Every business has issues, whether you like it or not!
All business processes are made up of many separate, but intertwined events. How these events work and impact the process defines the efficiency of your business. We often hear people talk of business road-blocks or critical issues. It can be the type of hardware/software that the business is using, it can be the interactions of people, both internal and external, it can be the type of communication that takes place within the business. Everyone in the business knows what it is but sometimes we just live with it, because it is too hard to change.
Communication issues are difficult to change because we are often waiting for others (outside our control) to respond before we can proceed forward. Often we have no feedback from people involved in our processes, and yet they suffer through our way of doing things.
If we manufacture goods or provide services we map out the way in which the item is manufactured and look for the most efficient way to create the item. If we provide a service we look at how we can continuously improve the way we deliver the service. We map out the process and look for better ways to move forward.
So why don’t we apply this technique to the small events in our business that generate the most frustration to the majority of people?
What if it were possible to insert some piece of magic into your business which dealt with road-blocks, improved communication flow, reminded people that they have a task to complete, followed up if there was a delay? All happening in the background with little management involvement and no abrasive emotional interactions. This is how issue management software should work. It does not mean that you have to replace your systems, it works within your systems. It maps out the various events that make up processes and automates the interactions of the many players and systems involved in the process and then puts in place solutions to move the process forward to the next step.
Improved communication – automate the communication steps so there is no delay
Enhanced step flow – map the steps in a process and automate them
Access from anywhere – disconnected actors and systems connected
Real-time process control – automated process control
Entirely cloud based – software that integrates with your software
Software that works – just like people
Issue management software operates in the background to resolve issues before they become stopping points in your business processes. Based on mapping out processes and placing automated step resolution functions it is possible to improve the flow of your day-to-day processes without re-building the business.
So what is this magic and why have you not heard of it before?
Simply put, the process of issue management is not new, but the tools to allow it to happen efficiently have not been around before. In the past you would look for some off the shelf solution to improve business process management. There are many out there but in the majority of cases they force your business to work in their way rather than allowing your efficient systems to go on working as they do. Often these systems have to be shoe-horned into your systems and over the years, of adding more and more systems the whole process just falls apart.
We are dealing with people and people do not work like software. Good software needs to work like people. People forget, or are overloaded and fail to finish or follow-up task that can be critical to a process. Issue management software acts as a gentle reminder to “prod” people to complete a task, to ask if they need more information to move forward, to guide someone through a process by providing the correct questions that prompt the correct response.
Business process are complicated and so are people. They need to work together, not fight each other
Fixxt is a business process solution unlike any other. At its core it operates as an event tracker and state machine. It allows a process to move forward to the next step if all of the events in the rules engine that are required are met. If there is a problem it automatically sends out the correct communication event to the correct person to establish if there is a reason for the delay and then prompts to help resolve the delay. Once the block is fixed it moves to the next step in the process. If humans are involved they are treated like humans and dealt with in a non-emotive manner.
Software that works like people.