Back Office Modernization in the Age of Digital Transformation

As businesses continue to take advantage of digitalplatforms to for customer attention and improve the customer journey, we’re seeing an alarming tendency that negatively impacts legacy organizations in Anchorage who’ve been using the same protocols and software for years.

When companies begin the trek toward Digital Transformation, they tend to prioritize customer-facing departments like Customer Service, Sales, and Marketing and neglect the Back Office. While it’s critical to improve the customer journey and correctly market your services, forgetting about certain departments that also service customers, merchants, partners, and workers can hurt your capability to provide a seamless experience for all parties.

Our View

In our view, the Back Office is the heart of your organization. If your system creates inefficiencies, the capacity of your entire organization suffers. For example, let’s say a business brings on a new client in minutes but requires a month to train a new employee or partner. That’s an issue because both your employees' abilities and your supplier’s products play a critical role in providing exceptional service to the customer. Therefore, if those pieces are not operating smoothly, your client is ultimately who suffers. Your Front Office can only be as efficient as your Back Office, and both must be included in a strategic digital transformation.

The Digital Back Office

Connected Systems

Systems are integrated in a logical way to facilitate the user experience for your employees, making it smoother for knowledge workers to access more than one system. By organizing systems so that they’re talking to one another, knowledge workers can avoid double work, make wiser choices, and prioritize more vital tasks.
Purpose Driven Processes

Doing things the way you always have is no longer a valid excuse for shunning change in your business protocols. This stubborn mentality is harmful to any digital transformation or modernization goal and should be challenged through education on creating task efficiency and change management. Every job should have a specific purpose, require the least manpower, and be aligned with this greater goal.
A Seamless Experience

It’s just as critical for your employees, partners, and merchants to have a smooth user experience as it is for your clients. Eliminating swivel chair processes should be your first priority, particularly when staffing new employees. In the age of digital transformation, a tedious onboarding experience could diminish the health of your entire organization.
Cloud, SaaS, Hybrid Transition

While Cloud and SaaS platforms are increasing in utilization, businesses are switching more and more to Cloud and Hybrid frameworks and pulling out legacy systems to remain under budget and efficient.
Security Expectations

Your customers, employees, suppliers, and partners all assume you will have modern security protocols active that minimize the risk of a breach. Knowledge is power in the this digital generation and your company will be expected to keep it safe without diminishing the user experience.
Intelligent Decision-Making
Businesses should make data-based judgments while employing Business Intelligence tools that empower decision-making with a 360-degree view that utilizes multiple data authors and applications.
Task Automation

In the time146] of Intelligent Automation and Machine Learning, processing invoices or purchase orders should involve minimal human intervention. Mundane processes should be automated so that staff can prioritize the most mission-critical work.