Your business is nothing more than a process. After all, that is what a business is. It is a sequence of repeatable, and sometimes custom steps which create a predictable result, either a product or service. Process is what we all use, but often times, it is difficult to capture and create the systems that make our processes work with ease.
The beauty of Salesforce.com is the ability to support how your business runs. The steps involved for making a sale, creating attention, delivering value or supporting your customers can be created in a highly customized fashion. No two Salesforce.com systems are alike out of the thousands of users because of the ability to customize around your specific way of doing business.
As you are working on creating process within Salesforce.com, here are four tips to help you make Salesforce.com work:
- Segment your business. Break down your processes into discrete areas. It can be daunting trying to tackle your entire process. The smaller you can break down your internal processes, the more manageable it will be. Ensure the process you focus on is complete in it steps and fulfillment to deliver a result.
- Think Tasks And Communications. There are two outcomes for each step of a process – a task and a communication to a partner, customer or team member. Ensure your steps capture both aspects and that you can set up Salesforce.com to support the desired outcome.
- Identify Automation Opportunities. Certain steps can become repetitive and tedious. Think how automation via triggers or custom programming might be able to accelerate the mundane processing your users would encounter. Automation may mean an automatic task, contingent data fields populated or a triggered custom email.
- Develop Key Metrics. To see if a process is working, you need to be able to monitor it in real-time. Use custom dashboards and reports that will give you this feed-back to see the effectiveness and also allow for refinement of the process steps. It is critical for achieving perfection in the process through iteration.
Salesforce.com does not run your business perfectly. It is merely a tool which requires intelligent and deliberate customization to support the business processes you discover are successful. Be sure to think like a designer and perfect like a refiner. Use these tips to drive your organization or get some help setting up your business process.
What are some processes you would like to automate?
