August 2009: A Note from Jeff Mack
The Bottom Line: Where Has the Clutter Gone?

Lean on the Cheap
We hear a lot these days about doing more with less, wringing more value out of people/system investments, reducing our capital outlay, and generally getting leaner in all facets of our lives. When it comes to your business systems, you might want to consider getting leaner there also. When I refer to business systems, I am primarily referring to your ERP (accounting) and CRM (call tracking) systems. But it could also encompass any other critical application system in your business.

Thou Shalt Not Clutter
One way to trim the fat from your business systems is to think about eliminating the clutter. I can almost hear it now…”What’s that, clutter in my business systems? Why, I don’t have any stinking clutter in my business systems.” Perhaps not, but if I were a betting man, I would take that bet and win most of the time, because most of the situations I am talking about reside in the “I’ll get around-to-it” category. As a few examples, here’s the kind of clutter I am talking about:

• How many customers who haven’t purchased from you in the last 3 years are in your systems? Are they really a customer if they haven’t purchased anything in the last 3 years? Should you delete them or perhaps simply archive them?
• How many old sales quotes do you have in your system for expired customers?
• When was the last time you systematically contacted your customers to update their contact records? For instance, who is the primary contact for accounts payable? How about for business decisions? Who should you be marketing to in these organizations?
• Do you categorize your customers by industry, products purchased, geography etc.? When was the last time you reviewed the accuracy of these indicators and updated them?
• How many records are in your system for vendors you no longer purchase from? How long do you really need to keep those vendor records? Delete or archive, that is the question.
• When was the last time you contacted all your vendors and requested updated W-9 forms?
• How many old purchase orders are still hanging around in your system even though the goods or services were received long ago?
• How many inventory records are in your systems that haven’t been used for years?
• What’s the degree of completeness, accuracy, and synchronization between your accounting system and your CRM system? I am guessing that this is a very painful issue for 95+ percent of the businesses out there. (Hint - it doesn’t have to be.)
• How many new contacts have your salespeople accumulated that never quite found their way into your CRM system?
• How many islands of data have been created and marooned in your organization?

I am sure you get the idea and can think of plenty more that apply to your specific situation. The point is that these times that are admittedly slow for many businesses might be the best time to apply your own cleansing initiatives to ensure that your systems are in top form when the recovery begins in earnest. The odds are that you may soon want to upgrade your systems, so there is no time like the present to get prepared. After all, world class athletes consume recovery drinks after a hard workout to restore their energy building blocks. Your business systems need a strong recovery drink now and then also.

Great Idea, But...
You might be thinking that these are great ideas but wondering where you are going to find the time to get them done. We had the same dilemma recently, so we hired a college intern to help us. Her name is Becca (some of you may have spoken to her) and she is a sophomore majoring in Business with a marketing emphasis. In a few short weeks, she has been able to accomplish all of the above items for our systems as well as launch some targeted marketing activities associated with our Managed Services practice. It’s been a win-win for all concerned because she was able to clean up a lot of the stuff that, let’s face it, none of us really want to do, and she gained some hands-on experience in areas related to her field of study. Our overall out-of-pocket investment was minimal and our business systems are now lean mean fighting machines ready to take on a flood of new business.

Tools We'd be Glad to Share
Along the way, we developed some new easy-to-use Crystal reports to help us identify dormant records (customer, vendor, inventory item) that might be candidates for deletion, or at the very least archiving. If you are considering taking on a similar project, let us know and we will happily share what we used. Your systems will run better and your people will be more efficient once the clutter is removed. And that’s good for all of our bottom lines.

 

Your systems will run better and your people will be more efficient once the clutter is removed. And that’s good for all of our bottom lines.