New technology needs to stop changing everything.

New technology promises the world and often falls short. Many would unfortunately understand this truth. Attempting to implement new technology for a small business, let alone a large multi-entity group is no mean feat. It’s through simplifying, consolidating and standardising that you unlock performance indicators and enable growth.

Legacy software and different accounting systems can prevent many projects from even getting off the ground, and the odds are not good once a project has started. Boston Consulting Group research published in October 2020 found that 70% of digital transformations fall short of their objectives.

So, is it the salesperson’s fault for over-promising?

Is it the software’s usability that leads to these failures?

Or is it group controllers and individual businesses that are to blame for poor implementation?

All can be the cause of a failed technology project; however, this is only one side of the coin.

The strategy of many new technologies is to create new environments, processes, and skill requirements. This doesn’t need to be the case, especially for established businesses.

Using a new technology that works within your existing structures and changes elements only where necessary, can greatly reduce the risk of implementation or adoption failure, whilst unlocking the performance and growth opportunities lying hidden within your group.

Simplify and consolidate

Look for technology that simplifies and consolidates your current technology suite during implementation. Businesses often jump at new functionality and reporting without considering the often already overloaded technology stack imposed on staff or customers.

A study published in Harvard Business Review in August 2022 found that workers at three Fortune 500 companies toggled between apps and websites nearly 1,200 times a day. People have a limit to the range of tools and technology they can reasonably be expected to use. So, use technology that creates a simpler suite for reduced complexity.

Technology that creates a streamlined communication process or a single point for workflow and project updates will go a long way in understanding differing work occurring across your business whilst also helping reduce the technology strain customers and staff experience.

Standardise

If left to their own devices, employees and franchise group members will create an ever-growing array of processes. Having the full view of your business or group, controllers need to use this vision in conjunction with technology to guide franchisees into a consistent ‘one best way’ approach.

It’s not enough to use a workflow platform that still requires high levels of customisation. Standardised and prescribed processes enabled through technology create opportunity for group wide performance monitoring and benchmarking. With the reporting tools enabled through standardisation, improvements will be jumping right out of your financial reports.

Standardisation can assist many areas within your groups structure, but none more so than the Chart of Accounts. Anyone who has spied the financial reports of individual franchisees will unfortunately know that each report will almost read as if it is a different language. Available technology can solve this without creating new systems and enforcing changes to account structures. This technology standardises this labyrinth of data with mapping logic to create standardised financial data that group operators can leverage for clear overview and insight of their performance.

When combined, these technology attributes unlock growth

A simplified technology suite and unified workflow management structure will allow you to identify pain points hindering your staff or members and reduce workload requirements.

Standardised processes and workflows will guide members to use the ‘one best way’, whilst also creating consistency within your groups data.

Incredibly powerful reporting tools are then able to use this simplified and standardised data to create live performance scorecards and groupwide benchmarks. The roadmap for performance and growth is already paved within the fabric of your group’s operations and data. It’s heightened performance monitoring of leading and lagging indicators which will surface growth opportunities.

What does a complementary technology stack look like?

The golden question.

Working with many business structures and groups, we at Visory know firsthand that each situation is different. That being said, certain structures are better than others, and this is an example of one which exhibits all of the attributes mentioned above.

1. Xero: to capture and track financial data, with automations and integrations with key software.
2. Employment Hero (formerly KeyPay): to capture payroll information, apply award rates and, again, integrate with key software.
3. Visory: a dedicated team, with its AI, Delphi, overseen by that team, runs your bookkeeping and payroll in those systems on a standard process, so business owners spend less of their own time inside either one.
4. Visory Insights: a plain-English monthly read of the numbers, walked through with a Business Performance Partner, so the standardised data turns into decisions.

The tools do the capturing and calculating; the people running the process decide what to do with the results. For a group, the gain from a unified stack shows up first in the time saved across every business in it, and then in reporting that can be read the same way for each one.