Finance, sales, and marketing staff help define midsize business agility
Everyone has a role to play in keeping a midsize business agile and responsive, including your finance, sales, and marketing teams. Here are some basic principles they can follow to help enhance business agility.
In Summary:
| • | Finance teams should distribute fiscal data broadly and focus on strategic analysis. |
| • | Sales and marketing teams should monitor trends closely and refine plans frequently. |
| • | All employees should continually strive to improve business processes. |
Most midsize companies aspire to business agility. Too few of them, however, achieve it. Ben Vollmer, a customer relationship management (CRM) specialist in Microsoft's field sales organization, thinks he knows why. "A lot of midsize companies are really small companies that have become bigger," he says. "As they grow, they don't look at how they can streamline processes, or their organization." Eventually, he says, they lose the business agility that helped them prosper in the first place.
 | Annual budget cycles are a relic of the 20th-century economy, when the world was more predictable. |  | | Michael Hugos
Author and business consultant | |
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Even the largest company can maintain business agility if its employees have the right tools and attitude. Here are some basic principles for finance, sales, and marketing teams to help your business stay nimble no matter how big it grows.
Principles for your finance organization to follow:
| • | Concentrate on strategic tasks, not routine ones. Financial professionals should focus on activities that enhance agility, not data entry and other rote tasks. For example, an agile company strives to keep fixed costs, such as rent and utility bills, low. "That way, when you're not making money, you're not spending money," observes Michael Hugos, a business consultant and author of The Greatest Innovation Since the Assembly Line: Powerful Strategies for Business Agility. By automating basic accounting procedures, financial applications such as those in the Microsoft Dynamics line of business management solutions can help finance staff dedicate their attention to more strategic efforts. Outsourcing processes such as payroll and tax preparation can give them more time, too. |
| • | Distribute information widely using easy-to-use tools. An agile business makes financial information available to decision-makers throughout the company, so they can identify and address problems quickly. Dashboard applications can help in this endeavor, but don't overwhelm managers with excessive detail. A good finance dashboard minimizes distractions by calling attention only to issues requiring attention, such as overdue invoices. |
| • | Set rolling budgets. The traditional yearly budgeting cycle is ill-suited to today's rapidly shifting market conditions. "Annual budget cycles are a relic of the 20th-century economy, when the world was more predictable," Hugos says. Setting budgets quarterly makes it easier to find funds when unanticipated opportunities or competitive threats arise. Applications such as Microsoft Forecaster can help you keep frequent budget cycles from becoming overly time-consuming. |
| • | Create solutions, not barriers. Many finance organizations reject risky new ventures. At an agile business, financial professionals look for creative yet fiscally sound ways to enable innovation, rather than stifle it. "Finance needs to stop being the people who say 'No' all the time," Hugos observes. |
Principles for your sales and marketing organization to follow:
| • | Watch customer data carefully. An agile business identifies customer needs and acts on them promptly. "Agility is consistently responding to small changes in your customer's business situation," Hugos says. CRM software, such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, can help you gather and distribute customer information effectively. Just remember that CRM systems provide useful information only if salespeople update them regularly. Ensure that senior executives continually stress the importance of keeping customer records current. |
| • | Refine marketing plans frequently. Business moves so fast these days that even a six-month-old marketing plan is likely outdated. Consider, as some companies have done, running marketing programs in 8- to 12-week cycles and frequently adjusting campaigns based on daily progress reports. Such strategies can help your organization keep pace with ever-changing demand. |
| • | Measure marketing results carefully. Agile companies improve the efficiency of future marketing investments by scrutinizing campaign results closely for evidence of what works and what doesn't. CRM applications can help you collect campaign results, while business intelligence software such as Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services and Analysis Services can help you interpret that data. |
| • | Stay productive and connected. Nothing erodes a sales team's productivity like paperwork. "You don't want [salespeople] filling out purchase orders and forms. You want them talking to customers about their problems," says Jim Carroll, an innovation expert whose clients include Motorola, Nestlé, and the BBC. Automated tools, such as online ordering and expense reporting systems, help sales professionals spend more of their time closing deals. Wireless-ready laptops and other mobile devices can help salespeople check inventory, access product specifications, or report customer complaints. |
Finally, here's a principle that applies to finance, sales, and marketing professionals alike: Business agility requires a commitment to continual improvement. Check in with employees every three months about their processes, to see if something can be done better. More than anything else, that refusal to maintain the status quo is what defines business agility.
 | Rich Freeman is a Seattle, Washington-based freelance writer specializing in business and technology. He has more than 14 years of strategic marketing and communications experience in the IT industry. |
