The business buzzwords of 2021 are undoubtedly resilience, agility and flexibility. With sights firmly set on successfully navigating the way out of the global pandemic, there’s much discussion about how businesses can adapt to the ‘new normal’ – whatever that might look like.
While it’s definitely sensible to look to the immediate future, what about long-term, post-recovery? If businesses lose sight of long-term plans, they run the risk of failing to prepare for what lies ahead, instead focussing on a restrictive, short-term view.
There are already signs that home-working, or at least hybrid working, is here to stay for the foreseeable future. And, there’s the potential that furlough could reappear after its scheduled 30th September end date, reintroduced whenever there’s a sign of economic volatility. So even post-pandemic, there’s set to be further uncertainty and changes ahead, meaning that the ability to quickly deviate from standard working practices and business models, sometimes overnight, will continue to be key.
In light of this, 2021’s buzzwords are set to stay beyond the end of the year, with flexibility, agility and resilience forming the basis of a long-term business strategy, creating an organisation able to withstand future challenges, whatever they might be.
To achieve this, organisations need to put in the place a robust framework to underpin such a business. As such, a solid back office is a prerequisite for long-term business excellence, creating a future-proof back office and building the foundation for success in a post-COVID world and beyond. Creating an optimised back office environment is paramount, putting efficient and effective processes and procedures in place to enable a resilient, agile and flexible business to emerge.
With an eye very much on the long-term strategic direction of the business, savvy business leaders are recognising the benefits to be reaped from an investment in a robust, future-proof back office environment.
The Unified Approach
While digital systems undoubtedly play a bigger role in back office environments than in the past, it’s not uncommon to see a plethora of paper-based, labour-intensive processes and procedures. Where IT systems are in place, work is often carried out via a network of creaking, legacy systems, bolted together to try and unite business functions.
Manually inputting data into expensive-to-maintain legacy software and spreadsheets and having to pull all the information together to form a holistic picture of operations at any one time, does not an agile business make. This inefficient way of working undermines the true potential of a business, preventing the creation of a dynamic organisation where fast, effective decision-making is the order of the day.
The disconnect between different back office functions, in combination with inefficient working practices, means it’s vital to unite the back office, bringing together seemingly unconnected parts of the organisation with a view to providing comprehensive business visibility. Consolidating multiple departments and business functions within a single, united system ensures the timely capture and merging of vital information for instant visibility of data right across the organisation. Such an approach simplifies complex reporting structures, automatically consolidating data and reports without having to carry out time-consuming and error-prone manual activities.
What results is real-time reporting, eradicating unhelpful information silos and merging key information from across multiple business functions, sites and locations with a single, cohesive system. Staff spend less time inputting and amalgamating data and more time on other, more value-add tasks. Ultimately, this united approach gives greater control over the business, identifying where action is needed and underpinning more robust decision-making at speed, with decisions based on accurate, timely and comprehensive business information.
Actionable Insight
It’s not just information that an efficient, effective back office function can deliver either, but actionable insight too.
The addition of intelligent analytics into a back office environment transforms seemingly insurmountable and unmanageable amounts of data into valuable, actionable insight, presenting unique perspectives of old issues or contextualising specific information to make it much more insightful.
Delivered via easy-to-access and easy-to-understand dashboards, the right system can make data analysts of us all, supporting strategic decision-making at every level.
When it comes to being able to prepare a business to deal with even the most unpredictable of challenges, it’s this insight that’s key, informing forecasting and planning with a greater level of clarity and accuracy than in the past.
Insight bolstered by foresight enables the business to plan for multiple scenarios, able to respond quickly and effectively to changing demands, however complex they might be. Such an approach facilitates a shift from a number-crunching, backwards-looking culture to a culture of data analysis where the focus is very much on how we can prepare for the future.
All this makes for increased precision in forecasting and planning, creating a truly proactive business that’s agile enough to spin up new ways of working and new strategic directions whenever market circumstances require, safe in the knowledge that the business can cope.
The business is guaranteed optimal levels of system uptime and can rest assured that it’s always operating with the most up-to-date, efficient version of the solution.
Head to the Cloud
How back-office solutions are deployed can make all the difference too. Technology evolves so quickly these days and businesses can’t be blamed for thinking that their IT investments often seem outdated before they’ve even really taken hold. It’s often simply not practical to try and keep pace, both from an investment and in-house support point of view, with ever-changing back-office solutions. But what organisations can do is ensure the investments they make are future-proof.
This is where the cloud comes into play.
On-premise deployments can be resource and cost-heavy, especially when you factor in the ongoing commitment to solution monitoring and system support, not to mention the cost and effort involved in keeping hardware working efficiently. And, if you want to ensure you’re working with the most up-to-date version of the system, you have to factor in the cost and upheaval of updates and upgrades too.
Software as a Service (SaaS) deployments use the internet to deliver applications and solutions to businesses, all fully managed by the third-party software vendor. There’s no need for costly, time-consuming and high-maintenance downloads and installs and the vendor manages all technical issues. The in-house IT team can focus on adding value elsewhere in the business, rather than fire-fighting day-to-day system issues and the business is guaranteed optimal levels of system uptime and can rest assured that it’s always operating with the most up-to-date, efficient version of the solution.
In short, an investment in the right solution could be the last update and upgrade a business makes, with a scalable and flexible cloud-based solution putting the resilient, agile and technologically-current framework in place that’s needed to successfully pursue business development goals.
Future-Proof Perfection
Businesses that neglect their back office function run the risk of emerging from the pandemic a good few steps behind their more forward-thinking competitors.
With an eye very much on the long-term strategic direction of the business, savvy business leaders are recognising the benefits to be reaped from an investment in a robust, future-proof back office environment.
Those businesses who look beyond 2021, planning for how they can put the right framework in place to underpin that all-important resilience, agility and flexibility will find themselves head and shoulders above those who don’t, ready to embrace challenges and seize opportunities to ensure long-term business excellence.
Sage Partner
If you’re interested in learning more about Percipient and how we can help unlock your business potential, to build agility and flexibility to ensure long-term resilience, get in touch to book a demo with our award-winning team of Sage experts.
