Right now, there could be a digital business sitting right within one of the departments in your company. In fact, any department can run like a digital business: Facilities, Security, Legal, Retail, Sales, IT, Content, HR, and much more.
To make it happen, you just need to have the right systems in place and some automated solutions that keep information flowing. Here’s a closer look at how a department can operate as a digital business.
Take a Centralized Approach
The first key to running a department like a digital business is to centralize departmental operations and manage everything through a single system. This ensures all data and communication will be handled in a smooth, consistent way.
A centralized system is usually found in the form of operations management software/tools. The right kind of tool allows a department to manage the workflow, handle workforce information, provide services, oversee processes, maintain data, share knowledge, and collaborate with other groups.
Does your department have this kind of centralized approach? If not, that should be the top priority. It’s what allows everything else to happen.
Use the Power of Automation
Digital businesses thrive thanks to automation. Automate everything possible, using the operations management tool. This increases the efficiency of your department and provides day-to-day stability in your workflow.
There’s a huge list of activities that can be automated, including:
- Fulfillment of internal and external requests
- Monitoring of processes and orders
- Case management to identify and resolve problems
- Coordinating planning and communication
- Scheduling meetings and follow-up tasks
- Managing permissions across the organization
- Tracking the achievement of goals and objectives
- Relationship management, for both internal and external groups
- Partner and vendor management
- Assessments, including employee evaluations and business matters
- Sharing knowledge with stakeholders
- Tracking issues, risks, and noncompliance
- Documentation and archiving
As you automate each additional process, you’ll see that the administrative workload begins to lighten within the department. Employees who were previously bogged down with tedious processes are freed up to focus on other things.
Use this boost in human capital to do new things that benefit the business: improve digital offerings, explore sales opportunities, innovate new products and services, conduct market research, examine company analytics, and so forth.
Offer Customer Benefits
To operate like a digital business, you’ll also need to offer the benefits of digital operations to your customers. Today’s customers have come to expect a certain level of service that comes from digital automation.
The benefits for you and your customers can include:
- Providing a self-service portal
- Moving request forms and contracts online
- Managing customer orders from end-to-end
- Using the system to inform customer service calls
- Documenting and archiving customer order information for future use
- Initiating repeat orders, for the convenience of the customer
- Decreasing order processing time
- Increasing customer satisfaction
Scale Up Easily
For the company, using the operations tool also allows you to scale up departmental operations. Get better at meeting existing customers’ needs, and grow to attract new customers. Expand without worrying that you can’t handle the workload.
This leads to more business and a better long-term financial outlook. Now you’re running like a digital business, with the flexibility to evolve and grow for years to come.
Free Trial in ServiceNow Store
If your department is ready to explore running like a digital business, try Stave OperationsPath for free in the ServiceNow Store. This mobile-friendly, cloud-based solution simplifies and optimizes your operations activities. It’s flexible, intuitive, and easy to use.
