In any business, having a consistent and repeatable process is the foundation of success. Amaxra routinely works with global high-tech companies such as Microsoft, HP, and T-Mobile where our award-winning consultants are known for:
- Their ability to quickly adapt to the existing processes that help to ensure the products and services those companies deliver are valuable to their customers.
- Their expertise in analyzing those existing processes to improve them for greater organizational efficiencies with a measurable return on investment (ROI)
In terms of the former, Amaxra consultants have demonstrated their ability to quickly adapt and add value at many organizations within Microsoft corporate headquarters. Unique to Microsoft is their policy of mandating that all temporary contractors only have full access to internal systems for a maximum of eighteen months then either need to be able to work without full access or take a break for the next six months. A real-world example of this is a manager at Microsoft tasked with delivering technical sales support to their over 600,000 partner organizations worldwide could hire external consultants for this complex project. But after the team found their groove and was working flawlessly, the manager had to continue delivering with a team that has a major disruption and could result in a loss of so-called “tribal knowledge” every eighteen months.
Adapting to a process delivers business value
Rather than discuss the reasons behind why Microsoft chose to institute this policy, let’s focus on how having good processes and tools are essential to success in this situation. Before an Amaxra consultant is attached to any team inside Microsoft, we ensure they are well-trained on using the key software tools in that organization. We are experts at not only deploying Microsoft solutions such as Office 365, Dynamics 365, and SharePoint Online, but we provide ongoing training so our consultants so they have demonstrable skills with those apps. That way, an Amaxra consultant has reduced ramp-up time when working in a customer’s day-to-day environment.
Evaluating and improving existing business processes
Looking beyond Microsoft, success is achieved by a modern business through the right combination of people, process, and technology. So, it’s critical that your employees are all leveraging the right information technology (IT) with proven business processes. But the reflex of most business owners and managers is to focus on the people and technology part of the equation as a pain point when lackluster results come in. It’s not that uncommon for companies to think that firing their underperforming salespeople or upgrading their old customer relationship management (CRM) software is a “quick fix” for their slowdown.
However, when business is slowing down it’s often not the people, but the processes that need evaluating. How much attention are you paying to your process? Because there is always room for process improvement in any organization. John Foley, the former leader of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels aerobatic jet squadron, is now a sought-after speaker at business conferences. His experiences with people, process, and technology as a member of the Blue Angels is an excellent example of how processes can be a bottleneck to success. “The Blue Angels have been flying air shows since 1946,” Foley explained in a recent talk. He recounted a harrowing story of trust where a squad of multi-million dollar fighter planes fly at near-supersonic speed just an arms’ reach away from each other. These pilots (the people) flying these planes (the technology) are trained to fly and support each other as a single entity (the process). “I’d been observing the team and I knew that their process had been continually refined,” Foley said. “And continues to be refined to this day.”
It should be noted that much like the Microsoft example, the Blue Angels loses a third of its workforce every year. Because the Blue Angels’ pilots and support staff are active military with regular fleet assignments in the Navy, quickly adopting and adapting to existing business processes is key to the team’s success.
Is your organization due for a process review?
Amaxra experts can help you refine and optimize your business processes. Our consultants have years of experience streamlining workflows for sales, marketing, and operations teams at businesses large and small that also infuse a new level of data security and business continuity to your processes.