What do you think is the single most important aspect of successfully managing your business? Which thing will really drive customers away from your competitors and through your front doors? Though there are a lot of important aspects to running any business well, perhaps one of the most critical is public relations.
It might seem a little strange to put such a high emphasis on public relations, but its importance cannot be denied. Even the best company with the best products and the happiest employees will flounder if the public doesn’t know about it. One poorly received PR campaign can utterly and completely undercut even some of the most profitable companies.
Public relations can be complex and require a variety of different strategies to effectively outreach to a variety of different demographics and target audiences. Keeping track of it all can be challenging, even in the best circumstances. Fortunately, there are many business data management tools and systems that aim to centralize processes, track projects, and collect valuable insights on how the public might perceive specific campaigns.
Building organization with Enterprise Resource Planning systems
Enterprise resource planning systems (ERPs) are arguably some of the most important tools business leaders can incorporate to help manage operations. The goal of ERPs is to centralize the core aspects of business management all in one place. This involves bringing together everything from production to sales, including human resources and financial management. In addition to these standard ERP solutions, custom ERP software can be tailored to meet the unique needs of a business, offering even more precise control and efficiency in managing various operations.
This centralized organization can help business leaders get a clear picture of how the company is doing, where it can improve, and where it can start to streamline operations a bit more. For instance, ERPs are essential to manufacturing companies, helping them manage freight procurement and sourcing, production, warehouse inventory control software management, and other logistics. Clear status updates of products and inventory levels, facilitated by inventory management software, help managers make productive long-term ordering decisions. Likewise, it can help the software development company begin strategizing which products it wants to prioritize marketing or design a PR strategy focusing on the environmentally friendly sourcing of certain products used in production.
The streamlining ERPs provide can have many very real benefits for software development companies in Vancouver and beyond. Companies can save a lot of money by automating certain tasks and increasing efficiencies. Especially for small companies that can’t afford a huge workforce, this can be a great way to get a lot done without completely burning out employees. Taking some of the small, menial tasks from employee plates through automation can free them up to focus on bigger, more important tasks that take human creativity and connection to truly come to fruition. Additionally, using no-code development tools can empower these companies, allowing them to create robust software solutions without extensive coding knowledge. This path offers an efficient way to build complex applications or websites pretty quickly and easily, making them accessible to a wider range of people in the organization, thereby increasing productivity and innovation.
Finding the right tools for the project
Of course, ERPs are not one-size-fits-all. There are hundreds of different tools out there for companies to consider. The real challenge is determining which ERP is right for your business. That task can seem completely overwhelming. After all, how do you streamline sifting through different products that will help you streamline operations in your business?
Beyond that, ERPs connect with other tools that are designed to help with specific aspects of bringing all this information together in one place. For instance, a treasury management system (TMS) is designed to manage finances, financial risk, and hedging using financial marketing software and inputs, with the guidance and expertise of financial advisors.The system feeds into the larger ERP system to give an overall predictive view of how the company is faring. Also, a project management tool, like Monday is useful for managing projects from the planning stage, by creating a WBS and a Gantt chart, balancing resources, and checking budgets.
Different types of automation systems designed to increase profits and lower business risks include things like:
- Cloud computing
- Automated supply chain management software
- Risk management information systems
- Point of Sale Systems
- AI-driven document automation
- Customer relationship management software
Customer relation management CRM software can be particularly important for the PR management aspects of company work. The basic premise of the technology is to help businesses collect customer data and better interact with them. This knowledge ultimately helps to drive marketing campaigns, determine target audiences, build/maintain customer loyalty, and learn customer preferences.
The software system can also play a greater role in managing other content that the public sees, such as social media posts, responses to customer questions or reviews, or aiding the design of PR campaigns.
Integrating public relations
These different systems ultimately play back into making real-time business decisions about how the company will operate moving forward. TMS systems may help company managers decide where funds should be cut or managed differently. Customer relation management software can help track customer interactions and how they will likely respond to different decisions. ERP systems can help coordinate the whole enchilada and ensure everything the company is doing comes together seamlessly.
All this information can greatly feed into how public relations works. Integrating business management tools helps show exactly how certain ads or outreach techniques are hitting customers and how they are responding. Are certain outreach techniques, such as social media or radio ads, reaching customers more frequently? Which tools are leading to the most conversions? What about a new outreach strategy that was piloted in a certain city?
Related read: PR Measurement: An Integrated Approach
There’s no mistaking that effectively reaching a target audience is the most important aspect of getting people to take a hard look at and possibly even purchase products. Business management tools can also help to ensure that your PR and media outreach is accessible to all target audiences regardless of their physical or mental health situation. The tech can help point out strategies for better inclusion in nearly all aspects of public outreach as well as identify watch-out moments or responses that might not go over as well as they sound.
Numerous great tools exist to help streamline business and make companies more effective overall. Many of these tools are designed to identify things that are not easily discerned by the human eye and make it simpler to determine if there is a need for change.
When it comes to public relations management, business management tools offer powerful means of finding, connecting with, and maintaining relationships with customers over time — and relationships are perhaps the most important aspect of running a successful business overall.
For all your monitoring needs, request a demo to see how we can help. And for valuable tip sheets on live streaming, online video content, storytelling, SEO, and many other topics crucial to building your brand and business, check out our resources section here.
Guest Contributor: Katie Brenneman is a passionate writer specializing in lifestyle, mental health, education, and fitness-related content. When she isn’t writing, you can find her with her nose buried in a book or hiking with her dog, Charlie.
To connect with Katie, you can follow her on Twitter.
The copy and opinions expressed here belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Burrelles, our employees, partners or affiliates.