At Drucode, we understood that many businesses don't know how to use modern web technologies to improve their workflows. That's why we decided to investigate this issue a bit more and interview businesses who have already moved on. This article, based on a real example, will show you how to incorporate a web application into the everyday workflow of your company. Hopefully, while reading, you will come up with a fresh idea how to improve your business, too.
How to improve the management of resources
Resource planning for service companies hasn’t been simplified just now. ERP software replaced whiteboards and markers a long time ago. And it has substantial benefits:
- Employees work time and location independently
- Access of data by multiple employees simultaneously
- Employees see changes right away
- Simplifies communication to other companies
But it’s not hard to see that these benefits all simplify just the inner workflows of a company, from employee to employee or from supplier to supplier on the b2b side. The question is: Why has the customer been left out of the loop? He/she still has to make that call, request via email or even take that walk to the store. When’s the last time your calendar took care of making an appointment at the barber shop? See?
This can’t be where digitalization ends - Simon Schier and Philipp Roth have realized this quickly. The founders and CEOs of the Berlin based coworking space mobilesuite Coworking have put the customer in control and integrated their ERP system with a web frontend right from the start.
Whenever a member wants to book workplaces, rooms or conference halls, he/she can look up availability and book right away - with immediate confirmation.
Whether they were skeptical because of the initial costs? “Our idea was right from the beginning to leverage the possibilities of an up-to-date online booking system. The initial investment and running costs are weighed out by far by the advantages we experience everyday.”
Of course, not everything is automated yet. The customer still has to book his resource himself in the online tool - your calendar app still can’t automatically book a conference room for the client appointment. But Simon and Philipp don’t worry: “Right now, we’ve opened up our system for only a handful of third party software. But generally speaking, we can absolutely imagine providing more interfaces in the future.”
By the way, the step to allow customers to interact with the ERP system directly over an online interface again minimizes hassle for the employees: “In the end, our colleagues on location are mostly freed from administrative tasks and can concentrate on providing our great service in our offices”, they told us in an e-mail statement.
From this showcase, we can learn that it’s worth implementing an online interface for your ERP system as soon as possible - and the easiest way today is to create a simple web app or native mobile app. Because when it comes to transparency and customer orientation, mobilesuite Coworking is an absolute exception compared to its competitors.
Is your business, too?