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Streamlining Business Processes with Microsoft 365

Written by Samuel Adams | 04/10/2020

 

SeedSpark’s application development team is packed with industry-leading innovators, developing customized solutions designed to optimize and streamline an organization’s unique business operations.

As a part of the Charlotte Business Journal’s Fast 50, Southend Exteriors has solidified its position as one of the leading exterior siding and roofing providers in the Carolinas. Many years of business growth created an influx of opportunities for Southend that created a need for a comprehensive tool to manage all aspects and elements that come together during every project. Introducing “SWAT” – a fully-customized sales CRM.

SeedSpark’s team began with a Discovery, outlining Southend’s business processes to truly understand the way that their team does business. During this process, our team worked directly alongside the client, listening to the workers on the front lines to identify the client’s needs and gain hands-on experience to help craft solutions.

Originally, Southend began with a “traditional” form of project management and record keeping. A combination of email chains and ancient Excel spreadsheets were passed around throughout the team, gathering bits and pieces of information from across the organization. Alongside this digital paper pile was a physical one; hand-written notes and other documentation was a “necessary evil” of every project workflow. During this process, it was common for follow-up calls or meetings to unintentionally fall through the cracks, leading to lost opportunities for Southend.

SeedSpark then started the design process, crafting an application that could be used to granularly track each project. This would act as a central hub for all project information: project details, scheduling, contact information, and more bundled into one package available on every company device.

The developers created a foundational set of data objects – builders, contracts, meetings, etc. – that could be used as elements. With these data objects, the team developed a simple series of dynamic charts, easily explaining information normally scattered throughout a conglomeration of emails, hand-written notes, and Excel spreadsheets.

Now, project managers are able to identify company figures like monthly revenue and projected revenue at a glance, even breaking metrics down to view revenue per each partner. An entire directory is available at the team’s fingertips, providing immediate access to contact and project information for the entire roster of partnered builders. This directory is sorted by their current engagement with Southend, meaning active projects will never be lost in the stack again.

Full compatibility with Microsoft Outlook provides easy access to not only email, but contacts and calendars. Scheduling a follow-up appointment, sharing contact information, or jotting down a few quick notes on-site during a workday has never been simpler for the team at Southend. All of this data is stored in the cloud through Microsoft Azure, providing unbridled access to invaluable information for all team members when they need it the most.  

Going forward, Southend and SeedSpark are continuing to improve and expand the SWAT experience. Deeper internal and competing data analytics in combination with expanded collaboration tools will continue to elevate the potential of the entire Southend team. Additionally, an internal rewards program highlighting team successes to improve teamwork initiatives is also slated for release later in the year.

By working directly with to maintain open lines of communication, our application developers are able to better understand the problems and design solutions that are custom-fitted to each organization’s business plans. Microsoft 365’s universal compatibility simplifies the system of  

This collaborative development process maximizes team efficiency leading to a better product in a fraction of the time of the competition. While some teams may need 6 months or more in development time, our team was able to release Southend’s application in only 3 months.

SeedSpark is always accepting new opportunities to partner with clients ready to leverage technology to revolutionize business processes and take operations to new heights.

Learn more about SeedSpark’s app dev know-how.