In today’s new office normal, legacy process management techniques stand up to the test. How do we keep processes intact when stakeholders are scattered around the globe, or show up occasionally just to check in on the progress made?
From tracking accountability across teams to getting operational insight on time, without the in-person supervision, hub-and-spoke processes can drag on for weeks leading to extra expenses and delays.
The big chunk of the problem is eliciting relevant data from stakeholders in multi-party and multi-phase processes. Already a precarious territory, it is now compounded by new operational challenges of the virtual office that are gaining steam across industries and verticals.
Keeping operational costs to a minimum is the biggest concern here. How to maintain transparency at the same time staying within IT budgets? While SMBs do recognize that collaboration technology is a crucial enabler of their business, it is not their core focus.
What companies of all caliber need today is dedicated tech to enable their productivity that is easy to set up and compliant with their security protocols while shifting to a new operational paradigm.
Solving reliability vs. OpEx trade-off for hybrid collaboration.
Distributed ledger tech holds big promise for multi-party collaboration — remote work, hub-and-spoke, and other hybrid work models, where it lets to sign-off on project milestones from any communication channel your team is using — from sophisticated legacy systems to simple SMS texting.
Transparent and reliable data auditing through consistent recording and reporting — that’s what it brings to the table:
1. Reduced operational complexity and OpEx.
The most important aspect of integrating any disruptive technology is of course the cost of integration with the legacy systems.
‘We discovered that most difficulties in remote and hub-and-spoke processes stem not from a lack of tools but rather overengineered enterprise software that forces people to alter their communication habits. Our solution allows everyone to keep track of processes without leaving their favorite tools — be it email, Slack, or even SMS’. Steven Pu, Founder and CEO of Taraxa.
Blockchain offers a path to streamlining operational transactions of any caliber — big or small, handshake, or formally signed, inside and outside your organization. It’s a feasible way to reduce waste in time and material when dealing with costly auditing and risk management firms.
2. Guaranteed transparency and stakeholder accountability.
To make OpsData easily accessible and trusted no matter how far from one another your teammates are, DLT makes it possible to retain operational transactions from stakeholder communication, anchoring them to the blockchain to guarantee transparency and immutability.
A dedicated solution for multi-party collaboration will literally let you zoom in and check on stakeholder involvement at any point in time and get additional views on processes such as time and resources spent.
3. Visible and auditable processes.
DLT ledger tech makes the system highly trusted and corrupt-free. Collecting sign-offs and rejections on project milestones become as easy as in a physical meeting. Stored in a reliable and traceable audit log, all facts and deeds can be easily accessed and audited by third parties and regulators.
4. Fewer disputes and coordination overheads.
Another major prop offered by DLT is a robust chain-of-custody that integrates to your operations’ backbone and spans every business unit and even partner/customer interactions, from end to end. Thanks to audit logging on the blockchain, it remains completely tamper-free and helps to mitigate operational hazards.
A detailed account of each business interaction from start to finish lets you zoom in and investigate the issue or check on the area of accountability. Now you can always go back and check on the event log to react before negligence becomes a dispute.
5. Faster innovation in digital transformation.
The inability to surface the nonvalue-adding activities and other bottlenecks cause delays and hinder innovation. With confident process management, you can experiment at speed and iterate prototypes on-demand. Getting real-time information is also a catalyst for business reinvention with the strategic use of data for advanced analytics.
At the end of the day, getting your business on a path to confident growth at minimum cost will only be possible if the tech you use stands to the resilience test. Blockchain offers a visible path to achieve just that.
The author of this story has a vested interest in Taraxa.
Illustration by Jiaqi Wang