Closing the Quarter - Coordinating Work With Business Social Networking

The end of a fiscal quarter is a busy time for many companies. It causes a flurry of activity between departments to sign contracts and agreements needed to bring on new customers ahead of calendar deadlines. Nobody involved in quarter-end wants requests to go unanswered or for deals to be delayed. Yet the process of signing contracts is sensitive, detailed, deliberate and can't be rushed. The only area where efficiency can be gained in the process is in better communications and response time. But how can this be done ?

Efficiently coordinating all the work involved at quarter end can challenge even the largest organizations. It is exactly this situation that our own company was facing and that our legal team was able to streamline by using our own CubeTree Social Collaboration Software. The old process relied on email alone as the system that everyone involved had access to. But it turned out to be a real problem when lots of requests were coming in at once to multiple people; it wasn't easy to know who on a long CC list was already working on which requests. That meant too much valuable time was being consumed just assigning work to people; time that those involved could have been using to actually process requests.

The solution for our team was to use several Web2.0 collaboration tools to help coordinate work more efficiently through CubeTree in 3 simple steps: 

Step 1: First a private group was created in our CubeTree account. Privacy was important, by nature the information being exchanged is sensitive and needed to be kept secure. Everyone critical to the process was then invited to join the group. This included an immense cross-functional and global team of all types and roles from individual account reps, to senior managers, to legal and accounting departments -- all the folks who are critical at quarter end to closing deals, reviewing contracts and coming to agreement with customers. 

Step 2: Second, customer facing reps were instructed to submit requests for contract approvals by posting them to the private group. Along with their requests they were able to upload digital documents and links to external information. This kept all the needed information in one secure location. The legal support team then created a single document in the group that tracked ALL of the incoming requests and who was assigned to each. This allowed everyone involved to see the status of each time sensitive item. 

Step 3: Finally, with the tracking document shared using Social Docs on CubeTree, it was easy for individuals to communicate about individual contracts. Reps could add comments and updates to their own line items as new information surfaced, if there were last minute chages or simply to request a status update. For the support personnel it was easy to pick up unassigned requests as they became available because each person could see the status of ALL open requests. No more sorting through email chains to figure out if a contract was already being worked on. 

The Result? More contracts processed in less time with fewer delays. For sales reps, using CubeTree meant clearer communication about the status of time-sensitive requests. With one place to submit, communicate, and update they could rely on always having the most current information. For the support team it meant that they could efficiently handle the deluge of incoming requests that come toward  the end of any quarter. Without having to rely on email there was little wasted communication, which meant less time spent coordinating work and more time available for bringing the quarter to a successful close.