Business management: Excel and Word are a thing of the past - use dedicated, high-performance tools!
As we all (unfortunately) know, Excel and Word are omnipresent in the management of French and global companies! Almost 70% of organizations use these 2 programs for administrative, commercial and HR management. These business management tools, which date back to the 80s, are flexible and still very much in use in companies, but they do have their limitations.
In this article, we'll look at why using dedicated tools can make your business more productive and successful.
Why Word and Excel are no longer suitable:
The 2 phrases you're bound to have heard or said: "For my needs, this fits" or "I'm too small". For many companies, Word and Excel are 2 indispensable tools.
And for good reason:
- Flexibility to adapt to a wide range of business sectors.
- Simplicity and speed for specific tasks (drawing up an estimate, simple forecasting tables with calculation rules).
- Automation of certain time-consuming actions.
But why stop using Excel and Word to manage your business? Given the above points, it's a legitimate question! It will depend on your organization and the way you operate on a day-to-day basis, but the limits will become clearer as you grow.
The limits of these tools
Word, Excel: where's the added value?
Let's talk about anticipation - that's the 1st limitation! You have your Excel files with your customers, your figures, your forecasts, your beautiful tables... But what do you do with them? What do they bring you in terms of management and strategy, apart from information at a given point in time? The added value is nil! After many hours of sorting, exploiting and merging cells, files don't allow you to make long-term decisions. They're just information.
Let's take a concrete example: a sales rep is about to draw up his monthly balance sheet. He needs to list the companies he's in contact with in 1 Excel file, and even what he's invoiced via another file and his invoice in Word, and make the link. Enter everything into 1 Excel file, create calculation rules, draw up the tables and hope you haven't made any mistakes in your data entry...
As you can see, most of the time is spent on data entry and processing. Then it's on to the analysis. You or your sales staff spend more time on these tasks than on your core business: find new sources of revenue!
To err is human!
We make more mistakes than we care to admit. It's not possible to eradicate them, but you can drastically reduce them by avoiding Excel and Word in your business management.
Calculation and cell errors are common! They can quickly make you lose money, or even lead to bankruptcy due to poor management and forecasting. When you're working with forecasting tables, errors can happen very quickly. It can distort your forecasts and lead you to make bad decisions.
Less talked about, fraud and misconduct can also alter your documents. We've seen it happen in the corporate world. Ill-intentioned employees have deliberately altered files, or worse, deleted them. Without traceability, it's impossible to know who's behind it. And, above all, there's no way of backing up data other than the last time you backed up your file.
Centralizing and sharing information: an essential development lever for your company
Managing your business from Excel and Word documents is extremely risky, time-consuming and time-consuming! What's more, how can you keep track of your customer relationships?
Where can you find information on your customer portfolio? One of the most common management mistakes is for everyone to keep their own customer information, and for everyone to be responsible for their own data. This kind of organization often comes naturally, especially when each person is responsible for a particular sector (geographical or business).
But what happens when an employee is on vacation? When they move to another position, within the company or elsewhere? When everyone keeps their own data, it is not shared, and is organized and scheduled differently.
As a result, any change in the company's organization comes up against an extremely significant obstacle, as everyone has "their" way of working and organizing themselves. If a one-off or long-term replacement is needed, it's in the "replaced" employee's interest to be there to pass on the files.
What's more, working on a joint project without making any mistakes is no mean feat: e-mails are forwarded to each other, but if you miss one, you're out of sync with the customer.
And that's just talking about the sales department, but what about the rest: does the customer have an ongoing case with the after-sales service? Does he owe us money, or does he have a credit pending?
And in the event of malicious intent, a whole section of the company's history could disappear. Invoices will remain, but the foundation on which the customer relationship was built will simply be lost.
Not to mention the eventual sale of the company, when the structuring of customer information will play a significant role in its valuation...
Migrating to a simple & French tool?
Let's face it. At the start of our entrepreneurial adventure, we also went through the "Word, Excel" phase.
As we saw above, these are 2 tools that can help you on specific points. But not for the day-to-day running of your business. The programmed obsolescence of this method will soon be felt.
Using a French CRM + ERP online tool will enable you to support your company's growth in a reliable, secure and scalable way. You certainly have your habits, but the time and energy you waste using Excel and Word to manage your business is detrimental.
That's why we developed Axonaut! Combine the power of CRM + ERP with modern, scalable technology. Every entrepreneur needs access to all company data at all times.
The benefits of SaaS CRM + ERP
Let's start with a few basics:
- A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) aims to better centralize and manage the relationship between your entity and your prospects/customers. This generally translates into a suite of tools for exchanging, capturing, processing and analyzing customer data. The aim is to get to know your customers better, so as to be able to offer them the best possible service.
- An ERP (Enterprise Ressource Planning) or Progiciel de Gestion Intégré is defined more by the Back Office. In other words, tools that enable you to monitor the management of your business: invoicing, stock, human resources, project management.
Quick & easy installation and set-up
One of the first fears of companies wishing to acquire online software is data migration, installation, training... Unlike physical tools, you don't need consultants or servers.
In just 1 click, you can test a solution for free. This means fewer human resources are required. This means you're better prepared for the future. What's more, most offer training, webinars and telephone support.
SaaS model: Freedom & Security
Physical software doesn't let you :
- enjoy your software and data anywhere, anytime,
- obtain updates and upgrades.
In the digital age, mobility is essential. So accessing your data must be quick and easy. With online CRM + ERP software, you'll be able to find all the information you need about your prospects/customers: e-mail, telephone number, exchanges... Before an appointment, you'll be able to see on your smartphone/tablet, for example, the latest exchanges with your customer.
An online tool will also enable you to benefit fully and instantly from your customer's latest news. No more untimely, never-ending updates. What's more, the security of your data is guaranteed by multiple backups.
Information centralization and sharing
Using a SaaS-based tool will give your entire team access to the information they need. This increases the quality of internal communication and exchanges.
What's more, redundant double data entry will be a thing of the past. All the sources of daily errors between departments, people and information will be greatly reduced.
Sharing information will be much easier. Each employee will have a user space (you can even choose the rights to which he or she will have access) and will hold complete, up-to-date information. You'll also get "Traceability" functionality. At any time, you can see who did what (create, modify, delete information).
Conclusion
We encounter all these limitations of Excel and Word on a daily basis with our customers. Their feedback enables us to understand the needs of entrepreneurs, so that we can offer a simple, yet comprehensive tool.
We therefore advise companies to migrate to online CRM + ERP solutions. The tools available on the market will enable you to save time on the day-to-day management of your business.
The aim is to enable you to concentrate on what's essential: your core business, your business, your sales!
Article translated from French