These days, businesses continuously undertake numerous efforts to win more customers. Operational procedures, flawless customer journeys – all these efforts usually boil down to one keyword: processes. Or more specifically, end-to-end business processes. These need to be analyzed and efficiently designed within the company to meet and exceed the growing demands of the market.
Against this background, we clarify what end-to-end business processes are in the first place, their importance for companies, and how the iPaaS application Make can help with integration and automation.
Business process management (BPM) is a branch of business administration in its own right, but it usually has overall significance for the entire company. The optimization of processes is not a new discipline and has been used for decades as a promising means to increase productivity and profitability. But in our eyes, simple analysis and optimization is not enough: the digitalization and of course the automation of business processes need to be prioritized to actually realize all the promised benefits of business process management. This is also where identifying end-to-end business processes is important.
End-to-end business processes mean nothing more than a process in the company that begins with the customers or is triggered by them and also ends there again. In between, there are numerous sub-processes that follow each other in time and usually run through the entire company with various departments and positions.
Where there are processes, there is usually room for their analysis and optimization. This is also an ideal way to declutter in a company and ultimately create streamlined, efficient, and automated processes. In the case of end-to-end business processes, optimization and automation can have numerous positive effects because they are usually so all-encompassing and multi-layered:
In the first step, it is usually useful to visualize a process. There are numerous methods for this, such as BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation), which aim to depict a process, its responsibilities, time sequences and accountabilities. We also frequently experience that large and complex processes in particular can hardly be overviewed by a single person in the company.
The following questions are usually helpful in the analysis:
We also offer a detailed step-by-step blog post to guide you with optimizing and automating your processes.
In end-to-end business processes, there are generally so-called “touchpoints” at the beginning, i.e., points of contact with potential customers. These can be very different: Perhaps the person has received an impression of your company from an ad, or they hear about the company from friends and acquaintances. It is important to control all these touchpoints as well as possible to ensure that customers get the best possible impression of the company.
End-to-end also means that the process ends with the clients. This means that, for example, after a project is completed, the clients are asked to evaluate the process in order to realize further improvements.
Efficient and optimized processes are the first step towards technological implementation and automation. This is where Make comes in and offers the possibility to integrate the entire process across multiple departments.
Make is a so-called iPaaS tool. Make functions as a platform on which individual cloud applications and tools can be linked together. First, we define a trigger for the process, for example, an email is received with an invoice attached. Make scans the linked email account for this trigger by default.
If such an email is received in the next step, the invoice attached to the email can be automatically transferred to the accounting system, such as lexoffice. Make thus performs a simple copy and paste task automatically by connecting Microsoft Outlook and lexoffice.
We have provided a more detailed explanation of Make here.
We have implemented an end-to-end business process in our own company in such a way that we use Make as a supporting tool from the very beginning and thus create an optimized customer journey.
The process starts with the specific client request, which can come either by phone, email, or our website form. Then everyone receives an automated email asking them to make an appointment by phone. The appointment booking is done via a cloud tool that is not only automatically synchronized with the respective staff member's own calendar, but also allows us to send further emails afterward.
After booking an appointment, another automatic email is sent with preparatory questions for the telephone conversation. In this conversation, we clarify the ideas, the reason for contacting us, and possible implementation options in a joint project.
If this first conversation leads to a collaboration and a project is opened, Make enables us to create an efficient project process by connecting various cloud tools we use, such as Airtable or Microsoft 365. In this way, we can primarily concentrate on our main activities, the successful implementation of our clients' needs. We spend less time writing emails, submitting documents and files or, in the worst case, copy and paste tasks.
Make is particularly suitable for such automation because the modular view also provides an overview of the process. It looks like this (for example):
Simplified end-to-end business processes offer numerous advantages for a company. However, they should not stop at analyzing and optimizing them, but also consider their digitalization and automation as part of business process management. The cloud tool Make is ideal for this, thanks to its modular structure and the simple integration of numerous cloud applications. Weak points in the process can be identified and rectified and automation takes over redundant tasks and sub-steps so that employees have more time for value-adding activities.
We are happy to provide support in the analysis and subsequent automation of business processes, explain options and address company processes individually. Arrange a consultation now!
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