Struggling to Maintain Process Standards Across Locations? Here’s how a Company-specific App store can help!

Large enterprises often face multiple operational challenges when scaling across multiple locations. It becomes more complicated when operations span different countries and continents because of the need to support local languages, regulations and cultures.  

While ERP solutions offer ways of recording data and managing work, conventional excel sheets and isolated apps can barely keep up with constantly evolving industry trends of growth. Data inconsistencies, human errors, process management issues, high IT costs, delayed decision making and lack of visibility only make up the tip of the iceberg of issues businesses are facing currently.  

So, what happens to the quality of the product of that said enterprise then?  
How does one ensure their IP, speed, and governance are not compromised when digitising their manual processes into apps?  
Can a company have their best practices built into apps while ensuring future real-time customisations without needing coding resources? 

You can have a whole central library of best practice apps on Softools, which you can templatise with just a click and share across your group of companies. If they have any unique changes needed, with the blessings of the CTO, any customisation can be implemented in the app in real time. Who makes the changes? Your own process experts who get trained in Softools within 4 weeks, who can also build any app the company needs, with on-demand support from our Softools team.  

But why do companies need best-practice libraries now more than ever?  

Here’s a deeper look at the challenges multi-site companies face when trying to scale their operations with excel-based manual systems:  

1. Inconsistency in Data: Different sites using their own templates can lead to inconsistencies in the data being collected. This can make it difficult to compare performance across locations or consolidate information for company-wide reporting or analysis. 

2. Increased Error Rates: With each site using different templates, the likelihood of errors increases. This is because the formats and formulas might not be standardized, leading to mistakes in data entry or calculations. 

3. Difficulties in Training and Support: Training staff across different locations becomes more challenging when each site uses different tools. It also complicates the support process, as IT or operational support teams need to be familiar with multiple systems instead of a standardized one. 

4. Inefficiencies in Process Management: Each site may develop its own process for handling operations due to the differences in tools they use. This leads to inefficiencies as best practices are not shared across the organization, and operational synergies are harder to achieve. 

5. Challenges in Scaling Operations: As the business grows and more sites are added, scaling operations efficiently can become a hurdle. Implementing a new standard system across all sites after they've been using different systems can be costly and time-consuming. 

6. Complications in Regulatory Compliance: Compliance with industry standards and regulations can be more complicated when different sites use different systems. Ensuring that all locations comply with relevant laws and regulations becomes a more cumbersome process. 

7. Delayed Decision Making: The lack of standardized data and processes can lead to delays in decision-making. Higher management might need to wait for data to be reformatted or clarified before they can make informed decisions. 

8. Higher IT Costs: Maintaining different systems and templates across multiple sites can lead to higher IT costs. This includes costs associated with developing, updating, and maintaining multiple versions of software and training materials. 

Solution?  

Let us look at it with an example of a bottling company that sought to move their Quality Management away from Excel sheets. Quality Management across a global bottling company is no simple function. Each site/sister company has its own team operating similar processes like audits and assessments but they use their own apps or Excel templates, over various frequencies throughout the year. Data collection and record keeping are crucial to every facet of a product’s quality and regulatory compliance. The Excel sheets have multiple stakeholders with multiple versions which end up needing iterations for errors.  

This bottling company chose Softools to shift away from Excel sheets and build quality management apps. Their citizen developers, trained in Softools, built a suite of inspection and audit apps, which other sites could adopt without any coding. It has now evolved into an internal app store, where all their sister bottling companies can access best practices of quality management, which ensures the freedom of nuanced customisation while remaining compliant with the parent company’s quality standards.  

Moving Beyond Excel Sheets  

Historically, companies have relied heavily on Excel sheets to manage everything from quality control records to inventory and compliance documentation. While Excel sheets are familiar and widely used, it has limitations in scalability, real-time collaboration, and error reduction—essential factors for businesses operating on a global scale with complex processes.  

As companies expand, the need for more robust, error-proof, and scalable solutions becomes apparent. Excel sheets, being prone to human error and requiring manual updates, coded expressions and workflows, and do not support the dynamic needs of a growing, modern business. This is where rapid digital transformation steps in, offering not just alternatives but sustainable improvements that ensure business processes become scalable, data-backed, and easy to govern.  

Why Digitise with Softools?  

Softools' NoCode platform is designed to address unique challenges companies face, be they single-site or multi-site operations:  

Workflow Automation: Manual processes are prone to errors and are notoriously inefficient. You can automate your workflows on a visual canvas with 100% flexibility to choose actions and set up automated workflows, ensuring that operations are seamless and that human error is minimised. Automated workflows mean faster response times and reduced downtime, directly enhancing production efficiency.  

Insight Generation: Data is only as good as the insights it provides. You can eliminate shadow IT and free the business data from silos, creating opportunities for smarter process transformation! Softools turns raw data from various stages of the bottling process into actionable insights. This capability allows Quality Managers to make informed decisions quickly, enhancing product quality and operational efficiency.  

Email Notifications: Keep your whole production unit informed and primary stakeholders alerted for upcoming audits, reports, tests, and more. Email notifications alert you to important changes and updates in the workflow, ensuring that you’re always informed about critical developments. You can automate email notifications for almost any use case for your bottling company.  

Access and Role Management: With many stakeholders, from technicians to senior managers, accessing the system, and managing who has access to what is crucial. Softools allows customised access controls ensuring that sensitive information is protected while still being accessible to those who need it. That way all business activities have the right information reaching the right personnel, without any manually changing settings of an excel sheet.  

Collaboration and Custom App Studio: Perhaps the most significant advantage is the ability to collaborate and share best practices across different subsidiaries without coding. Each subsidiary can customise these best practice apps to suit their local needs while adhering to the overarching standards of the parent company.  

How does a company-specific app library work?    

Imagine a large bottling company with subsidiaries across continents. Each subsidiary operates under the same corporate umbrella but often develops unique best practices that could benefit its sister companies. With Softools, a central library of best-practice apps can be created and shared across the enterprise. These apps can then be customised locally by other subsidiaries that use Softools, fostering an environment of continuous improvement and standardised excellence without the need for extensive IT resources or time drain. Your business can have a data-backed change engine that centralises business data, apps, and workflows on a single source of truth.   

For Quality Managers looking to enhance operational efficiency, reduce errors, and foster a collaborative work environment, Softools offers a comprehensive and scalable solution. By moving away from manual and paper-based processes to a centralized digital platform, bottling companies can achieve higher standards of quality and efficiency. Softools doesn’t just digitise existing processes; it transforms them, enabling businesses to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow confidently.  

As the bottling industry continues to evolve, staying ahead means embracing change. Softools NoCode platform is your partner in this journey, ensuring that your business remains competitive in a fast-paced world.

Reach out to us to learn more or if you have any thoughts on this subject!