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Case Study

Software Company Activates Growth Strategy, Automates 40% of Back-Office Processes

by John Stewart
November 10, 2021

At a Glance

Benefits

  • Implementation of a new CRM system (Salesforce Sales Cloud) to enable a single source of truth for customer records
  • Create more efficient data flow through automation 
  • Allow finance team to refocus their time and resources on long-term growth

Services

  • Salesforce Sales Cloud
  • Implementation of Chargebee and ActiveCampaign 
  • Armanino's Strategy and Transformation services
  • Analysis of the finance team's pain points

Challenge

A home inspection software company was having trouble scaling the business due to limitations of their back-office systems, which were siloed and not supported by vendors. The company needed more robust solutions to manage their revenue cycle and keep pace with the volume of customers and transactions. 

Specific roadblocks included insufficiencies in their customer relationship management (CRM), e-commerce/subscription management, marketing and payment processing systems. To work around these gaps, the finance team spent hours each day using manual workflows to manage invoices and orders.

In addition to the limited revenue and pipeline visibility, the team also faced daily challenges accessing and managing customer data. The minimal flow of data between sales and financial systems, and the manual processes for billing, were stunting the company’s growth. 

Company leaders recognized that to scale the business, they needed a back-office transformation focused on these goals: achieving a better billing experience for customers, improved financial reporting and accounting controls, reliable data protection, more efficient marketing capabilities, and easier system management and maintenance over the long run. 

The company turned to Armanino’s Strategy and Transformation team to help them identify the right technology and business process improvements and create a strategy for long-term growth.

Solution

Over six months of close collaboration with the company, Armanino’s experts interviewed key stakeholders to gain a thorough understanding of the organization’s revenue cycle and to help create a strategic business plan for growth. The Armanino team mapped current-state processes and developed a roadmap for a future-state technology ecosystem, including:

  • Identifying key areas of analysis for CRM software recommendation
  • Identifying the most impactful current-state AR and order-to-cash processes: billable customer management, customer setup for payments, customer payment processing and revenue recognition
  • Analysis of leading practice solutions for CRM, e-commerce, marketing and payment processing 
  • Analysis of the finance team’s recurring pain points in process flows
  • Understanding the scope of each system and how it functions in the organization, and determining the responsibilities of those systems

With a complete review of the company’s processes and a scalable business strategy drafted, Armanino made key recommendations to drive technology and process improvement across the organization, including: 

  • Implementation of a new CRM system (Salesforce Sales Cloud) to enable a single source of truth for customer records
  • Implementation of Chargebee for e-commerce/subscription management, ActiveCampaign for marketing and Authorize. Net for billing to fill out the company’s back-office systems and create more efficient data flow through automation
  • Delivery of a one-year organizational roadmap to help ensure the company’s success with its new technology platforms and processes

Results

The company estimates that implementing Armanino’s recommendations will save them close to 2,700 employee hours per year, with up to $233K in total net savings annually. Armanino was able to automate 40% of the company’s back-office process steps, as well as help them eliminate 80% of the manual, inefficient processes associated with their previous revenue cycle. These savings and increased efficiency, along with updated software platforms that will streamline and automate a sizable portion of the revenue cycle, will allow the finance team to re-focus their time and resources on long-term growth. 

Next Steps

When the partnership with Armanino began, the company had a high-level idea of the areas that needed improvement but did not know how to make the necessary changes. After the Armanino team identified the main causes of the inefficiencies and unsustainable systems, the company was able to begin implementing the recommendations and initiating their business transformation.

 

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Author
John Stewart - Consulting| Armanino
Partner
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