There’s been talk of two-speed economies over the years, but right now we seem to be living in a two-speed world.
Countries like the US and UK are reaching for the fast-forward button as they reap the benefits of their impressive COVID-19 vaccination rollouts. Others, notably but by no means only India, have hit reverse as they are overwhelmed by their latest and largest waves.
Even as we avoid or emerge from lockdowns, many of the changes forced upon us are set to become permanent, and we’ll forget the lessons learned at our peril.
That’s as true in the workplace as anywhere:
- Many staff have embraced working remotely, and don’t plan to return to the office full time.
- CFOs are looking to take advantage of this trend by shedding floor space to cut costs.
- Breaking down location-centric business models makes a wider, deeper talent pool available to savvy employers.
- In a less certain, less centralized world, collaboration tools are a key to both flexibility and resilience.
A year ago, tightening the purse strings was an understandable reaction. As we adjust to the new normal, savvy businesses are once more looking to invest in order to build resilience and enhance their competitive advantage.
Investing for a Decentralized World
We’ve been blogging and presenting about these challenges and opportunities regularly over the past year, as have many others. We recently noticed this post by Rizwan Rauf on the Sage 300 Interest Group LinkedIn forum, which covered similar territory.
To paraphrase some of Rizwan’s key observations:
- Digitalization has become more crucial than ever, and not just at the top end of town.
- Effective communication between individuals and departments is critical for making business processes more consistent and robust.
- Investing in business software now is much more than a tactical response to COVID realities. It’s a strategic commitment to set up your business for a long-term, less certain future.
- An effective document management solution is a key component of a digitized solution.
- Even if a full-blown Document Management System is out of your reach, you should be looking at how best to eliminate your reliance on physical documentation.
These Orchid Products Fit the Bill
As outlined in our Orchid Goes Remote article last year, as well as in other posts and webinars, we’ve been walking the walk as well as talking the talk when it comes to adjusting our work practices to take account of the new reality.
As well as ramping up our use of 3rd party, cloud-based productivity and collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, we’ve been making better use of Orchid's own Sage 300 add-ons, not least:
- Document Management Link (DML): Leaving the office meant breaking our attachment to physical documents. That made it a no-brainer to digitize our document management processes.
DML allowed us to take the final steps in this journey, giving Sage 300 users easy, location-independent access to key documents.
- EFT Processing: As well as letting go of old habits like printing and filing purchase orders and invoices, we’ve also consigned the cheque book to history. All our vendor payments are now processed by Electronic Funds Transfer.
- Extender: The missing link that lets us integrate various systems, and streamline internal processes, using a combination of codeless configuration, workflows, and bespoke Python scripts.
Talk to your Sage 300 solution provider for advice on how you can invest wisely to set up your business for a long and fruitful future in a post-pandemic world.
