For those of you who attended the ICCFA, one of the ideas that resonated with attendees and was a repeating topic from the keynote speakers was the importance of bringing the industry into the digital age.
We're speeding toward a digital future, yet the general consensus from the industry is interested the concept, yet uncertain with how to adapt to this new reality. The use of digital tools is so common place it's hard to imagine starting or purchasing a business who doesn't utilize software to manage key tasks. With the increasing power of the computer and handheld devices there are so many other options to provide benefits that increase efficiency, track efforts and ensure compliance in other areas of the business.
For a long time, service businesses have been plagued by a lack of mechanisms that enable management to be withdrawn without negative effects to the day-to-day operations. When systems and guidelines are aligned with the company's culture it often leads to a successful and long-lasting organization that doesn’t burn out employees or have a high turnover. Wise ownership recognizes when humans should be replaced by systems, not because people aren't important - it simply frees up people to do the work that computers simply cannot do. Systems on the other hand create consistency, which fosters a culture of measured and repeatable experience for its customers day in and day out.
When considering a software platform understand that best practices are defined by what 80% of successful companies are doing on a day-to-day basis. Best-practice workflows are included into software platforms because the developers need to set rules that the software can be defined by. This is why there are so many alternatives to fix the same "problem". It is also why offerings you see on the market are difficult to compare as they all appear to start and stop at different points of custody or have a nonsensical overlap in functionality. Even the largest of software providers such as Intuit with QuickBooks or MS Dynamics, to pick on a few - They offer add-ons or features that sound great but are an afterthought in development of their main application. The feature of inventory management or case custody may "check-off" a box to say "we have that feature", but usually cannot do case management tasks justice or are unable to scale efficiently.
Item and Case custody is difficult to do. It's difficult because its complicated to do it thoroughly and quickly. It takes years of refinement to exception management with at-scale workflow design to release a solid system that is usable at-scale. This is expressly why most accounting and CRM tools do not attempt to add or if they did create a module it is not kept as required module of their core application as they realize how intensive the exceptions are and what needs to happen to protect its users from themselves. Inventory or case management as a standalone application is offering you the ability to have an efficient and connected, yet individually auditable platform.
Think about how you choose each application you use within your organization. Accounting, Customer management (CRM), and Point of Sale (POS) platforms. These tools have vastly different use cases that are all important and have overlap in functionality. Each system need to connect to the other. However, the users don't all need the same access on all systems. Keeping your books for instance limited to ownership and bookkeepers is extremely common. Even though the sales team may take payments or create orders but they rarely have an accounting brain to know how to code such payments. Same goes for CRM tools, and for this article how inventory is added, consumed or "how" custody is tracked.
With defined processes, you can accomplish more with less.
The way we see it, To grow your business you must reduce duplicate efforts that come from bad processes, manual handwritten documentation, and know where your staff is. Then use this real-time and measurable feedback to organize, and optimize your team in ways that were simply too complicated to manage in the past.
Hire for empathy and MorTrack will help you train your team to be more efficient with processes and technology.
MorTrack is the first platform to convert proven processes with tried and true logistics software into an industry specific decedent case custody management platform for funeral homes, crematories, embalmers, and coroner offices around the world.
MorTrack brings multi-industry best practices in logistics and process experience to the deathcare industry. Leave accounting software to track your cash flow, CRM tools to manage your customers, and consider MorTrack to manage your case custody, initial experience extension that matches your brand promise.
Learn more about how MorTrack can help you grow with systems and processes. Contact our team @ learnmore@mortrack.com