a spiral?
These factors will allow to move on, starting from the real state of affairs, which can only be expressed in numbers. It is for reliable data storage and fast data processing that we use Oracle database in Rule24. Accordingly, while working on the interface, we did not care about the thingies on the charts, but about informativeness and ease of data interpretation. Task Ruli24 : collect data on the activities of the company, record, save and interpret them.
Cloud technologies are an advanced tool that is widely used everywhere: from simple user applications to the storage and processing of big data. And to grow using cloud technologies for organizing a corporate information system is very convenient and economical. However, the benefits are slightly lower. In the meantime, consider the "evolution" of the company in terms of managing xRM-infrastructure.
The company can outsource the management of IT infrastructure. In this case, the outsource provider manages and configures the client's workstations, servers and LANs: sets access rights, creates a backup system (backups), monitors the state of the physical equipment. Such a policy is especially good at the initial stage of the company's development - outsourcing services are often more profitable than the content of a full-time system administrator.
The company is growing, data is accumulating, the staff is expanding and now the task of saving on the maintenance of automation equipment is associated with the problem of security, reliability of data storage and scalability of computing power. The most effective in such a situation is to use the services of the data center, which will allocate a server and / or virtual machine and place on it the organization management system acquired (or rather, rented) using the SaaS model. Why is it profitable?
By the way, often one of the downsides of buying software on the SaaS model is considered a “triple relationship”: the vendor, the provider (DPC) and the customer. Opponents argue that a different scheme is less reliable than direct relationships. We solved this problem long ago: in the company Ruli24 there is a data center, data warehouses, uninterruptible power supply, telecommunications structure, system and application software. Thus, we are responsible not only for the software supplied by us, but also for the stability and resiliency of the equipment.
It's no secret that for each business process in the company there are several types of corporate software: from document editors to CRM and ERP. And in each form there are the best manufacturers who have managed to translate almost all dreams in the system and realize all the requirements of the consumer. It seemed that it was easier to collect all the best, buy licenses, integrate ...
With the word "integrate" problems begin. The fact is that many vendors do everything so that their software is integrated in manual mode and then not with everything: they do not provide the platform, API, SDK, this is a closed development. And in Ruli24 there are opportunities to integrate with 1C, telephony, online stores, etc. But we are developing, like other vendors, on our own. Therefore, when new versions of software are released, it will probably need to be re-integrated, for example, with the business process editor. We have our own modules, we are supporters of complexity. And for good reason, both for us and for our customers.
Direct speech from our CEO Alexander Nefyodov, who has been working in the field of automation and cloud technologies for more than 30 years together:
The integrated solution automates almost all aspects of the company’s operations and forms the basis for the formation of the IT infrastructure. It provides management of the main business resource - information and significantly speeds up the work of each employee. In general, a good idea: while you work, competitors are busy with integration and stall. The main thing is to get this advantage at the start.
Like any cybernetic system, an organization has several stages: formation, growth and development, termination of activity. And the key goal of the company is to delay the last stage as far as possible. There are many ways to do this: conversion, adaptation, development of complementary goods and services, and so on. However, in modern conditions of progress and high speed of changes, an important role is played by the formation of a competent IT infrastructure, which allows you to manage resources with high efficiency and saves time for maneuvering in the market if necessary.
Let's look at the life stages of the organization and try to determine the basic requirements for the software at each stage.
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Three centuries of the company
1. Becoming
Obviously, this is a responsible and serious stage: you need to adjust business processes, form the product life cycle, recruit staff, develop the first prototypes and conduct the first sales. At this stage, the entire strategy is built, which in many respects will determine at least the initial growth zone. It is at this stage that companies face legal and economic problems, look for ways to circumvent the difficulties, and build relationships with the market.
And what happens to the software? Alas, at the initial stage of the formation of the company (if it is not an IT business and not production), minimum attention is paid to accounting systems, CRM and control systems. Simply put, they are ignored. Business owners are wary of investing in corporate software, it is difficult for them to predict further development and payback. Meanwhile, this is the stage at which it is critically important to begin building infrastructure. The sooner a company learns to collect and analyze information, manage personnel technologically and build real business processes, conduct electronic document management, the easier it will be to develop and adapt to all changes in the competitive environment.
- The first business processes are created and, in the absence of formalization and automation, sooner or later they will grow and become an uncontrollable mess. At the same time, you can rent a simple cloud system and build business processes within it. As a result, you will initially have to solve the problem of responsibility and routine work.
- Formed and accumulated customer base. It is a mistake to assume that the data from the notebooks and numerous files can then be easily transferred to CRM / xRM - at the time of the adoption decision you will lose a significant part of the information. The habit of entering contacts and interactions in CRM will not only streamline work with customers, protect the customer base, but also help to generate analytical reports on core business and sales.
- Accounting begins almost before the creation of the company - and he also needs automation. You can choose the classic version, 1C and integrate the rest of the software with it, the benefit is, the ways of reliable integration are becoming more and more, and you can choose another vendor’s accounting system. For example, we in Ruli24 implemented an accounting module with the possibility of accounting material and cash, accounting for settlements with suppliers and customers, etc.
- It is necessary to manage personnel: consider efficiency, organize internal corporate interaction, calculate salaries and bonuses, conduct correspondence, set tasks. Here, one accounting system is indispensable - it is necessary to additionally use calendars, schedulers, and even elements of gamification: the progress of task fulfillment, comparison with other employees, etc. Ignoring these processes at the beginning can adversely affect the working environment: employees will only strive for material motivation, not feeling the other advantages of the company.
- Literally from the first, even from zero day, projects and tasks are formed on them. Timely use of planning and visualization using the Gantt chart will not allow employees to relax - from the first day will begin serious work that is subject to control.
We in Ruli24 repeatedly analyzed the reasons for refusing automation at an early stage. And the reason is the same: the fear of losing investments in software. The company can not withstand the competition, close, change the form, change the owner, and the money spent on software will not be justified. This is partly why we divided the system into modules (from the minimum set for small teams to large-scale solutions for factories and banks) and offer Ruli24 by SaaS - you do not buy licenses by paying for the entire project, but use them as much as you need. With all the criticism of the software rental model at the beginning of the company's operations and the conditions of uncertainty, it is fully justified and economical.
Theoretical retreat
To understand the importance of automating company management in the early stages, let's look at a few diagrams. By the way, these are real-life schemes reflecting the state of affairs in the respective structures.
Project Organization Process Diagram
Diagram of the processes of an ordinary commercial organization
Production organization process diagram
As you see, the number of processes depends strongly on the type of company’s business and each institution will have its own - whether it is a bank, university, or advertising agency. Accordingly, the requirements for corporate software are different for everyone - the main thing is that the modules should cover all existing processes; without this, the management automation will be not only incomplete, but also ineffective.
But business is not limited to processes - each company goes through several stages of development and these periods also determine the requirements for automation. Each organization goes through four main stages of development: orientation, frustration, integration, production. Together with the company, both the level of working maturity and management style are developing. And together with it, when going from stage to stage, crises are overcome. In order not to go the distance, both the company and its management should strive to develop in a spiral, passing stage after time again, but at a different, higher level of competence. So, for example, for a self-developing organization it is necessary to ensure the development and creation of new products on stages of the production of other products. Then the development will be systematic and progressive. In order not to load you with long descriptions of the theory of management and motivation, we suggest considering the scheme.
You ask, what have CRM, xRM, ERP and general corporate software? The fact is that a good comprehensive solution is created by the vendor just taking into account all aspects and interrelations of the subjects and objects of management. If you manage information, company and personnel separately, you will never be able to collect the metrics necessary for the timely identification of crisis and transitional periods. Similarly, without proper automation, problems will arise with the collection of requirements for new products and processes. That is, by avoiding automating at least one or two aspects of management, the entire corporate information system can be made ineffective and useless.
2. Growth
This is a stage of development, awareness of the mission, completion of the formation of a strategy. At this stage, the company declares itself as an active player in the market, increases its customer base, and builds long-term development plans. At the same time, an organizational culture is being formed, areas of responsibility are being consolidated, and staffing is becoming sustainable. The spirit of the team-family, sadly, goes away and is replaced by the formalization of relations. Inspiring manager becomes a good (and sometimes bad) manager, now the head of the company and top management are entrusted with the task of monitoring the quality of the product and the economic performance of the company.
If the company develops correctly, and all the necessary software was introduced during the formative stage, the requirements for the software change.
- Analytics comes to the fore: sales planning, inventory analysis, warehouse management and production. The amount of data increases, there is a need for a tool for processing them. Often, it is at this stage that the previously installed corporate information systems are replaced with more powerful ones, effective DBMSs are selected (for example, we have come to Oracle), IT managers start searching for reliable and secure data warehouses. It is at this stage that clients most often contact us and the Ruli24 team is ready to transfer the client to a separate database scheme, to a separate virtual machine.
- At the same stage, after the audit of business processes, there comes a time of functional refinement of the corporate system. Together with the managers of the companies, the requirements are collected, the TK is formed and the refinement and implementation of changes takes place. Business and xRM become one.
At the growth stage, there are cases when a company changes structurally and this is also a reason to return to the vendor and reconsider its approach to CIS. For example, there was a small design bureau: files, projects, task and contact management, and accounting. The earned capital is reinvested in development and now the bureau is already acquiring a printing house (warehouse and production) and simultaneously opens a small store with postcards, calendars and other printing services. This is the case when you need to connect profile modules (warehouse, production, orders), change business processes, create integration with trading equipment.
3. A fork: maturity, a new round of development, decline, ruin
Sooner or later, the stage comes at which the payoff comes for the attitude to data and automation. This is not the pathos of the vendor - it is the law of the market. Whatever the company produces, whatever degree of perfection the product may be, in case of unwillingness to diversify and unwillingness to change, it is expected to be either deep stagnation or death. Before our eyes, the legendary Nokia company left the market - it was too late for her to understand that it was necessary to turn around. I do not think that this was due to poor data handling, the reasons are much deeper. However, let us return from the fate of empires to urgent matters.
So, at the first and second stages corporate software was not implemented or was used formally. At the time of maturity and the emergence of requests for change from the market, there is a need for a basis for making decisions - namely, in analytics. If the data was collected incorrectly, the company is left alone with difficulties, it does not know its consumer, its market, it even happens that it cannot build sales dynamics and profitability dynamics. The knowledge and experience gained here are decided. Similarly, complimentary services products (pre-sales) are based on the analysis of information from past periods.
What should be in the third stage for the company to continue to develop in a spiral?
- Debugged business processes with reminders, sharing responsibility and deadlines.
- A complete system of data accumulation and analysis (scale depends on the company, it can be OLAP-cubes, analytical reports and filters, tables, etc.).
- Reliable reliable IT infrastructure (private cloud, dedicated server).
- Effective (and not total despotic) control of personnel and counterparties.
These factors will allow to move on, starting from the real state of affairs, which can only be expressed in numbers. It is for reliable data storage and fast data processing that we use Oracle database in Rule24. Accordingly, while working on the interface, we did not care about the thingies on the charts, but about informativeness and ease of data interpretation. Task Ruli24 : collect data on the activities of the company, record, save and interpret them.
How to grow in the "clouds" - case length in history Ruli 24
Cloud technologies are an advanced tool that is widely used everywhere: from simple user applications to the storage and processing of big data. And to grow using cloud technologies for organizing a corporate information system is very convenient and economical. However, the benefits are slightly lower. In the meantime, consider the "evolution" of the company in terms of managing xRM-infrastructure.
The company can outsource the management of IT infrastructure. In this case, the outsource provider manages and configures the client's workstations, servers and LANs: sets access rights, creates a backup system (backups), monitors the state of the physical equipment. Such a policy is especially good at the initial stage of the company's development - outsourcing services are often more profitable than the content of a full-time system administrator.
The company is growing, data is accumulating, the staff is expanding and now the task of saving on the maintenance of automation equipment is associated with the problem of security, reliability of data storage and scalability of computing power. The most effective in such a situation is to use the services of the data center, which will allocate a server and / or virtual machine and place on it the organization management system acquired (or rather, rented) using the SaaS model. Why is it profitable?
- No costs associated with installing, upgrading and maintaining the hardware and software running on it.
- The implementation time of the corporate information system is reduced, its scalability is improved (both in the case of expansion and in the case of a reduction in the company, you can purchase the necessary number of licenses or refuse them).
- Updates are transparent to clients and do not interrupt the workflow.
- Since the rented software falls into operational expenses, the capital costs of building data centers, purchasing server and network equipment, hardware and software solutions to ensure continuity and operability are significantly reduced. This is a particularly important factor for large enterprises.
- Due to the fact that the company does not actually need to administer a real infrastructure, management costs are reduced.
- The interface plays an important role - it is convenient for employees to work in a familiar web browser, learning to work with the system is accelerated.
By the way, often one of the downsides of buying software on the SaaS model is considered a “triple relationship”: the vendor, the provider (DPC) and the customer. Opponents argue that a different scheme is less reliable than direct relationships. We solved this problem long ago: in the company Ruli24 there is a data center, data warehouses, uninterruptible power supply, telecommunications structure, system and application software. Thus, we are responsible not only for the software supplied by us, but also for the stability and resiliency of the equipment.
Take the best or use the multitool?
It's no secret that for each business process in the company there are several types of corporate software: from document editors to CRM and ERP. And in each form there are the best manufacturers who have managed to translate almost all dreams in the system and realize all the requirements of the consumer. It seemed that it was easier to collect all the best, buy licenses, integrate ...
With the word "integrate" problems begin. The fact is that many vendors do everything so that their software is integrated in manual mode and then not with everything: they do not provide the platform, API, SDK, this is a closed development. And in Ruli24 there are opportunities to integrate with 1C, telephony, online stores, etc. But we are developing, like other vendors, on our own. Therefore, when new versions of software are released, it will probably need to be re-integrated, for example, with the business process editor. We have our own modules, we are supporters of complexity. And for good reason, both for us and for our customers.
- Easy integration. Parts of one system (modules) are easily supplemented and without software problems.
- Saving. Delivery and support from one vendor is cheaper than scattered licenses with connectors for integration.
- The ability to combine modules, add new ones when expanding a business and disable unnecessary ones while reducing or reprofiling a company.
- The unity of data collection and storage. When the entire set of information is collected in a single system, you can build deep analytical sections and find unexpected patterns.
- Ease of development - one interface and one logic is easier to understand and remember.
- Effective technical support - you are in contact with one vendor, a real partnership is built.
- The responsibility of the vendor for the correct operation of the system and the interaction of the modules. By the way, we went further into Rule24 and place user data on our servers, that is, we ensure availability and reliability both on the application side and on the server side.
Direct speech from our CEO Alexander Nefyodov, who has been working in the field of automation and cloud technologies for more than 30 years together:
Imagine that you were instructed to build several bridges on the river with the honey and honey. That is, the banks are floating. Nor is it necessarily in one direction. Not having to build a bridge, you have to do something that would temporarily fix the coast. You say that this does not happen. But in the information systems of most medium and large enterprises this is true. When trying to buy or make independently “the best IT solutions” in each of the activities, it is often forgotten that these solutions need to be interconnected, integrated, and built bridges. At the same time, each of the manufacturers of IT solutions is floating in its own direction - this is your honey and honey. And new software versions destroy the bridges that were once built. And the bridges need to be rebuilt.
The integrated solution automates almost all aspects of the company’s operations and forms the basis for the formation of the IT infrastructure. It provides management of the main business resource - information and significantly speeds up the work of each employee. In general, a good idea: while you work, competitors are busy with integration and stall. The main thing is to get this advantage at the start.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/274949/
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