Quick system wins
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you have to create or replace your business systems in one fell swoop!
You can implement some quick wins in your current system to make it much more intuitive and flexible.
Here are 5 ideas to get you moving forward quickly:
Cross referencing
Enable tagging or categorisation of documents (metadata).
As an example, using this you could store project documentation so that it can be found not only in the project folder, but also by searching by department, by financial year or by programme road map.
Views
Views are nothing new, but make a big difference to information readiness. By creating a summary view of the pertinent information in your system, your management team can focus on high-value tasks rather than spending time drawing together information. If your current system doesn’t support views, you could look to create views using a third party tool.
Workflow
Now this a potentially contentious suggestion, but workflow allows the organisation to underpin their processes with a level of rigour that is hard to maintain through business process alone. For example you could set easy reminders for your team to check-in documents or to update statements. However, word of warning: as in life, too much of a good thing can be harmful - use judiciously.
Notifications
Related to workflow, notifications are a great way of keeping your team members informed about progress and their next steps. Same warning applies!
File input automation
Even your personal Gmail account does some input automation in the browser: sorting your social email from your promotions etc, so using this as part of your business system should be high your list.