Get a 360 degree View of Your Business and Start Gaining Control

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4 min read

Updated: March 18th, 2020

Running a business is no easy task. You have to be always prepared for what is about to come and there will always be things that you are unprepared for. That is why you need to have complete control of your teams and members that comprise your organization. When we say “control”, it is not the kind of control where you have to micromanage each member’s task, but this control that we are referring to is a level of control where you can see how each member is contributing to the productivity of the organization.

A 360-degree view of your business is needed for you to be completely aware of the direction of your business. Without this, as a leader, it might be difficult for you to take charge and lead your team to success. This is even more crucial in a modern business environment. These days, technology drives organizations to success. They help businesses keep track of their progress and seamlessly collaborate to get projects done.

What is in a modern business environment?

The world of business is fiercely competitive and extremely unpredictable. Even with the millions of dollars spent on forecasting risks and mitigating their impact, some companies’ resources still dry up which forces them to go bankrupt. Others are fairly lucky. Some success stories seem impossible to be true, but they are. When one company goes up, others go down. No hard feelings. All of these are not considered uncommon in business. 

Modern businesses are characterized by their use of technology to improve their operations and profitability. For most modern businesses, efficiency is key. Without efficiency, costs could skyrocket.  This could hurt their prospects of gaining profit and achieving growth. 

Modern businesses are also not just concerned with using technology, it also has to consider using the best technology. As the needs of modern businesses evolve, tech companies evolve too. Hundreds of tech companies come and go, offering software or systems or platforms to address the needs of businesses. Some of them are great at what they are doing. Others just fail.

There are more things modern businesses have to factor in when making business decisions. They have to consider their customers’ needs as well. Because the business environment has continuously evolved over time, it is expected that customers’ needs and preferences will. These days, customers are all about speed and quality of service. Fail to do that and you may lose that customer forever.

These highlights the reason why it is imperative for businesses to be careful in choosing the best technology and shaping the best work practice. Because in the age of technology where everyone is almost interconnected, word spreads like wildfire. And a bad reputation could cost you your business.

How to get a 360-degree view of your business?

The success of big businesses in their respective industries can be attributed to a lot of factors. One of these factors is their ability to use technology to their advantage. Technological advancements often bring a lot of benefits to businesses. They speed up the production process, they enhance services rendered to clients (like improving accuracy and precision), and they also help cut costs for businesses due to the efficiency they provide.

One of the most relevant examples of these technological advancements is the creation of CRM software. CRM software helps you get a 360-degree view of your business. Using CRM software, sales teams can now quickly manage their customer information and make strategic business decisions based on the data they have collected and analyzed. CRM software allows businesses to instantly record, organize, and pull up customer information any time they want.

The trend of using the software has steadily increased over the years. Most big businesses became successful because of their ability to maintain and boost their sales– and this is largely due to their success in managing their sales pipeline. Sales pipelines traditionally are done manually. For example, a sales manager writes the pipeline on a whiteboard as a visual aid and sales reps manually categorize leads, prospects, and customers using pen and paper. This is no longer efficient. In fact, this has been considered as costly by huge businesses that often deal with thousands of leads, prospects, and customers.

Getting the Control You Need with CRM

CRM systems are often equipped with tools that help you monitor data and changes in information in real-time. Some systems even automatically analyze and display data for you. What is best with CRM systems is that you are guaranteed to have accurate data and information in a centralized platform where everyone with access can see. This enables seamless collaboration between teams while providing a 360-degree view to leaders.

CRM systems also have workflows that can be automated. There are two common workflows for CRM: Sales and Marketing. With these, you will be able to manage leads, make use of your email lists, and target your contact using the system.

Sales CRM can work as lead management software. It often has features that allow you to manage your leads and successfully convert them into paying customers. A sales CRM should allow you to visualize your sales pipeline, give you automatic updates about your sales funnel, how much success you are getting into converting them, pull up categorized email lists, send email using the platform, and give you an updated customer information (including notes on your previous transactions with customers) so you can personalize your services and upgrade your customer service.

How does this work? During the sales conversion cycle, customers look for certain things that could make or break your company. They might be looking for warm but precise customer service from your sales reps or they might be looking for detailed info about your product. These seemingly insignificant requirements may be the biggest factor for that target customer to become a full-blown paying customer. Your whole company should know about these requirements and because sales CRM is able to provide centralized information about a customer (which means that all your departments have access to this information), each department can personalize their service and make it tailor-fitted to the customer’s preferences.

For example, when an incoming lead is inputted into the CRM, all your sales agent needs to do is verify the lead’s information, ask the lead questions, and decide if the lead qualifies or not. If the lead qualifies, the sales agent can schedule an office visit or a demo using the CRM. After the demo, the sales agent then can send a quote (or an invoice) and make sure that it gets paid within several days.

The same is true for CRM marketing. The system is built to allow you to track the effectiveness of your promotional activities. Just add the data for the marketing activity category (like the marketing campaigns you have launched: ads, banners, blog posts, newsletters, among others) and the system will track the changes and interpret new data for you.

Conclusion

Gaining control over your business is crucial in its success. Being able to have control over its data, information, and whatever you know about your customers will enable you to direct your organization to have more sales, more customers, and more profit. And it does not take a genius to figure out that these are essential in growing your business.