As we face yet another period of change, as business leaders, our ability to adapt to change and preparedness to be agile in our response to opportunities or threats has never been more key to our success.

To achieve this we need to have sharpened our business processes to the optimum so we have spare capacity to adapt to new opportunities.  

In the business world in the UK we are told that our workers are not as efficient as some of our European cousins.  I find that hard to believe, but if we accept it at face value, ok there are plenty of ways we can improve our Productivity and Processes and we see good examples of companies doing that in the UK and USA, every day. However we are also aware that there remain many companies who are still using the tools prevalent 20 years ago which struggle to collaborate, never mind do it on any platform and it be intuitive and easy to work with.

There are many business leaders who are embracing change and helping their workforce to find smarter ways of working. Yet many are still using the same old tools because they are familiar and not because they are the best, which is dramatically limiting the scope of their progress

Recommended Productivity and Efficiency Tools

As a company we are focussed on helping companies to improve their processes, making sure their workers (users) of IT solutions have the best and most intuitive tools to work with. Let us share our recommendations of great software that could help your company make a step change in Business Process improvement…. They are…. Below and all offer a free trial.

The range of Cloud based solutions grows daily but we recommend Smartsheet instead of Excel and Task lists/to do lists that don’t join up and collaborate.

Appsheet which offers the ability to build cost effective Mobile Apps in a day or two, that work on any device and deliver the exact solution you seek by conditional logic. Collaboration for the masses! Costed in £100’s not 10’s of £1000’s.

Data produced by these work management Apps should be viewed in Graphical dashboards so good decisions can be made, based on Real Time Results. Microsoft  Power Bi is one of those Graphical Apps that reads data from any Spreadsheet, so your management finger is on the pulse of your business ready to act on what you see.

For many workers travelling to work or to a meeting is the tradition, rather than best practise. Since our company started working with companies around the world, we have had to embrace the video conference and screen share world.  These tools have improved dramatically, speeding up decision and delivery times, and cutting down on travel time and costs and reducing our carbon footprint.

We currently recommend Zoom.us for conferencing and screen share but equally acknowledge that Skype, Webex, GoToMeeting and Join.me among others achieve good results. Alas Face time is still one to one… at the moment.

If we manage the changes that are affecting us, then we can seize new opportunities as they are presented.  In order to achieve this our Business Processes need to be fully optimised, allowing us to create in our organisations a culture of continuous innovation, safe in the knowledge that our Key Performance Indicators are telling us what we need to know… in Real Time.

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If you are interested in leading on change in your business, making your Business Processes more efficient, intuitive, easy to work with, easy to report on and track progress, then please watch Jim Hemerling’s 14 minute TED talk video, it explains what we do and how we are succeeding where others seem to disappoint.    

Jim outlines five imperatives, centered around putting people first, for turning company reorganization into an empowering, energizing task for all.

• Inspire through purpose
• Commit to ‘going all in’
• Enable people with the capeabilities to succeed
• Instil a culture of continuous learning
• Encourage inclusive leadership

In the era of “always-on” transformation, organizations are always going to be transforming. But doing so, does not have to be exhausting. We owe it to ourselves, to our organizations and to society more broadly to boldly transform our approach to transformation. To do that, we need to start putting people first.

About Jim Hemerling

Jim Hemerling is a Senior Partner and Managing Director in The Boston Consulting Group’s People & Organization and Transformation Practices. He is a BCG Fellow with a focus on high-performance organization transformation. He also leads BCG’s global Behavior & Culture topic.

Hemerling has published extensively on transformation, organization effectiveness and culture. He is co-editor of Transformation: Delivering and Sustaining Breakthrough Performance, a synthesis of BCG’s latest thinking on transformation to be published in November 2016.  

About Smarter Business Processes

Smarter Business Processes provides consultancy services and training that help clients in UK, Europe and North America create huge productivity improvements with improved workflow solutions, application integration and smarter app solutions

We focus on the People and their Processes first, which produces excellent Performance outcomes.  

Responding to user demand for more automation, Smarter Business Processes have launched a series of Smarter Apps that Stretch the functionality of Smartsheet and Appsheet to create some amazing new, low cost business automations and App Integrations.  Leading the launch is their much requested Smarter Dropdown List Manager solution.

We offer a free initial consultation to assess your needs and discuss how they may be addressed with our help. See our Testimonials and Customer Success Stories

Contact Us to arrange a free initial consultation to discuss your workflow management, Smartsheet and AppSheet Mobile App needs – we’d love to hear form you

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“With customers in over 160 countries, it helps to have fantastic partners like Skillsfinder to support our growing base”  says Jennifer Bolton at Smartsheet.  See more

See what Skillsfinder client, Drives and Automation had to say:

“We are now using Smartsheet for all project planning. Due to its flexibility, we have extended its use to our database, stock records, technical library, etc., etc. The possibilities are endless and, on top of that, it is all automatically backed up!

We are absolutely delighted with our team’s enthusiasm and for the improved collaboration it has provided. Well done to Smartsheet for creating such an excellent product. Thanks to Richard Rymill and the Skillsfinder team for providing the initial demonstration and remote support for getting us up and running in just a few days.”
Nigel Vivian, Managing Director of Drives and Automation

The post Skillsfinder Smartsheet Partner Update appeared first on SmarterBusinessProcesses.