Tag: ROI

If you’re struggling to find a solution to decrease the amount of time it takes to get a legally binded signature straightaway using CRM solutions then a CRM mobile signature application is what you need. You always have the tendency to go through one document format to another (for instance as consultant, you’ll need a job sheet approved and signed by clients); getting it signed from a CRM causes a bit of delay having to send it out via email, then print, sign, fax, scan and again integrate into CRM document to reach the client. Nowadays, it’s not anymore a problem because it has now developed a better solution to create faster transactions and that is utilizing Customer Relationship Management with mobile applications. Through this, your clients can sign off job sheets and other relevant documents from their consultants’ mobile device (on a touch screen) via a central access from the client portal. Once they sign a document, it will be automatically saved as their CRM file along with the attached secured signature. Once the signing is done, it already captures their signature directly on the web portal that saves time, eliminates use of numerous papers and errors, and as a result, optimizes time, reduces costs and increases the ROI because of the fast turnarounds.

Gone are the days when clients need to wait a bit longer to be able to receive the documents that are due for signing or even having to meet face-to-face always to make sure everything’s signed securely. Having CRM mobile signature already provides a one-stop solution to get things done as easy as that because from there, their signatures are guaranteed to get into the right place and stored to the right system. Therefore this makes it everything centralized. There’s the access to job details whether on the web or remotely by just logging into the web portal using secure log in, the job sign off and the email confirmation. The way it works is that once the client signed the job sheet, an email will be sent to them confirming all the signed documents within the CRM system. This includes a PDF attachment of the signed-off job sheet containing all the captured details plus the client’s signature. The email confirmation on the other hand contains record of the job sheet approved by the client and further details regarding the job signed-off which completes the communication process.

CRM mobile signature is definitely a portable advantage for both consultants and clients wanting to have smoother transactions when signing documents. With the use of this technology, customer relationship management becomes a stronger business platform as you and your customers can reduce chances of errors, lack of security and compliance. Do business on-the-go without having to go to the office. This is widely compatible with a number of devices e.g. iPhone and iPad, Android phones and Android tablets.

In modern organizations, people counter solutions provide management staff with actionable benchmarking data to help them optimize their operations for success in their field. Increasingly in use across a plethora of industries, these solutions are a vital component of proactive business management and serve to create a structured method for organizing core business areas such as customer service and marketing campaigns.

As one of the leaders in the field of people counting technology, CountWise solutions have helped thousands of organizations to streamline their operations. Headquartered in Florida, U.S. and with offices around the globe, CountWise offers the most accurate, reliable and consistent people counter products on today’s marketplace, where they continue to gain recognition from some of the recognized names in world business for the quality of their innovative solutions. Based on military shape recognition technology, CountWise systems consistently offer greater than 95% accuracy in distinguishing between adults, children and carts to ensure that company management staff have tried, tested and trusted data, in real-time, on organizational performance.

Consider for example their I-Count solution. Offering unparalleled 95% accuracy rates, this product is one of the most accurate and dependable on the market today. I-Count is the requisite tool to help modern organizations improve their in-house customer conversion rates. Helping companies meet pre-defined performance targets, this innovative people counter solution will collect data related to on-site staff performance, and allow managers to identify peak sales opportunities where foot traffic is at its highest, thus providing an exceptional tool for the optimization of marketing effectiveness metrics and offering valuable, actionable data on a plethora of vertical KPIs.

Cost consolidation is a vital component for streamlining operations in modern business. I-Count will provide organizations with the ability to develop precise staff schedules, where deployment is based on the amount of customers within the store at certain times of the day, therefore eliminating excessive spending on staff hours at times of low customer volume.

For organization searching for a first-rate tool to optimize product placement and analyze business performance within a department, aisle or display area, Z-Count is the ideal solution. Z-Count is the world’s first video-based solution for tracking and measuring patron behaviour within a defined area of a business. It measures how many customers enter a particular zone and how much time they spend within that area, therefore enabling the increase of customer conversion rates by optimizing staffing and marketing strategies.

Z-Count is ideal for measuring the ROI of marketing campaigns as it provides a mechanism for measuring traffic within a promotional area so that management staff can review their campaigns based on actionable information on customer behaviour. In terms of reliability, Z-Count is unmatched by any other people counter solution on the market today. No matter how much traffic is in any particular area, the Z-Count patented recognition algorithms allow the product to function seamlessly for superior counting accuracy levels.

To gain valuable insights into your organization’s operational efficiency, review the options available within the CountWise catalogue today.

About CountWise:

CountWise specializes in providing people-traffic monitoring solutions to a wide-variety of both public and private companies. Their product suite provides actionable customer data that helps companies to enhance the effectiveness of their operational practices for improved levels of organizational efficiency and thus higher profits. For more information, please go to countwise. Count Wise I-Count is a people counter product which has many advantages to companies and organizations, from improving the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, to reliable store performance reviews and branch comparisons. For more information about I-Count or Count Wise products visit, www.countwise.com.

Best Practices for Structuring Your VMO

Vendor Management Is Key To Realizing Your Sourcing Business Case – Why Leave It To Chance

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In early 2008 Alsbridge initiated a study working with its customers who had executed outsourcing deals to determine what makes the critical difference between realizing the projected ROI and coming up short. We discovered that early introduction of a Vendor Management Office (VMO) combined with critical change management and communications initiatives are keys to ROI (Return on Investment) realization. Without disciplined VMO leadership the dreaded shadow IT organization emerges attacking the business case and limiting the vendors ability to do what they do best, leverage capacity.

CIOs NEED AN EFFECTIVE VMO TO ACHIEVE THE PROMISED COST BENEFIT
The business case for outsourcing is the focal point of any strategic outsourcing initiative. Senior management most likely reviewed the cost benefit analysis and approved the initiative based on achieving an ROI with some limited risk. Now that the vendor has been selected and the contract has been signed senior management expects delivery on the numbers. This is where the real work of extracting the value from the organization and from the vendor begins. This is the work of the VMO.

Although having a VMO is a best practice more than two thirds dont have a VMO.

Of those who do have a VMO, most do not believe they have the right competencies and skills to operate the VMO effectively.

Worse still, the demand for VMO management skills are increasing as outsourcing initiatives flounder without good internal transition and vendor relationship management capabilities. Without good governance, the relationship becomes dysfunctional early on resulting in poor hand-offs between the client and the vendor making it impossible for the vendor to drive value for the customer. This means erosion of the cost benefit business case and weaker IT performance.

For example one client told us:

We did not institute our VMO soon enough and we wondered about for nearly 18 months before senior management demanded we either fix our vendor management problems, get them their ROI as promised or terminate the deal. We could have avoided the emergence of a shadow IT organization that attacked the deal from the inside. (Director of IT Outsourcing Initiative, Large Automotive Supplier)

Similarly, another client gave us the following background on the institution of the companys VMO:

We must have a strategic relationship with our vendors or why else engage them. This is enough justification for forming a VMO. We knew transition was complex and we knew that we would have to address vendor problems if we were to realize our business case. We were not about to try to explain to our senior leadership why we are not getting the full benefits outsourcing. (CIO, Large Insurance Company)

THE ATTACK OF THE SHADOW IT ORGANIZATION

We found most companies recognize the need to establish their VMO early but they are struggling with competing demands for people who cannot be freed up early enough to focus on transition and governance issues. As transition begins, communications with business leaders falter, retained staff struggle to understand the new service delivery model and to adapt to new business processes. Business leaders can become confused as old processes are replaced with new ones and familiar IT buddies are replaced with unfamiliar vendor personnel who are focused on driving process discipline and achieving operating efficiency. Without strong central leadership driving communications from the onset, it is not long before IT staff begin reacting to the demands of their business customers.

One client told us that:

within six months of the completion of transition we had a shadow IT organization taking back some of the functions that had been outsourced to our vendor. Our retained organization, just did not understand how to get the job done using vendor resources. So with good rationale, our people implemented their own processes that did not include the vendor. Had we implemented a good VMO, we could have avoided this attack from the inside.
–IT Director, Insurance Organization

THE KEY FUNCTIONS OF A HIGH PERFORMANCE VMO

Successful VMOs have an organizational framework that can orchestrate constituencies to the outsourcing deal throughout the sourcing life cycle. The VMO must also be able to adapt; changing its functional focus as the deal transverses the multiple phases of outsourcing from strategy development through contracting to transition and stabilization to contract renewal. The VMOs primary role is to manage the relationship for optimum value realization from beginning to end. Within this primary function are four distinct VMO functions.

The chart below provides a view of what a VMO organization framework might look like and the four distinct functions of the VMO as a relationship management function.

While this model provides a view of a complete VMO, in reality, the right VMO structure is a hybrid a variation that fits within the organizations business environment, cultural norms, investment profile, outsourcing deal type, and relationship management readiness. For example an existing VMO might include Centers of Excellence (COE) that perform many of the activities associated with contract and service level management, while another COE performs financial and demand management activities.

Service Level Management
Among the strategic imperatives for creating the VMO is long-term performance improvement. Hence, service level management goes beyond making sure that SLAs are measured, monitored and reported. The VMO must exert pressure on both the client and vendor organizations to improve processes for increased consistency and reduced costs. More process discipline is required as the relationship matures and it bridges the gap between pre- and post contract activities.
Contract Management
Once the contract is signed the work of making the contract work takes center stage. The focus must move away from terms and conditions and move quickly to the practical application of the contract in the daily operation of the IT business. The VMO executive must manage the chasm between what is in the contract and what must get done each and every day.
Financial Management
The VMO actively works with the program management office (PMO) to coordinate the delivery and capabilities of multiple vendors, not only sourcing providers but also software, hardware and other technology suppliers. This involves intellectual property management, invoice/payment management and audits, discretionary pool /ARC/RRC management, and service audits. Senior executives are most interested in the financial results of the sourcing initiative, therefore, the VMO must include individuals with the business savvy to provide regular financial performance updates that spell out performance against the original business case.
Demand Management
The ability of the VMO to balance the wants and needs of the business and to forecast demand is critical to the vendors ability to complete annual service planning and to be ready and able to meet service requirements. An effective VMO can eliminate the emergence of IT shadow organizations by creating a central office for gathering, organizing, prioritizing and validating business requests. The VMO should become the unified front of the organization when managing the interface between the organization and its vendors. This unified front is the key to ensuring the client is directing the relationship not its vendors.

BUILDING AND EFFECTIVE VMO

The VMO can be viewed as bureaucratic overhead or as the Business Case Enabler. The difference is in how the VMO is established, its charter and the friendliness of its processes in supporting multiple organizational and IT operating goals. There are five critical factors to consider when building a VMO:

1) Select a VMO leader with the right competencies and skills. The VMO leader must be armed with the ability to coordinate and communicate across many constituencies on both the client and the vendor sides. This means navigating through both the written and unwritten rules of engagement.

2) Engage the business in the design of the VMO organization and management processes. Acceptance of the VMO increases when stakeholders help architect the processes and understand how to leverage the VMO to get things done. The VMO should be flexible while insisting on principles of standardization and adoption of proven best practices. Standardization is an imperative if the organization is going to truly leverage the value its vendors are capable of providing.

3) The VMO should report to a centralized CIO. In a global sourcing deal, it is likely that multiple regional business units are coming together under a single sourcing contract. To achieve standardization across the enterprise the VMO should operate under the sponsorship of a global CIO.
Position the VMO as a COE. Over time the VMO will develop expertise across a wide range of vendor management and project planning initiatives. This is valuable organizational intellectual property. The COE should provide coaching, advisory services for business customers and retained operations to reduce bureaucracy.

4) Promote the VMO. At its inception, the VMO will appear to be more overhead. The VMO must quickly demonstrate its value to the organization by addressing many common problems facing any organization entering into a sourcing relationship. Select three risks that everyone agrees must be mitigated as the organization enters into the sourcing relationship. Set out a plan, provide the VMO with executive sponsors and a charter with teeth. Deliver something that brings value to the business from the onset.
If you are considering entering into a sourcing relationship or if you are currently engaged in outsourcing, look around, does your organization have shadow operations lurking in the IT function. If so, a working VMO can be the best defense against attacks from within that diminish the value opportunity of outsourcing. Dont be caught without a good VMO.

If you are considering entering into a sourcing relationship or if you are currently engaged in outsourcing, look around, does your organization have shadow operations lurking in the IT function. If so, a working VMO can be the best defense against attacks from within that diminish the value opportunity of outsourcing. Dont be caught without a good VMO.

Integrated software solutions have relatively long history but only a small number of software vendors provide integrated solutions in the segment of gym management software, limiting the selection of valuable integrated modules to a handful of choices. Thus, even large corporations still utilize different software applications to deal with day-to-day business activities, failing to realize the benefits of integrated software or unwilling to implement integrated solutions that reduce overall business costs and improve inter-departmental communication and efficiency as a whole.

Modern-day integrated modules are capable to deal with various aspects of running a successful gym business, including accounting and billing, marketing, sales, and relationships with current and prospective customers. An integrated solution can also feature social networking capabilities that complement their built-in functionality aimed design of efficient and targeted marketing strategies. Those integrated solutions, suitable for both large chains of fitness centers and single gyms, eliminate the need to install, run, and support numerous business software applications that deal with different business processes and procedures, which in turn results in unexpectedly high return on investment rate within a very reasonable period.

Initially, gym management systems have been designed with only core business processes in mind, before software vendors to start realizing that they can borrow from concepts of customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and incorporate similar functionality into advanced fitness center management systems. Evidently, gym management applications have more limited functionality compared to sophisticated ERP systems, nevertheless integrated gym management solutions are capable to deal with complex tasks, providing advanced functionality at markedly lower prices. Therefore, integrated business software solutions are enjoying growing popularity among gym owners willing not only to modernize their gym management software but also to witness lucrative ROI rates.

Ease of use is considered a major advantage of all and every business software application and gym management software is not an exception from the rule. Thus, software vendors that offer rich in functionality integrated modules have started to pay more attention to user friendliness and development of easy to use and intuitive interface. Software companies experience fierce competition, therefore integrated solutions in the sphere of gym management now feature rich functionality and carefully designed interface, securing competitive advantages to both customers and software vendors although in different ways.

The price of software for management of fitness centers is essential when owners have to decide whether to invest in new software while it is much harder to evaluate the indirect benefits from gym management system implementation. An integrated gym management solution reduces overall business costs through introduction of functionality usually covered by various business applications such as accounting, scheduling, or marketing software. Furthermore, payroll costs can be lowered because of the high level of automation as well as advanced functionality, like sales force automation (SFA), provided by integrated software. Overall, gyms are allowed to save money on numerous business applications or spreadsheet solutions by implementing an affordable integrated solution that provides functionality covering the full scope of business procedures and all processes involved.

Gym management solutions gradually evolved into fully-functional business management systems, featuring all the functionality required run a successful business in a highly competitive environment. In addition, worthwhile integrated solutions are even more affordable these days for many software vendors offer monthly payment schemes, instead of one-time license purchases, intended to reduce the average cost of investing in gym management software.

The idea of a brand is deeply rooted in the psyche of managers as being associated with the delivery of tangible products to consumers but today we are increasingly delivering intangible services rather than goods so is branding still relevant. Traditionally a business has been viewed by senior management as split into discrete divisions, sales and marketing, production, HR, IT, legal and accounting. Some divisions created revenue and b the brand identity was important for customer recognition and action needed to be taken to maximize that while other divisions created cost that reduced the brand value and this needed to be cut. Following this methodology would logically result in increased profits.

This led in practice to highly dysfunctional decision making with, for example, IT staff being cut only for decreased effectiveness across the business producing reducing sales generation and increasing costs in other parts of the business.

Decreased profitability was the result of making otherwise perfectly logical business decisions based on KPI metrics.

The Balanced Business Scorecard seeks to address this dysfunctional approach to business management and looks at how the entire business operates as a cohesive, holistic whole. Viewing all divisions of the business as creating value allows for logical rational business decisions that do lead to increased shareholder value and enhanced profitability.

Is measuring traditional brand metrics still relevant?

The blunt answer is yes, the company brand is perhaps more important than it ever has been but how the brand is being used has probably altered greatly as is how the value of a brand is perceived not just by customers but also by shareholders.

For many listed companies the value ascribed to the company brand accounts for more than a third of the company share value. In many instances, brand value accounts for far more than that. The issue is how do we measure brand value and what metrics are available for us to use as part of a Brand KPI tool.

Using financial metrics for brand performance measurement you will find the following as the primary metrics to monitor and analyze:

– Sales Generation – measures brand as a factor in the purchasing decision
– ROI – measures the ROI using the accounting goodwill value and treating it as any other balance sheet asset
– Transaction Value – looks at the contribution from product lines and product mix and the impact of the brand on that contribution
– Growth Sustainability -this is a measure of how much the brand is contributing to sales rate growth without the business introducing further investment to gain that market share.

Financial value is probably the simplest metric to determine as we can extrapolate “goodwill” valuations using accounting and financial data coupled with share price information. At least with share pricing information we have a set finite value that the market is placing on our business and the financial accounting information can give us a basis for determining how much of the price the market will pay for a share is determined by the valuation of the goodwill.

Measuring brand perception and performance is trickier as we dealing with nebulous concepts that we know have an impact but cannot directly measure. Performing customer awareness surveys will help in providing a measure of how well known the brand is with consumers in a given section of the population or target market segment. All of these can be measured but the metrics that are produced are based upon subjective questioning and even more subjective answers.