How to deliver smarter procurement, your holiday shutdown checklist, and more.

Business Insights December 2022

Strawberry fields Forever

The holiday season is imminent.

 

Picture this: The archetypal kiwi beach summer break. A Bach near the water with a hammock tied between two Pohutukawa trees bursting with vibrant colour. You are rested, tanned and your mind is clear of work clutter from being away for a couple of weeks.

 

Then it’s the first week of January and after the holiday festivities, your mind starts drifting back to work and heading back to the Office next week. As a business leader, you start thinking about what is coming up and legacy stuff that you didn’t quite get to before the holiday period.

 

So, what are the big-picture questions you might want to contemplate? We’ve compiled a suggested list of 5 below that might help structure your thinking on a lazy afternoon with a beverage in hand while resting on said hammock.

 

Answering these in bullet point format on a sheet of paper is perfectly fine:

 

1. What are my personal growth aspirations this year and how will my business support achieving these?

2. What can I do to enhance my customers experience?

3. How can I enhance the well-being of my team?

4. How can I streamline my business operations embracing smart technology?

5. How can I gain better and more timely commercial insights in my business?

 

These are questions that we intend to be answering for ourselves.

On behalf of the CF team, we would like to extend our appreciation to our clients and organisations we have worked alongside that form part of our “Soul Tribe”.

 

One of us will be keeping an eye on emails and an ear to the mobile should a “Houston, we’ve got a problem” moment occur in your business and you need help.

 

Wishing you all a restful holiday break and see you back in 2023.

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Why Develop a CRM Strategy for Your Business?

 

What most successful businesses know is that effective customer relationship management (CRM) involves nurturing customer relationships throughout the sales process, but you need to create an effective CRM strategy before choosing a solution.

 

What is a CRM Strategy?

Customer Relationship Management is designed to manage your business’s communications, relationships, and interactions with your customers.

 

Finding the right CRM system is key to success in developing an appropriate customer management system. The most appropriate system is one that stores contact information, can help predict future sales, and guides customer service interaction, while at the same time driving sales by offering tailored recommended products and services, and creating personalised email and SMS campaigns.

 

This approach will help deliver improved sales and bottom-line results.

 

It is worth noting there is a clear difference between a CRM platform and a CRM strategy. The CRM strategy is the roadmap while a CRM platform is the technology that moves you in the right direction and is based on the roadmap. Get the strategy right before deciding on your platform!

 

As a business owner faced with ever-increasing challenges to finding and keeping customers your CRM strategy will need to be a well-thought-out and crafted plan that will enable you to improve customer relationships (and consequently, sales). It is a series of tools and methods used along with other marketing strategies to improve engagement, sales, and existing processes.

 

Is there value in CRM systems?

The best approach is for the companies to identify the strategy tailored for their operations and develop one that best serves your business’s individual needs. The challenge is your approach to implementing it.

 

Getting your approach right will benefit your business.

 

  1. Better Collaboration - with the right CRM strategy, you will see improved collaboration between customer service, sales, and marketing teams that will boost the efficiency of all your business processes

  2. More effective Sales and Marketing Campaigns - this will position your business to create targeted marketing campaigns to help further drive customer acquisition and retention and deliver improved customer experience during the customer journey process

  3. Delivering improved Service to Customer Needs - by keeping track of the sales funnel and buyer's channel, your business is better equipped to deliver an improved customer experience

  4. Provides Data and Insights on Performances - your CRM strategy uses data provided by the CRM system to give a detailed estimate of future business strategies and their expected performances

 

Creating a successful customer relationship management from scratch involves certain steps you need to include: 

  • Define your CRM’s vision and goals

  • Define your target audience and buyer personas

  • Define your customer journey

  • Establish processes and systems for your 360° customer experience

  • Understand your market and know your positioning

  • Know your product or service

  • Invest in appropriate CRM software

  • Define KPIs for your business and teams

 

The success of the CRM strategy you develop for your business will depend on the level of collaboration and interaction between the sales, marketing, and customer service teams.

 

Take the time to do it right and build the right approach. 

  

This article was provided by The Dept. (The Department of Marketing), Auckland.

Your Digital Journey

“Digital” is the new way of thinking in an organisation. There has been huge change in the way organisations conduct business and Digital has been at the forefront of that change.

 

Digital has different connotations for different businesses depending on its adoption and the maturity of the organisation, but in simple terms, it means:  Adding further value to the organisation.

The Journey

 

The objective around digitisation is always to build efficiency and effectiveness into an organisation.  It is about creating and enhancing business value through better customer and employee experiences.

 

It starts with defining the organisation’s Vision and Mission.  We work with senior management to develop and define the “Why”, “What” and “How”. This translates into a number of key outcomes that help define the business and their journey to be taken. which is then mapped out from the Current state through to the “To-Be” or desired state. 

 

We detail out the business processes that need to be digitised or automated, engaging with management, staff and key stakeholders of the business throughout the Digital Programme, while also ensuring the Return on Investment is available at its initiation. Our initial focus is on areas where a change and improvement can be significant, in some cases a game changer, while throughout the process we apply an Agile methodology to each step in the digital journey. Often the changes are to a business's infrastructure and technology, often an area of the business that is left behind developments in other parts of the business.

 

We apply tools, templates and models along with an experienced team to help develop the foundation of any digital journey.  They include:

 

  1. Work to understand the current state, identify the gaps, and define the “to-be state”

  2. Plan the key outcomes required to reach the “to-be state”

  3. Identify the critical business processes that are required to be digitised

  4. Define the initiatives needed to achieve the outcomes within the business processes

  5. Work out the Return on Investment for these initiatives

  6. Prioritise, Build, Deploy and Refine the initiatives to reach the “To-be state”.

 

 Digitisation and automation are key drivers to increasing and protecting the Enterprise value of your business. It allows you to operate more effectively and efficiently especially in times of disruption and uncertainty. Its application can be applied piecemeal with positive ROI delivered along the way, and the more that it is applied, the greater the gains.

Want to Understand what your Digital Journey could look like? Get in Touch!

Latest News

 

What's in a Name - Copperfox?

 

We wanted a name that represented our values as well as our personality, while at the same time being somewhat unusual. 

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Copper is flexible and reactive to its environment and when exposed to the natural elements, develops this “patina” which actually protects and preserves the metal underneath.  

 

​Foxes are by nature versatile and resourceful. They are determined, swift and nimble, evading hunters easily. They learn quickly and are able to strategize through problems, they are adaptive problem solvers and masters of all.  

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These two elements combine to illustrate how we operate internally and how we interface with you and your business. Like any two sheets of aging copper exposed to the elements that will display different characteristics, so will be our approach, “tailored” specifically to your requirements.  

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Read More
 

Why utilise your business data?

 

Most businesses over time are able to build quite a collection of data about past activity, from the products or services they have sold through to who to and when they sold it. But very few businesses use that data to plan ahead.

 

Some of the advantages of using your data better are:

  • Allows you to make more informed decisions on what products or services to keep and what not to.

  • Identifies precisely where you are making money and where you are not.

  • Over time it allows you to analyse customer behaviour and track changes to their preferences and adjust yours to accommodate.

  • It provides you with more in-depth information about your business's activities that encourages better, more educated decision making.

  • While gut feel may have got you to where you are now, having facts and figures to support future decision making is where you now need to be.

     

 
Read More

Monthly Soundbite

With the new year fast approaching, the CopperFox team got together one last time this year for a special Christmas edition of Sound Bites on the Sofa to discuss the challenges and opportunities that businesses face in 2023.

FINDERS FEE OFFER

We are keen to hear from any business needing help and support. As a consequence, anyone that provides us with a successful lead will be offered 10% of the fees generated from that lead for the first 12 months of our business relationship with them.

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