We recently interviewed our client, Joyce Stupnik, President and Partner at BDH, a premier interior and architectural design firm.

Here’s what Joyce had to say about her company’s challenge, the CTC solution, and the results:

Challenge:

Our administrative processes were very manual in nature. The result was that our staff spent time on tasks that were not of high value to them or our clients. Our goal is to fully leverage our technology to streamline workflows, focus our team’s resources on their most valuable output, and set ourselves apart through fantastic employee and client experiences. Ultimately, the hope is that technology will make our daily workflow extremely user-friendly and lead to happier team members.

Solution:

We had previously worked with CTC Productivity on our continuous improvement journey and were pleased with the results of our executive coaching. For this reason, we decided to revisit our partnership with CTC and utilize their Microsoft 365 consulting services.

The team at CTC was instrumental in helping us better understand how to utilize our existing software to streamline and automate our processes. They also helped us navigate linking it to other applications outside of the Microsoft suite to provide continuity in our workflow.

Proposal Process

One process that was inefficient and relied on many back-and-forth manual steps was our project proposal process. It involved redundant efforts by our project managers and marketing team. Our project managers needed to be focused on the client experience and quality design, not manually sending content back and forth with our marketing team. Additionally, their role is robust, so ensuring repetitive follow-up to receive an executed contract fell by the wayside at times. We knew there was a better way to collaborate, streamline the process, and get these documents sent out to clients.

Our process previously used our ERP software, which we use as our Project Managment, CRM and Accounting platform. This is how the process looked:

• A proposal was requested using our ERP software.
• Marketing would receive a notification and update a proposal template with some specific project information, then output a draft as a PDF.
• Marketing would send the draft to the Project Manager via email
• The Project Manager would review and markup the PDF document and send it to marketing, also via email
• Marketing would type information into the template and then send it back to the Project Manager for a final review
• If there were any additional changes, the Project Manager and Marketing would go back and forth with markups until the proposal was complete
• Then the Project Manager would have to email it to the client and attach the final pdf
• If they didn’t hear back from the client, they would have to remember to follow up with the client

Part of the issue was that each department used different software tools. We needed collaborative spaces where we could work together more seamlessly.

After discussing our workflow with CTC, we were able to use their deep knowledge of 365 to build out a workflow that leveraged existing integrations and automation tools within 365 to streamline the process from start to finish (including our non-Microsoft 365 tools.)

One of our biggest wins involved using Canva as our collaboration tool for the creative and marketing part of this process. We previously used InDesign, but we found it to be more rigid and costly. Canva allows us to collaborate live and have only one version of each document. We also created new templates to improve the content and understandability of the proposals and leveraged Canva’s automated approval process to streamline the internal communication between project managers and marketing. After identifying Canva as a collaborative tool for us, CTC then built integrations between Canva and SharePoint to allow us to move the finalized document to our internal 365 environment in order to collaborate with clients. We also leveraged built-in integrations between SharePoint and DocuSign. DocuSign allows us to manage the workflow for collecting client signatures, including sending reminders, so our team members no longer have to manage that tedious but important task.

By revamping the entire workflow and using built-in integration tools like PowerAutomate, we went from 25 steps to 14 steps and from multiple versions of documents to only one master version of each document. Visually mapping out the process, as we did below, proved what a significant impact these changes had on the work effort.

Here is the before image of the workflow:

Here is the after image:

Running on EOS®

We run on EOS, an operating system for small businesses, and had been using various Word documents and Excel to try and manage it. We now use OneNote and Planner to manage our Level 10 meetings.

OneNote is a great place to store important reference information (i.e. VT/O, issues, notes). Planner is ideal for Rocks and tasks.

This was another huge win for us.

PTO and Quarterly Employee Check-In Process

One of our goals is not just to automate things to drive efficiency but to make things work easier for our people. One of our goals as a company is a user-friendly and supportive employee experience. So, in addition to looking at our business processes, we also wanted to look at our internal processes for managing our employees.

One area that needed help was our PTO process and our process for collecting quarterly feedback from the team on overall job satisfaction. In the EOS world, this process is called the 5-5-5™.

The 5-5-5 requires that people managers consistently touch base with all employees to make sure they are supported and happy. This process was another laborious process that we were hoping we could streamline with technology.

Working with CTC, we identified an easy way to automate our quarterly check-ins. CTC developed a PowerApp that allows all team members to easily answer questions from any mobile device. This change alone made the process much easier for everyone and, in turn, added to employee job satisfaction.

The information collected from the PowerApp is then stored in a central location in SharePoint. This makes it much easier for our HR manager to review the responses and leverage the information. This used to be a manual process – the HR manager would email PDF forms to our team members, which would then be submitted to an HR database.

We also automated our PTO requests, and that change allowed this process to go from days to seconds. There is no waiting or turnaround time–it is now fully automated. This was a huge win for the business team, as well as the employees.

Deepen the Learning

We were already advanced in our use of many of the Microsoft tools, but it was helpful to have a 365 expert who could supplement our training efforts. With CTC’s help, we broadened everyone’s understanding of SharePoint, OneDrive, OneNote, and many of the various apps.

CTC assisted us with adoption and a deeper understanding of how the M365 suite of tools are interconnected (which is not very evident without expert guidance). Many of our team members were using SharePoint through Teams, but didn’t realize the relationship between the two, plus the various ways you can access your information.

This collaboration with CTC saved our COO/EOS Integrator ® time and provided our team with expert help to deepen their understanding of our tools, which in turn increased overall productivity.

CTC does a great job of training non-techies and breaking the concepts down for them.

We are now using OneNote for project collaboration. Storing project notes and meeting minutes in a centralized cloud location easily facilitates collaboration with hybrid teams. The team even created a coding system within OneNote so it’s clear who takes the next steps from each meeting. We use Word for external or official project notes issued to the larger team.

Results:

Our leadership team and project managers are ecstatic about the proposal workflow changes. They feel it is so much easier and more efficient to manage. What once took days now takes mere minutes.

Our HR generalist and employees love the new PTO request process and PowerApp for managing employee check-ins.

The CTC team is fantastic! They are great at the technical aspect of the work, plus they do a good job of building relationships, communicating, and working with all levels of the organization. They were fabulous at working directly with a variety of team members to help answer their questions.

ROI:

Investment: $20,825

Ongoing Cost: $0

Savings Just for the Streamlined Proposal Process:

• Reduced # of steps by 44%
• Automated 90% of the process
• Reduced the time it took clients to sign and return contracts to us from 1-2 weeks down to 1-3 days, sometimes even 1-2 hours

Links:

Share this Case Study: https://ctcproductivity.com/microsoft-365-proposal-process

More Case Studies: https://ctcproductivity.com/success-stories