Time is money and you’re wasting too much of it. How to identify a broken Commerce system.

[AllisonBosse]

It’s easy to not question the status quo and accept things “as they are.” Well, the Commerce space is somewhere where this is extremely true. Organizations are particularly resistant to modernizing their process. We want to call out explicit examples of broken commerce systems. We’re going to highlight a bunch of things you should be on the lookout for. If you see them, then yes there’s a better way.

Tracking down overdue payments is most likely a process you need to evaluate. Xero and PayPal research indicate 48% of invoices for small businesses are paid late. Quickbooks predicts following up on late payments wastes about 56.4 MILLION hours per year. This is not only slowing you down but also costing you a lot of money. Businesses that lean into AR software are 3x more likely to get an invoice paid before the due date compared to non-software users. 

Data centralization is another hidden area that is wasting your time and money. Does your sales team often reach out to your accounting team for clarity on closed deals? Are your marketing, sales and accounting teams looking at different revenue numbers? These questions often indicate a need to bring your data into one place to save all of the back-and-forth questions. Connecting commerce and customer data allows for everyone to have the data they need where they need it and when they need it. This often helps lead to a great customer experience as well.

Some overall questions to ask yourself about these different processes:

• Who manages this process?
• How many people or teams are involved?
• Where does this process live?
• What systems are involved?
• What information is needed to complete this process?
• Where does that information live?
• Does the team completing the process live in that system/have access to that system?
• Can the data live in the same place?
• In what way could this be simplified or streamlined?
• What tasks are manual?
• Can those tasks be automated?

If you’re seeing any of these signs in your organization there is a better way. Oh by the way, the better way is included in HubSpot.

Want to see the Commerce Team talking about this in depth? Check out our LinkedIn Live recording here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/timeismoneyandyou-rewastingtoom7193264406917447680/about/