What’s the core record for your business?  The order, contract, application, evaluation, presentation and subscription all come to mind.  It doesn’t matter if your business sells cars, office space, ideas or medical services, there is a necessary recording of the transaction and end product to the transaction. 

The progression over the past 30+ years has been to devise ways to make the recording, tracking and documentation of your business as streamlined as possible.  That entailed digitizing that path.  But digital data isn’t always what it seems and therefore the support for the transaction is still a key component of every business.  What is your key Record?

That Record can take a variety of forms from documents to recorded clicks or keystrokes.  That speaks to the perceived value of a single solution, aka ERP, or conversely the need for an integrated collection of solutions.  The support for the transaction needs to include the full chain of events from start to finish to create the true Record. 

It’s important to have the full history because it’s now expected that the full history is known and therefore that all subsequent interactions will be frictionless.  Unfortunately, this is not always the case.  When incomplete information or incorrect information is considered to be the truth, it will inevitably lead to dissatisfaction on the part of the buyer\patient\applicant when that information is not correct.

You certainly don’t want to go to your doctor and have them not know what they prescribed or told you at the last appointment.  Where is all of this going?  While humans continue to rule the world, it is best to design and develop systems that give humans the best opportunity to have the right information to make the right decisions.  Data, documents, logging of actions and related information should all be collected and stored and presented together to empower the decision maker or decision deliverer. 

For most businesses that involves connecting multiple systems or converting to a single solution which is both achievable and advisable.  Despite what your current business platform or collection of solutions look like, there are ways to incorporate workflow, document management, data collection, data sharing and information dissemination in a way that provides the business with the best version of the truth.  Don’t handcuff the decision maker or deliverer with an incomplete Record of the truth.

Millennia Group has been providing workflow and document management solutions since 1996.  For more information check out our website at www.mgdocs.com or contact us at info@mgdocs.com.