Why do salespeople not perform?

On average 57% of salespeople do not achieve their targets. Your team might be different and there is a high chance that there is room for improvement. Improving overall success cannot be assigned to one magic thing. It all starts with the mindset and know-how. How do your salespeople score on those topics?

They want to do something else

According to a survey by Gallup, 66% of employees worldwide lack passion for their jobs. The costs involved are enormous. The majority of people are fulfilling a job that they don’t like, but continue doing. But, why are you continuing something that you do not want to do? 

I’ve done myself small research on why people are choosing a job that does not give them that positive energy, which is so powerful. An important reason is the amount of money involved. Money is quite often a driver to switch jobs when they hear in the recruiting process that they can earn a higher base salary and the commissions are uncapped. Sounds like a dream and if the leap is that big, why should you leave that money on the side?

Money is not everything, that is already proven in a study from Dan Ariely a couple of years ago. In that study, he proved that pizza is a better motivator than a cash bonus in the long run. Enjoying the activities and responsibilities of the job is important to stay happy with your position. Besides, the culture has to fit you as well otherwise you will be filled soon with negative energy.

Imagine that you are joining a company based on 1 or 2 interviews of 60 minutes each and your focus is purely on the monetized incentives. I can understand that you get energized by a couple of first payments, but I am sure it will be less motivating from time to time. The new salary becomes your standard and you lack the passion for your job. Soon or later it becomes more difficult to find the motivation to do all the activities that you do not like. Unfortunately, the moment of realization and switching jobs are far spread from each other. The period in between is tiresome, slurps energy, and kills happiness. Obviously, due to the lack of motivation, the results will fall as well.

They need support

From my own experiences, a state of the art onboarding program is vital in employee happiness, retention, and success. It already starts before day one and should take longer than just one week. 5 days is too short to complete the mandatory activities and understand everything that you have to know. In a study of Sapling, a people operations platform, a great onboarding includes 54 activities and can take up a full quarter or even a year. Those activities include signing documents, understanding the company culture, role, personal goals, processes, and training to get the right knowledge and skills. In the end, every employee should understand the why of the company, why their job exists, what they have to do, and how to fulfill it.

One of my favorite parts of the onboarding is the buddy program, which I recommend all organizations to adopt. Such a program brings the new hire faster up to speed, knows whom to ask for questions, and sure a softer landing. The buddy program includes frequent chats (every week and adjust to fortnightly when suitable), introduction to other colleagues, and showing around the office. 

When onboarding is pressed in just a few days, you will notice that important information or knowledge is not well received. The results of that are confused and uncertain employees who have a ton of questions. Their performance will be impacted by a weak start and you cannot blame them. Providing both new hires and existing employees with the right training to bring their skills and knowledge on the level to perform as expected is fundamental. Learning and development do not stop after onboarding, that is just the start.

They need clarification

Understanding the rules and goals sounds simple but is not a given for all employees. Most of the salespeople do have an individual or team objective to achieve within a specific time frame. It might surprise you, but not all salespeople do know their sales objectives by heart. If you do not understand your goal, how do you know if you run in the right direction?

When the goal is clearly communicated, which is step 1, the required effort to get there is step 2. Think about the number of deals in a given period, overall pipeline, and if you want you can drill down to the number of meaningful meetings and required activity level (based on available data).

How to take the leap?

If you want a team that performs on its best, you need to start with a rock-solid foundation. This includes having the people on board that, have a passion for what they do, receive the support they need, and understand what they have to do. Sounds logical, but in many situations, I have seen it is not the reality.

The article was written for www.leapy.io

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-do-salespeople-perform-richard-b-t-harsevoort-/

Be the Leader Your Employees Need when the World Works from Home

Life, as we knew it, has changed. While the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has strangely brought the world closer, it has also put our adaptability to the test. Whether it is with regard to social distancing, self-quarantining or working from home, most of our routines have undergone drastic alterations. We can be sure that it may be a while before the dust settles and things go back to “normal”. As we adjust and adapt to our new normal of masks, social distancing and nervous checking of the live coronavirus tracker, let’s pause, breathe a little and think. 

What are some of the things that we, as leaders, can strive to do better to ensure that our teams do not feel that they are alone in this battle?

Behind the mask

In the midst of social distancing and self-quarantining, it is often easy to forget the need to stay connected. We are an entire generation that is suddenly at war against unseen forces and with times such as these, comes a persistent sense of uncertainty. These are times when leaders need to keep in mind that every team member is anxious - about their health, their loved ones, their jobs and their future. We need to try to connect to the person behind the mask - to put in that extra bit of effort to stay collectively engaged at work. What are your employees’ biggest concerns? How can you help lower the stress level? Could you possibly reassure them about their jobs? These are some of the questions that we need to ask ourselves before we set up any greater asks from our teams.

Mental health first

As the world starts working from home, our routines have changed. Every change (good or bad) comes with a dose of stress, discomfort and anxiety and let’s face it, a lockdown situation is not ideal for most of us. As a leader within your organization, it pays to not just check in with your team on their deliverables but also to check on them to ensure that they are doing well. It is not easy to be indoors 24/7 and being social beings, limited to a stay-at-home routine could lead to unhappiness and depressive thought loops. While you cannot instruct your team on how they should be spending their days, you can guide them and make sure that you create enough opportunities for them to share ideas, thoughts and suggestions with you and each other. This is not a situation where we must choose sanitation over sanity but rather work together towards holistic health and well-being.

Leading by example

The most honest way to guide your team is by example - by lighting up the path you would like them to share with you. It is crucial to be visible and not forget that we are all still individuals behind screens. There is a fine line between giving your team the autonomy they need to do their work and managing them without intruding upon their personal space. You need to respect their boundaries because you now have entered the privacy of their home and it is upon you to help them follow a healthy and balanced work-life routine. Showing the team that you are able to do the same amount of work from home as in the office will also give them the confidence to do so themselves. Micromanaging is an easy habit to develop as a leader during these pressing times but that is a managerial trap that must be avoided at all costs. Your team needs to know that they are appreciated, trusted and that their jobs are safe to be able to perform their roles optimally. Make sure to let them know that they are valued and that you do have their backs even during times that are trying, stressful and uncertain.

In preparation for tomorrow

In life, there are times when we are faced with situations that paralyze us. In such times, when the present is uncertain and hope for the future is bleak at best, it is important to remind ourselves of the transience of things - while we are aware that good times do not last long, dark clouds pass as well. It may seem difficult to plan for 6 months ahead at this point in time but we must strive to prepare for the days to come.

Challenging situations at times make it difficult to look beyond them. Maybe focusing our efforts on better preparing for the future is the push we need to look for the silver lining behind these dark clouds of uncertainty. It may also help to look at this situation as a test for our systems and processes, our ability to adapt and our strength to bounce back. This has become a shared experiment on working from home and how we perform on this, would impact how we structure our work and workplaces henceforth. A few decades back, offices going paperless seemed like an impossibility - maybe a few years down the line, organizations would go office-less and anytime-anywhere work would become the norm.

Experts believe that it would be at least a year before the stock market stabilizes, work resumes and life goes back to normal. But, what if, our “normal” itself has changed? If chaos can be a ladder, the current situation could be a stepping stone to more evolved ways of work and functioning. While we grapple with the demands of today and tomorrow, let’s not forget about the day after - when the clouds will clear and the sun will shine again. 🌤️

More Smiles at Work: The Gamification Way

Do you feel that your employees passionately detest Mondays? Do they seem to get on with the week with nothing more than neutral satisfaction? Do you ever get the sense that the collective energy at work is low and that the drive is missing? 

If you answered “yes” to even one of the questions above, it is time to look at smarter employee engagement techniques—since the weekly motivational quotes, leadership newsletters, or even the hip new employee lounge with comfy beanbags and the foosball table are just not cutting it anymore.

Ever since I said goodbye to working at a multinational corporate organization in favor of the startup life, I feel that I have become more observant of employee-leadership behavior dynamics and more conscious of the need for organic engagement and happiness at work. These are things that probably become more apparent when one is taken out of the process-driven multinational corporate (MNC) setup and are faced with a start-up environment, so inherently people-centric that even minor flickers in engagement levels send ripples across the whole organization—almost like a butterfly effect of happiness at work. 

This is likely also why having a startup outlook towards all people processes is of great help—it enables you to look at every employee as an individual with hopes and dreams and specific traits, rather than a mere cog in the machinery. In the present global work ecosystem, where employee happiness is both the currency and an important metric for business success, that outlook is a necessity. 

So, why is it important to focus on employee engagement? Here are a few helpful statistics to keep in mind:

• Employees who do not feel adequately empowered or like they are involved in making any meaningful difference only have a 35% chance of staying with the organization (LinkedIn)

• The likelihood of an employee wanting to stay with an organization tends to decrease with time - 76% after 12 months, 59% after two years and 48% after three years (LinkedIn)

• At any given time, more than 30% of your employees are looking for a new job, either actively or casually (Ceridian)

We may spend hours trying to map out business growth, to chart out where we rank on search engines and spend weeks to depict all these metrics in attractive graphs and diagrams, but we often forget the simplest of metrics—smiles at work. 

Are your employees genuinely happy to come to work every day? That is where gamification comes (or should come) into the equation. While I am not claiming that gamification is the answer to all your people's riddles, it is certainly an interesting and fun way to solve them.

Not one to measure the success of your organization in employee smiles? Here are a few numbers for you—according to a recent Gallup survey, gamification led to a 147% increase in performance, a 25-65% dip in employee turnover and a 37% decrease in casual leaves and absences. 

Let’s put on our thinking caps and ponder over this a little. Why and how does gamification work better than more traditional methods of motivation and engagement? It is probably because of a mix of various factors:

1. Gamified processes and content have a way of appealing to the child in us by providing instant feedback to our actions.

2. We tend to respond to games because they simplify the action-reward equation and we understand which behaviors are rewarded more easily.

3. There is a level of fun that is injected into tasks that could otherwise be rather mundane.

4. Healthy competition leads to stronger social cliques with colleagues and teams.

5. There is an undeniable level of intrinsic motivation to win that is stronger than just the need to keep one’s job or to make money.

When these factors come together, employees feel a stronger commitment to the processes at work and even the most mechanical of systems can be transformed into something that is fun and uplifting. 

Let’s take a peek into work processes that could be gamified for the better:

1.  Learning and Development: Gamified systems lead not only to better talent acquisition but also to better retention through meaningful ways of talent management. Thus, these systems could be applied to training modules in a way that is direct and relevant to the employees. For example, the first five employees to finish a course on the latest data analytics-driven sales processes could be gifted with a free pass to study a course of their choosing on any online learning portal. 

2.  Sales, marketing and service: Employees are your full-time brand ambassadors even if they do not have customer-facing roles. For those who do, the opportunity to promote the brand is even more apparent and the stakes are higher. With gamification, not only can employees in sales and marketing be driven to accomplish the final sale but also be motivated to follow certain standardized steps and processes when it comes to serving customers in a way that upholds the brand.

3.  Culture champions: Your organization exists beyond the vision statement and the culture document—it lives in how your employees behave every day. Using gamification in guiding your employees could help you build and uphold an honest, driven and happy culture at work. Linking positive and negative reinforcement to everyday-behaviors might seem outdated but could go a long way in helping your employees buy into the culture that you wish to set at work. Moreover, it could also motivate them to be engaged as they realize that every small action on their end, leads to bigger repercussions for the organization.

A Medium article put forth that 90% of employees are more productive when they use gamification and that 72% of people believe that gamification inspires them to work harder when there is a level of gamification at work. Moreover, the article also claims that engagement levels increased by 48% in gamified work environments. The debate thus is no longer about whether gamification is helpful but rather about how best to apply it to your unique systems at work, in a way that makes sense for your specific brand of culture. All work and no play is not the right path to delivering employee happiness. The crux of the matter is to find the right game-based tools to help you win the gamification race.

Send me a message to learn more!

How to sell enterprise software within 2 weeks, twice!

Like many people, I’m a Sales Manager who is really passionate about the software the company I am working for is offering. Business applications that automate processes, delivered as a service. Yes, they look really great as well!

During the years I learned different (enterprise) sales methodologies by following classes and reading books about sales and productivity. I think it is way more effective to use a combination of tools from different methodologies rather than sticking to 1 single method. Feel free to ask my recommendations!

I truly believe in ‘sharing is multiplying’. Today, I would like to share some of the lessons I learned in selling enterprise software within a short time frame. A short time frame for me equals less than 2 weeks, as most of the buying journeys of our customers take at least 3 months. When we did it once, that could have been luck. Last month we did it again! Next, I will lay out my ABC to increase your customer base.

A: Begin with the end in mind

From the very beginning, we would like to understand the ‘why’, ‘how’ and the ‘what’ from a potential buyer. The reason for that is to make sure we both understand the high-level purpose of the conversations and what the ultimate end goal is. For all parties involved, it is better to know upfront about how we can contribute to the goal, rather than later.

When ‘the end’ is expressed, challenged and agreed, we can calculate backward what to do and when to deliver the upfront promise.

“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score” - Bill Copeland

B: Be on top of your sales cycle

Do your research about the organisation, the people you will be talking to and all the stakeholders. When you understand the playing field you will be way more effective in your communication and able to focus your message on the critical problems you solve (focus on the value instead of the product).

Effective conversations are supporting you in shortening the sales cycle. Be available for your contacts. I mean: surround a team around you to deliver high-quality and fast response instead of letting your contacts unnecessary wait. Personally, I use the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritise the activities.

In addition, really care about follow-ups. Instead of waiting until they happen, schedule the next step on the spot and always steer to the first possible date (also when it concerns a ‘to-do’ for yourself).

“When should we meet again? Coming Monday or next Friday?” Save 3 weeks in 5 meetings by scheduling the follow-up meeting at the first possible timeslot

C: Be memorable

It’s obvious that there’s a lot of competition. But, why do people buy from you? Is it because you have the best product on the market? Is it because you are the cheapest? You will find people that make their decision on features and price. From my experience, it is all about the emotional relationship you have with them. Do they trust you? Trust is 1.

Can I say: “Appearance is 2”? Are you more likely to buy from a happy person that radiates passion or from a non-energetic person that clearly does not like what he/she is doing? I think this speaks for itself. So, “Bring the joy” as Brendon Burchard says.

People respond well to those that are sure of that they want - Anna Wintour

Celebrate!

Celebrations are a fun way to make sure achievements and important milestones never go unnoticed. You make sure that everyone is on the same page, no matter where they are.

Dreamteam! @Annukka Mononen @Anders Christiansen @Dana Daoud

Can you relate with the above; are you using it in your daily work? 

Original post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-sell-enterprise-software-within-2-weeks-twice-harsevoort-/

Celebration!

Business is like chess - you need to think ahead to win!

As a company, you have to be smarter than your competition in order to win. Depending on your company goals, winning could mean: gaining market share, improving margins or to increase revenue. 

For centuries chess was a human-only game. Garry Kasparov became the youngest ever World Chess Champion in 1985 at age 22. For years he held the world title. In May 1997 he became the first world champion to lose a match to a computer.

Given the rate of technological change even the best humans can be defeated. No industry is exempt: all industries can expect a game-changing experience. Things that seemed really far out there just a couple of years or even a month ago, will have a massive impact on how we re-assess every part of our business. Research of McKinsey shows that current technology can fully automate 42% of finance activities and almost entirely automate an additional 19 percent!

Make your move

When technology can do a specific task better & faster, you shouldn’t teach people to run that task. Instead, empower people and think ahead to meet shareholder expectations, such as “How can you address strategic goals like improve margins, decision making, and reducing risk?”

Many organisations are still spending the majority of their resources just keeping the lights on. A classic example is ‘we run the business this way for many years, so we do not have to change’. This is understandable as a move to a newer version of a financial system is not easy when you run a legacy system. However, with the speed of innovation, the gap between businesses that embrace innovation and those who do not is widening every single day.

It is not about the move itself, only about the timing as the move to a new system will in due time be unavoidable. In general, you have 2 flavours today:

1. Applications that come with full service (SaaS), so you always gain from the latest developments.
2. A legacy application that you can run yourself or via a hosted service.

Isn’t it quite obvious to go for number 1 as you don’t want to face a widening innovation gap again?

How RPA, AI, and ML impact your business

A few of the latest developments are robot process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Operational processes like capturing and processing all the transactions can run without human interventions. So you are able to free up time for value added tasks while technology ensures the reduction of human error as it autonomously unveils insights by creating reports and dashboards based on real-time data.

Implementing modern technology goes beyond refreshing systems as it is a strategic building block. It is similar to chess: think a few steps ahead to outperform your competitors. By being more operationally efficient, the finance team could drive and realize new implicit business models. Even driving the strategic agenda with unbiased intelligence! And this applies to not only the finance team, but also across the whole business. By fostering better interactions through technology, companies can connect segments up to now in isolation. 

Innovations, like RPA, AI/ML, were not common years ago, but are available today. Personally, I think technology minded CFO’s will benefit the most from the digital age. They just get it! 

How finance and IT can cooperate

The CFO cannot drive digital enablement on her/his own. Buy-in from the CIO is required. However, as I just mentioned the majority of IT resources is still on the maintenance side. An important mindshift on the side of the IT department has to take place: Less focus at infrastructure and more focus to support business innovation by embracing the latest technologies. 

In a changing world, technology is driving change in the way we do business faster than ever before. Companies that focus on old technologies or stick with the status quo will fall behind. As the value of autonomous systems increase, the C-suite has to take ownership: Use technology as an enabler and prepare your workforce as modern technology will definitely impact the required skills of your workforce. 

Go Radical

Around the world we have thousands of customers with an annual turnover of €100M+. Some of these businesses haven’t existed that long; others have been around for many years.

When you look at the history of these businesses, the majority of them haven’t changed that much. However, the world is totally different than when they were founded. I should say change seems inevitable, but it is still rare.

Companies don’t always see the impact of not changing, as I wrote in my latest article. Others would like to change but often CFOs are not able to provide correct information, with their presentations and spreadsheets, to their board members. One of the reasons is that technology from the past doesn’t provide the real time information that is necessary today. In fact, more than 60% of boards are worried about poor execution of strategy.

Act Like Silos or as a Machine

When I follow the news, more and more organisations are removing the ‘silos’ within the company. Silos are groups or departments within an organisation that work in a vacuum with little functional access to other groups, or little communication between them.

When companies have silos, people have little interest in understanding their part in the overall success of the organisation. Removing the silos improves horizontal information sharing and collaboration. For example: when finance has access to other departments they can leverage financial data and take action based on the analysis that they have done.

Data analysis provides:

• Additional insights that could have impact at the decision making process 
• Additional insights could change business process and models

On the one hand the analysis is focused on profit and costs (finance), on the other hand, quantities and timelines (sales & operations). The power of insights is the combination of both, because relational data says a lot more than a single number (Shron, M., Thinking with Data, New York: O'Reilly Media, 2014).

Empower Success

Company boards want to make decisions based on the right information to improve the success of the company. Modern applications can alleviate the silo structure and in this way enable finance to become a business partner of the company board. Then finance will be able to provide valuable data to the board. Together you will stay strong. 

Have no fear to make changes. Download the whitepaper.

This post is a copy of the article that I have written for the Oracle Modern Finance Essentials, published at September 2, 2016

https://blogs.oracle.com/modernfinance/go-radical-have-no-fear-to-make-changes

The Impact of Not Changing

How the World is Evolving

As a consumer, we have acknowledged that we are living in the digital era. There are roughly 1 billion active websites and 2 billion smartphone users worldwide; meanwhile the number of fixed telephone lines has decreased over the last 9 years. 

Companies may not see today how they will enact change tomorrow. According to Forrester: ‘only 27% of today’s businesses have a coherent digital strategy, which determines how the firm will create customer value as a digital business.’ Instead, more focus is spent on keeping the lights on rather than innovation.

To stay relevant, organizations, business units, and individuals need to know where business technology is headed, and be sure to remain up to date with the ever shifting digital trend. It is time to take action: make digital transformation your key strategic thrust.

Yes, most of us are too limited in our thinking. By simply changing the processes, we can be more successful with disruptive transformation. The digital era is asking to widen our horizon and adapt modern technology and new business models. With ample possibilities today, there is no need to own the equipment to run your business. Lease it for the duration of a contract and put the responsibilities down to your suppliers, allows focus on your core business and respond effectively on chances.

We are all familiar with Uber and AirBnB, but startups have been making waves across all industries: temporary office spaces, self-service bikes and food box delivery services. Another shift that we are seeing is the introduction of Light as a Service from Philips to service Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands. The light as a service means that, Schiphol pays for the light it uses (pay-as-you go), while Philips remains the owner of all fixtures and installations.

Lighting fixtures were specially developed for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol that will last 75% longer, as the design of the fixtures improved the serviceability.

The Growing Use of Technology in the Finance Function

As business models change, the systems has to change alongside. Nowadays, Financial Controllers (FCs) prefer to have more insights and an increased focus on financial planning. Thus, better understanding of the income, cashflow and assets help determine the financial goals. Having real-time insights and adapting new business models are driving more and more financial departments to the cloud.

Similarly, Forrester states, systems are integrated and cloud-based to create a connected and dynamic ecosystem. The reasons for making the move are many, nonetheless the results are typically the same: faster innovation, greater scale, lower costs, and operational excellence.

If you are still concerned about the risks of changing finance, keep in mind the risks of not moving on.

To learn more about Oracle EPM Cloud, click here

Original post: https://blogs.oracle.com/epm/entry/the_impact_of_not_changing

Why do companies have to start with tech enablement?

Different rules

The rules of competition are changing due to digitalization. According to McKinsey, digital capabilities are now a prerequisite for long-term competitiveness. Modern technology; the change of the workforce and process improvement are important to gain competitive advantage in the fast-paced market.

Modern technology is mandatory equipment in the ever-changing digital era. But what are the odds of winning the fight when the troops do not know how to communicate with each other and the army is not able to use modern equipment?

Driving a successful business in the digital age is different than driving a business in a world without social networks, tablets, smartphones and smartwatches. People are more connected than ever before and customers have many tools in place to gain knowledge. If you are able to improve the management decision making process, you will improve your performance across the entire business. As a result, growth and profitability are increased; and additionally, by using advanced reporting operational risk is mitigated.

Priorities have shifted

One of the top business priorities during these past couple of years of this challenging economy was saving costs and therefore, many organizations reduced their IT budget and decreased their headcount in order to minimize financial losses.

According to Gartner, at present, growth and profitability are the top business priorities instead of cost-saving. About 40% of the companies consider growth as one of the top three priorities and IT applications play a pivotal role in making this happen.

Dare disruptive change

The upcoming new business models will disrupt the market, as it happened in previous industry revolutions. 89% of the companies listed in the Fortune 500 in 1955 are no longer in the current list as technology has been changing the fundamental structure of businesses.

By adopting modern technology like cloud- (Software as Service) and collaboration software, you are not only improving the business model, you also empower your business to go beyond efficiency; creating an army which works harder and smarter.

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” - Henry Ford

Intelligent and empowerment

I strongly believe in disruptive change, rather than changing single processes. By empowering the workforce, simplifying processes and using modern technologies you are able to react more quickly to changes in the market’s demands and therefore, improve long-term success.

Reducing the amount of man-hours spent on tasks which can easily be done by technology is key to be competitive. Many organizations are now automating their processes and starting to create real-time insights for this very reason as it allows them to concentrate more on the big picture; enabling the finance department to go back in the driver’s seat.

The smaller players in many industries are able to empower themselves with the same amount of computing power and data capacity that previously only the larger enterprises had access to.

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) application combined with advanced reporting, enables the organization to be more flexible and it will support the need for greater innovation.

Data has long been used for reporting purposes and for understanding the past. In the fast-paced and digital world, data has been used to trigger actions, making strategic decisions and forecast more accurate.

Because ERP contains a diversity of modules, including but not limited to finance, procurement and supply chain, it can grow along with the needs of the company. Thus it enables smooth and efficient functioning of businesses. These benefits lead to the adoption of ERP software among small and medium sized businesses.

Original post in Dutch at Oracle.com

How will IT change the future of your business?

Digital transformation

According to Gartner, the most disruptive change in the history of IT is imminent. Several years ago, Apple revolutionized the world with the iPhone transforming the phone to a simple, easy-to-use communication device. iPhone also ushers in an era of software power and sophistication that has never before been seen in a mobile device.

In order to increase customer satisfaction, a key focus area of many organizations is adopting a forward-looking view of expense management and the effective use of resources. How do you ensure your employees and IT gain a competitive advantage? If you have been running a successful business for many years, is changing your business necessarily a good idea?

Technology works for you

Similarly to the transformation of the iPhone, it is critical to shift your finance department’s strategy from being reactive to acting as a strategic internal business partner. This shift can be made by adopting innovative technology and attracting highly qualified employees to improve internal processes.

It is no surprise that technology is slowly replacing humans. Executing in a consequent way is possible when organization are seeking for process improvement via workflow automation. Taking advantage of this powerful capability allows organization for reallocation of resources to focus on strategy.

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new. 
- SOCRATES

The dual combination of robust technology and highly effective employees results in enhanced processes and expense saves. This becomes even more crucial as a result of the financial crisis.

This means real-time delivery of information, so you are able to make the best decisions for your organization. Technology enables 24/7 availability and accessibility which is now the standard.

If you can’t see without glasses, you should wear them

The volume of data flow is getting bigger and more complex. Big data is the new form of capital – like money, data has value. It’s a must have for organizations to deliver new products, services and ways of doing business. E.g. social media and the rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT).

The timely delivery of correct information, by the correct person, in the correct format is key to organizations in order to create meaningful analysis and make the right business decisions. Each employee makes decisions everyday - collecting, filtering and sharing the data with the whole organization enables more effective decision-making across the company. Access to BI and analytics provides insights to further enhance these processes.

Start improving information leadership and vision

Corporate boardrooms will start talking about data capital, not big data anymore. Human beings, supported by IT, are getting smarter. A key success factor in the constantly evolving society is the availability of strategy-focused employees. The current business requires a motivated organization to make proper decisions within the right time frame.

The volume of data flow is getting bigger and more complex. Are you as organization able to make the right decisions?

Increase productivity and be more profitable

Avoid gaps in the information data flow. Previously, information was either unavailable or difficult to obtain. By deploying Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), in combination with the right qualified employees, you're able to be successful as an organization in the rapidly changing environment. Many organizations have already invested in software, however, this configuration often does not reflect the current market demands. It works just fine, ‘we have been working for years like this’, is not a valid reason to continue on in the same manner. If you are aware of the changing environment and you ignore this by not being open to change, it could be fatal for the organization. It is all about the mindshift.

Oracle’s ERP vision is to deliver accelerated productivity to the finance team, serve business managers with streamlined processes, and provide all users with on-demand access to role-based information:

• Operational excellence to have one single source of truth
• Proactively resolve issues to expedite automated processing
• Reduce transaction processing costs and data entry errors

From governance to guidance

To cross your t’s and dot your i’s, you need more then only the numerical understanding of the past period. Being able to make prognosis is as well essential. By deploying Enterprise Performance Planning (EPM) you are enabling the organization to use the past to interpenetrate the future in order to respond quickly in a rapidly changing environment.

Oracle’s EPM vision is to provide finance leaders with a new guidance system for organizations.

• One that helps you engineering predictable performance by predicting future outcomes and having confidence in your close processes.
• One that is responsive to change allowing you to choose the way you work.
• One that helps you connect the enterprise and create a culture of accountability by providing visibility into past performance and clarity about the strategic goals.

You often hear that people are busy. Being busy can’t be an excuse for not being open to what happens in and around the company. apparently there were too busy as well at Nokia and look where that has led.

Everything is changing, except the change by itselves. Is your company prepared?

Empowering modern finance!

Original post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-change-future-your-business-richard-harsevoort-