The internet and more broadly, digital technology, offers the potential to streamline many business processes, as well as to improve customer and supplier interactions.
Organisations that move quickly to take advantage of the opportunities can get a competitive advantage. And as organisations (and their products and services) strive to differentiate themselves from competitors, any competitive advantage is worthwhile.
Here are a few ways your organisation may be able to gain a competitive edge in the digital age.
Streamlining business processes
Take a look across your standard business processes and you are likely to see many inefficient ways of doing things. Many organisations don’t take the time and effort to define their processes. However, this can be a very worthwhile exercise. By doing so you’ll identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies and areas for potential improvement.
For example, where ever tasks are repeated, there’s an opportunity to automate some or all of the process. This could be something as simple as completing forms. Some companies make their customers, suppliers, or business affiliates fill in their details every time they complete a form.
A recent example we came across was a building company that requires sub-contractors to complete an authorisation for every type of power tool used on site, with separate forms for separate each site.
Simply by moving this approvals process to a digital environment (e.g. a PDA), then allowing information that has been completed once to pre-populate any future forms, will speed up the process, eliminate the resources required to manage paper authorisations, reduce the potential risks associated with paper document management such as loss and misfiling, allow for better reporting and also improve the relationship with their contractors (after all, who wants to fill in the same info again and again!).
This is just one simple example. Most organisations have inefficiencies in their processes and many could be improved by moving them into an internet environment. There may even be opportunities to improve the things that seem to be operating okay now. Constant and proactive improvement can be the key to gaining and maintaining a competitive edge.
Improving employee performance & loyalty
The digital environment can offer many opportunities to improve the skill levels of employees. Some organisations are moving their staff induction programs online.
This improves the consistency of quality in delivery and can reduce costs – once it’s done it can be delivered time and time again without tying up any people resources.
Training is another area that many organisations are moving online. Training modules can be developed and then delivered time and time again via the company intranet or via CDs.
The online environment offers the opportunity for a more engaging format, provides for different learning styles, and allows people to go through the training at their own pace.
Employee incentive programs can also be delivered online. This is particularly useful when you have people spread over a broad geographical area.
Here’s another idea worth considering. In these days of virtually full employment, staff retention is becoming more important than ever. Why not bundle together special offers, discounts, value added incentives, etc from third party suppliers and offer these via your intranet to staff? Others provide the incentives that help you retain your staff.
Improving customer interactions
The internet allows for improved performance in key service areas of your business. For example, at the time when a customer is most unhappy – when they want to make a complaint – using the online environment can improve the outcome.
Having a helpful, easy to find complaints / feedback section on your website is a good start. Providing some checkboxes or radio buttons on your online complaints form and using these to categorise the complaint so the response can be prioritised is also good. Sending an immediate response that acknowledges the complaint will provide some reassurance that it has reached someone who can respond.
Of course, from there, it’s how well you deal with a complaint that matters. Be wary of standard response emails, particularly if there are insufficient options to provide an adequate response. A database driven email response that is personalised to the situation is one way of addressing this. But don’t forget, for unusual or serious complaints, a personal response is all that will really do.
Improving quality management processes
If your organisation is quality certified or operates a Quality Management (QM) system, then moving the management of this into a web-based environment can greatly improve the way it works.
The principal failure point of QM systems occurs when processes vary or are misinterpreted. A web-based interface that moves through processes step-by-step, that requires mandatory areas to be completed before moving to the next step, and that offers standardised responses, can ensure processes are strictly adhered to with high levels of consistency.
Moving your QM system into the online environment can also greatly improve reporting capabilities. Improved and more timely reporting provides for enhanced process improvement, which is the concept quality management is built around.
Getting closer to customers
One of the best opportunities the internet provides is the ability to get much closer to your customers. You can use a variety of means to facilitate an ongoing two-way dialogue with customers.
For example, web-based surveys can allow you to get genuine customer input into product and service development, rather than relying on external market research.
Instead of making business decisions then monitoring how they are received by the market, you can now invite customers to tell you what they really want.
Put the internet to work in your business
To find out how your organisation can improve its processes, have a chat with icemedia. We can do a strategic review of the various processes across your business, and then provide recommendations for how to give your organisation a competitive edge.
For an obligation free chat, give icemedia a call on 07 3511 5311 or drop us a line to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .