Any modern successful company consists of many departments and teams. Although most of these departments are very specific for each type of business, we still can separate these into two groups:
- front office – departments, that come in to contact with clients (marketing, sales, service);
- back office – departments, responsible for running the company itself – for manufacturing or developing the products, for company administration, etc.
Back office departments are never in touch with the clients – they are the core of the company. They are invisible to you (as a customer), but they still exist in this small local shop on your street, in your bank and in huge international corporations. Even your high school had many back-office departments.
So, what is the specific of back-office software? Here, at CMW Lab, we think that back office software must have the following features:
- Scalability. the software must be so functional, that it can be used by any back-office department. You can start using this software in a single back-office department (such as in HR), but in future you must be able to integrate the same software, with the same database into another department’s activities.
- Unified working environment. A single software means that everyone is able use it – your employees across all departments could learn together in centralized sessions. A single database means that once data is in the software, it will always be there, available for anyone who is allowed to use it. When you hire an employee, you will input their ‘employee card’ in to your software and later you can update this ‘card’ with employee’ achievements, certifications, etc. that they have received working in your company.
- Reliable security system. The back office software should allow advanced security settings, so that secret information, will only be accessible to users you have selected. No excuses – some information in the hands of the wrong person can lead to company bankruptcy or even worse.
- Rapid process design and automation. The software should be easily configurable for internal process architects – they must be able to design and update their processes easily, without reading a ton of manuals, and without specialized training. Process design must be both intuitive and functional.
- Ease of use. The software must be simple to use. It should have a convenient and easy-to use interface, which works in the user’s familiar environment – in their browser, on their iPhone, in their Microsoft Outlook.
- API and integrations. It should have the ability to integrate with existing back-office and front-office applications. Using single software and a single database is a perfect situation. However, more often, you have to integrate back-office software into existing infrastructure – you need it to pull data from different sources and you need to display its data on your web-site, in your front-office software, Microsoft Sharepoint integration, etc. It is very hard to achieve that if your software hasn’t provided you with developer-friendly API.
In my opinion CMW Tracker is the perfect back-office software. In designing and developing it, CMW Lab has followed the above principles. Even CMW Lab uses CMW Tracker in its back-office operations! And, although, it is also perfect as front-office software (yes – CMW Lab uses CMW Tracker as front-office software too), today and in my next articles I’m going to tell you only about its benefits as back-office software.
By the way, do you know that CMW Tracker has predesigned vertical solutions for different back-office departments? You can install these with one click and start using them immediately by going to the “Menu” tab in the CMW Tracker interface and clicking “One-click Solution Setup”. You can use our solutions in your financial department (“Finance and Administration”), IT department (“IT Help Desk”), HR department (“Human Resources”), software development department (“Software Development”).
