We got a rather urgent request from Santa yesterday to digitize and streamline the gift request and fulfillment process. It seems that the high volume of gift requests, as well as involvement of Mrs. Claus, who thought Santa was a bit too generous with high-end gifts, really slowed down the operation. With barely 36 hours left Santa was really concerned and reached out to us about digitizing and streamlining the whole process using ZFlow.

After looking at the current situation we recommended that Mrs. Claus review gift requests that are above $1,000 and let others go directly to Santa. Mrs. Claus was fine with our suggestion. In the new streamlined process, we added a rule that would involve Mrs. Claus only when the estimated cost of the gift is more than $1,000.

In addition, since all the stakeholders related to the process (Santa’s COO, Santa’s helpers…) are on the same page they get advanced visibility into the requests so that they can plan their work properly. In the process below, gift preparation is done by Santa’s helpers and gift delivery is supported by Santa, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph.

The following roles were designed to support the process

The list below shows who is performing the roles as part of the workflow

My Gift Request

I quickly took advantage of the request process to put in my gift request.

I hope Mrs. Claus approves my request. I know Santa will given how much he likes fast cars.

And look what I found in our garage this morning. Thank you Mrs. and Mr Claus!

We got a rather urgent request from Santa today to digitize and streamline the gift request and fulfillment process. It seems that the high volume of gift requests, as well as involvement of Mrs. Claus, who thought Santa was a bit too generous with high-end gifts, really slowed down the operation. With barely 36 hours left Santa was really concerned and reached out to us about digitizing and streamlining the whole process using ZFlow.

After looking at the current situation we recommended that Mrs. Claus review gift requests that are above $1,000 and let others go directly to Santa. Mrs. Claus was fine with our suggestion. In the new streamlined process, we added a rule that would involve Mrs. Claus only when the estimated cost of the gift is more than $1,000.

In addition, since all the stakeholders related to the process (Santa’s COO, Santa’s helpers…) are on the same page they get advanced visibility into the requests so that they can plan their work properly. In the process below, gift preparation is done by Santa’s helpers and gift delivery is supported by Santa, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph.

The following roles were designed to support the process

The list below shows who is performing the roles as part of the workflow

My Gift Request

I quickly took advantage of the request process to put in my gift request.

I hope Mrs. Claus approves my request. I know Santa will given how much he likes fast cars.

And look what I found in our garage this morning. Thank you Mrs. and Mr Claus!

Digitizing Lead-to-Cash process is one of the best ways to improve sales performance, fulfillment, customer experience and time-to-usage-and-billing in software-as-a-service (SaaS) and hybrid hardware+software companies. In fact, the effectiveness and speed with which SaaS, PaaS and IaaS organizations can execute the lead-to-cash process can determine many of the key metrics, including Customer Acquisition Cost, Lead Velocity, Recurring Revenue Growth, Net New Recurring Revenue, and others.

Streamlining Lead-to-Cash process to be digital and effective is anything but simple because of the cross-functional nature and number of systems and people that are involved. Specific pain points include:

• Orchestrating Sub-processes (complex quote development, new customer onboarding, partner based manufacturing and fulfillment, provisioning software/hardware, billing set up)
• Master Data Management(Customer Master, Product Master (Initial and Lifecycle), Pricing Master, Vendor Master) and Process Synchronization across CRM, Subscription Billing, and ERP systems
• Closing the loop between Customer-facing, fulfillment and ERP systems (Changes to orders, renewals and amendments..)
• Uniform view of the main Lead-To-Cash process and sub-processes across CRM and ERP systems and for all Stakeholders

The global coronavirus pandemic is truly a once in a lifetime black-swan event. And we seem to be in the early stages of an unfolding multi-faceted (public safety, economic, and supply chain) crisis. As of today the more than half of the world’s population is staying home to mitigate the spread and to flatten the curve. In addition, it is increasingly looking like the crisis in varying degrees will be with us until a proven vaccine is taken by majority of the world’s population. As a result the trend of remote work is here to stay with us for the foreseeable future. Email, video-conferencing, messaging will be main modes of collaboration for getting work done.

However, many of the key processes that run the business on a day-to-day basis rely on ERP systems like SAP. And SAP, especially the older versions, have not been very amenable to remote and collaborative work for a variety of reasons. With ZFlow for SAP, your SAP ERP system regardless of its age, transforms into a collaborative business process portal accessible by anyone, anytime, and from everywhere.

We have also made ZFlow free to use until Dec 31, 2020. In Q4 2020, we will make a decision on whether we should extend the free use of ZFlow into 2021.