Building profitable businesses can be a difficult task. And growing the business can be even more difficult. Here are five barriers that hinder the creation and development of profitable businesses, as well as the solution to all of them.
Obstacle No. 1: Finding the Next Customer
In today’s landscape, finding your next customer is not as easy as it used to be. Marketing tactics just aren’t working. To make matters worse, the data in your current installed base does not give you visibility into your customers, as the data is out of date or deficient.
Poor quality of customer data results in dissatisfied customers. Not only is your business unable to communicate current data to potential new customers effectively, but its installed base is also in jeopardy. When data is spread across sales spreadsheets, standalone financial systems, and other applications, there is no way of knowing which data is more accurate, reliable, and current. Customer churn rates increase as potential customers find other providers who don’t waste their time.
Solution No. 1
Acquiring new customers is crucial for profitable businesses that want to expand and retaining customers is critical to achieving consistent revenue growth. Salespeople need access to data that provides an instant overview of key information from potential and existing customers.
NetSuite has dramatically changed the nature of communication within the organization and with customers. Generate reports with company-wide data, from a single common data repository. With a NetSuite implementation, you can have a complete view of your customer, including sales information, services, transaction orders. This is impossible when customer data is spreading out of control.
Obstacle No. 2: Increase Profits
Standalone financial systems are designed to automate a limited set of basic accounting functions. As a result, they restrict the way companies manage their operations. As profitable businesses expand, what they must do is not limit their growth based on the existing system, but rather adapt the processes to their application.
The key to business growth and success is to have a higher volume and pace of transactions, but many financial systems cannot handle this type of pressure easily. To have comprehensive audit trails, comprehensive business planning, and reporting, or automated processes, you need to add systems and constantly develop quick, short-term solutions.
However, independent financial systems simply cannot handle tighter financial controls, better SKU management, or support for more complex financial processes, such as recurring billing. With standalone systems, you cannot run complex business processes in areas such as financial management, revenue management, purchasing, and inventory management.
Solution No. 2
Combining finance and accounting functions in a single suite, along with these complex business processes, increases financial closing efficiency and reduces administrative costs. Finance teams save time and can report more accurately when these functions run concurrently in the same suite. The transition to a single, unified, cloud-based system is the only solution.
NetSuite’s native flexibility and agility are extensive and do not involve the costs of maintaining an underlying layer of technology. NetSuite mobile apps for android and iPhone are designed to stay on the cutting edge of business automation, giving companies the tools they need to stay ahead of the competition and take advantage of new opportunities as they prosper and grow.
Obstacle No. 3: Cash Flow Visibility
Most systems were designed for a time when companies could wait until the end of the month to get the data they need and perform evaluations. Without visibility, you can only make general guesses that do not include actual measurements.
This is not the case today – consolidated views and real-time reporting can mean the difference between thriving and barely surviving. If details and possible variations cannot be analyzed, there is no way to discern how well the business is performing. Plus, there’s no way to compare actual performance to strategic plans to change course, slow down, or speed up quickly. The control panel does not reveal anything, or worse, it may present incorrect information.
For example, investors in profitable open-ended businesses want visibility so they can compare each quarter’s performance and activity against their expectations, and they want a picture of the relationship between short-term performance and investment strategy.
Solution No. 3
Access to transparent data on real-time performance for analysis and comparisons provides company management with the information necessary to evaluate strategies. Managers need to be able to examine KPIs and other metrics to accurately and confidently describe how much money the company is making (or losing) today, and what its future performance will be. These descriptions also have to be comprehensive and specific.
NetSuite’s complete, unified solution transforms critical reports into dynamic business assets that provide companies with the flexibility and visibility they need to deal with ever-changing conditions. Increasing the accuracy and efficiency of finances through automation and visibility is the key to improving cash flow. With immediate access to highly detailed real-time financial data, rapid reporting and analysis are possible, saving time and money.
Obstacle No. 4: Addressing regulations
As growing profitable businesses expand, business processes and attention to regulations tend to take a back seat, which is a very risky and damaging decision. The finance team is burdened by tax laws and compliance, year-end audits, reports, and other government regulations, creating frustrations.
Juggling to manage day-to-day operations and compliance, finance leaders are forced to turn to additional systems. Although this may seem like a reasonable strategy, these applications are often not integrated, creating even more problems. Without a continuous flow of data, information on the latest changes can remain limited to a single system and not be accessible to the entire company, leading to misinterpretations.
Year-end audits may contain inconsistent data or incorrect tax returns if you don’t have a system of record to automate and account for various regulations.
Solution No. 4
A single, cloud-based suite that automates and incorporates regulations for all departments is the solution to take charge of regulatory processes. The highest priority continues to be a system with good internal controls to properly review monthly procedures, year-end, and preparation for taxes and audits. In turn, this helps minimize errors, misstatements, and fraud.
To enable accurate reporting, NetSuite provides the required annual reports, as well as default audit trails for a wide range of relevant financial records. Because it captures all your data in one place, it offers a single source of information. This information significantly improves the quality of decision-making and increases the value of the company.
Obstacle No. 5: Create a winning team
Your organization is only as strong as its weakest link, even when it comes to internal systems. In today’s landscape, many companies do not have HR functionality in their core business system.
This not only creates barriers but also increases the number of manual processes and harms overall processes. When managing days off, payroll, directories, and reports are in separate systems, managers have limited visibility into the true state of the organization.
The most valuable asset of the business, the staff, is not incorporated into the process, which leads to less employee engagement. Also, complementary systems for personnel management are often complex, highly customized, difficult to use, and expensive to maintain.
Solution No. 5
By adding a unified HR tool to your core business infrastructure, you give your staff complete visibility into all aspects of the business. Teams can carry out the tasks that matter to them and have access to relevant information.
This removes barriers between departments, as well as repetitive and manual processes. The management team can clearly see where the gaps lie and provide the business with the necessary skills, strategies, and talents.
