The world has changed a lot over the past few years, and your clients, prospects and customers now expect a lot more for a lot less. The countless amount of self-serving options available to us means that, whenever an interaction involves a human touch,  the expectation is at a much higher level than it was before.

Implementing an Operations Management System is a step in the right path towards growing your business through digital transformation (What is Digital Transformation?), using technology to automate your everyday processes and removing the hassle of time-consuming tasks. With it, you could be enjoying great alignment between teams, streamlining of your document and process management, automate aware time-consuming admin and more. Without software to manage your business processes, you could put a serious dent in your productivity – leaving your business in a less sustainable state or without the capacity to scale.

In this blog, we’ll guide you through the ins and outs of operations management software – what it is, why you need it and a few neat tricks to help you find one that works for your business!

What is Operations Management Software?

Operations Management Software (OMS) is a digital tool that streamlines, improves and optimises your business processes to increase productivity and cut down your operating costs. The software simplifies your processes by automating repetitive, mundane and time-consuming tasks, removing any bottlenecks to ensure your operations are running smoothly.

What Does Operations Management Software Do?

• • • • Automates job management workflows
      • It gives you visibility of all your business processes from one centralised hub
      • Provides you with the functionality to manage multiple complex projects
      • Streamlines inventory management, asset maintenance and employee management
      • Gathers data to help you make informed business decisions

Why Do You Need Operations Management Software?

1. Scale Your Operations

Automating your repetitive tasks leaves your software bearing the bulk of the grunt work, opening you and your team up to focus on tasks that need a human touch. Automation doesn’t replace the need for staff, but instead, empowers them to spend time on higher-value tasks that support your business growth and allows you to scale more efficiently.

2. Effective Business Operations Planning

OMS analyses the efficiency and effectiveness of your business operations and gives you feedback to make improvements. The system collects, collates and analyses your data, giving you the insights you need to set new goals and develop new strategies to achieve your targets.

3. Remote Working

With the pandemic hitting businesses hard, it’s now more than ever that we appreciate the need for digital transformation. OMS optimises your various business operations by giving you easy access to all your web-based software apps through your email login - making your life so much easier. It enables you to collaborate and communicate with anyone on projects and tasks that require teamwork.

4. Accountability

Say goodbye to countless meetings to get status updates from each team member and their progress on each task, and say hello to operations management software! It gives you a quick snapshot of everyone’s progress and their feedback to develop new strategies and to combat the difficulties your team faces.

5. Competitive Edge

Efficiency in your day-to-day business operations gives you a competitive edge in productivity over your competitors. With most businesses already adopting OMS, failure to follow suit will leave you far behind.

Looking to stay ahead of your competition through the adoption of an operations management software? Hype & Dexter is the go-to solution as we'll work with you to implement the right technology and onboard it smoothly to optimise your business operations. So get in touch with us today!

Now that you know why you need Operations Management Software - we thought it best to ask our guru of business operations, the CXO and Co-Founder of Hype & Dexter, Romi Dexter, to tell us in her own words why she thinks it’s vital for businesses to adopt the software.

"It’s about preparing for now. Today, it’s not good enough to spend loads of time doing admin, doubling up on tasks, repeating everything to everyone in the business and not knowing enough about your customers. You’ll find it difficult to quickly respond and match your clients’ expectations – leaving you to fall behind your competitors. With the overhead and stress of unnecessary admin, you’ll start to lose people, and your operational costs will increase. If you don’t have the same level of understanding of your clients, it could cost you sales and leave you with no opportunity to enhance your business operations."

At Hype & Dexter, we use HubSpot’s Operations Hub to manage our business operations and to get a better idea of how much of a game-changer it is; we asked Romi to share insights on how it has helped Hype & Dexter.

"HubSpot does so much more than other platforms because it’s built from the ground up as a solution, and it’s good to go straight out of the box. The user adoption, utilisation of tools, setup and onboarding, is much higher and cost-effective. Operations Hub allows you to pull the data from disparate platforms that do their niche things into HubSpot to push out the data into systems to automate those actions - like a central data area of information."

Tips For Choosing an Operations Management Software That’s Right for Your Business

1. Identify Your Goals and Objectives

Figure out your goals, current problems that need solving, and what you want this software to achieve. Break down your current business process and what needs improvement, and see if the solution provides you with value. A good way of doing this is to approach your team for feedback on what they expect from an OMS.

2. Jot Down Your Requirements

Get a few people in the business to come together and discuss what they’re like to see in the software and the problems they expect it to solve. Write down a list of requirements so that when you’re researching the software, you’ll know exactly what to look out for.

3. Research Available Software

Do your due diligence and research different platforms on Google to see what’s available out there. Use comparison sites to see which software ranks well and the pros and cons of each of them. At this point, don’t pay attention to your list just yet, as it could narrow down your list too soon without scoping it as much as you should.

4. Narrow Down Your List

Check them off against your list of requirements to narrow down your extensive list with all the available software. Bear in mind that you should consider technology preference, user adoption, and fundamental features at this stage.

5. Trials & Demos

Most, if not all, OMS come with free trials or demos. But, while they are free, there is a time and capacity commitment to trying out a new OMS. So you should hold off this stage until your shortlist is down to two or three. Identify a few critical functions to focus your efforts on, and test it out to see if it solves your problem and returns the value you expected.

6. Analyse & Make a Decision

Gather your team's feedback on whether the software has improved their productivity and efficiency of daily operational tasks. Get them to share insights into other areas that can be improved. Finally, decide on whether the costs and commercial terms of licensing and implementing this software is right for your business.

With these handy tips, you’ll be able to find an OMS that’s best suited to your needs with ease. Here’s some wise words from Romi for businesses looking to switch to a digital approach towards their business operations.

What’s The Best Piece of Advice For Businesses Looking to Adopt Operations Management Software?

"Start off with your process and experience first. Do not gather requirements and do not list features just yet. Think of how you want to operate as a business and the kind of experience you want to deliver to your customers, internal teams, partners and whoever you’re engaging with. By starting with this, you’ll be able to focus on what you want the software to do. It will tick the boxes if you begin with features, but it will be hard to use and may not deliver what you expected it to. Always think user-first, not technology first!"

With that sound advice from Romi, it’s fair to say that Hype & Dexter is the place to be. You could spend all your time trying to find the right operations software (not knowing whether it will work), or… you could simply get in touch with us!

We’ll talk with you to find out your pain points, current processes, goals and why you’re looking at operations management software, and develop a solution to help your business. But we don’t simply set you up and leave you hanging - we’ll help you implement the tech into your business and work with you to roll out a smooth onboarding process. Reach out to us today and let’s take your business operations process to the next level.