A stack is a group of technologies that are used together or “stacked” on top of each other to support a certain function. In an enterprise context, different technology platforms used by sales, finance, etc., must integrate seamlessly in order to meet key business requirements.
Tech stacks were once generic and could be easily replicated from one business to another. Today’s tech stacks are much more sophisticated, customized, and complicated because of the evolving needs of organizations. For example, the growing trend of customer-centric service has created more diversity in the solutions that companies seek. Companies may choose to approach their customer strategy in different ways, as some focus on optimizing their employee performance and others focus on quick response times–and the solutions to meet these needs can vastly differ.
In this blog, we discuss the 7 key elements that constitute an enterprise tech stack, including why a mobile workforce management platform is essential to meet the unique needs of companies that have mobile and deskless workers.
7 Key Elements of Your Enterprise Technology Stack
Every element in a tech stack is one piece of the puzzle in the paradigm of an organization. Let’s look into what each platform does and how they come together to paint the big picture.
1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Platform
A CRM platform is a technology solution that records and manages all information about current and prospective customers. Examples of details stored in a CRM platform include customer contact information (name, address, phone, etc.), social media handles, and customer profiles. In a mobile workforce management context, it can go one step further to contain details such as current job status, next steps, future appointment times, preferred service technician, etc.
The objectives of a CRM platform include improving customer service and onboarding new customers. Mining business intelligence from CRM data helps achieve this—for instance, the number and type of service tickets from a customer give an insight into customer satisfaction and frequent issues faced by mobile workers.
2. Finance Platform
A finance platform is a technology solution that tracks assets, liabilities, and incoming and outgoing money flow in an organization. It’s integral to the operation of your business, as it manages accounting activities.
At a macro level, a finance platform sheds light on the financial health of a company—its debts and earnings. At a micro level, it enables day-to-day functions by generating detailed invoices against customer services and documenting expenses. A finance platform is most effective when automated and integrated with the rest of the enterprise platforms. For example, when a job is marked complete, an invoice is automatically generated and sent to the customer.
3. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Platform
An ERP platform is a suite of technology applications that plan and manage resources in everyday business processes such as supply chain, operations, manufacturing, and procurement. The number of appointments and available workers at any given time are examples of data stored in an ERP platform for a company that manages mobile workers. Such data help match workers to customers based on their availability and skillset.
The purpose of an ERP platform is to get a consolidated view of resource availability and, thereby, increase productivity. This unified approach aids organizations to make better decisions that can save costs, time, and keep all stakeholders happy.
4. Payroll Platform
A payroll platform is a solution that handles salaries, perks, and other payments to employees and ensures compliance with legal and tax requirements.
Often, payroll calculations for mobile workers are dynamic, a combination of fixed salary and a variable component based on the number of hours spent and vacations taken. A payroll system accounts for these factors, performs tax deductions, and computes net payouts accordingly.
Additionally, the solution is also responsible for generating reports, such as tax statements, paystub, cost statements, and analytical reports.
5. Sales Platform
A sales platform is an indispensable technology solution for sales teams and focuses on lead generation, prospect analysis, and customer conversions. An efficient sales platform has the ability to generate leads who have high chances of being converted into customers, as well as offer intelligence on the behaviors and choices of potential customers.
Companies with a mobile workforce can leverage such a platform to increase their customer base, package a suitable product offering for the customer, and explore possibilities of cross-selling and upselling.
6. Human Resources (HR) Platform
An HR platform is responsible for the “people aspects” of an organization, such as recruitment, training, employee satisfaction, performance management, and compensation. The objective of an HR platform is to ensure that candidates with the right skills are hired into an organization and they continue to remain motivated and engaged in their roles.
For instance, an HR platform has information on employees’ skills and certifications. This data could help identify relevant opportunities for employees and chart out a career growth path, thereby reducing turnover rates.
7. Mobile Workforce Management Platform
A mobile workforce management platform refers to the tools used to schedule, enable, and analyze the performance of mobile teams as they deliver onsite services to customers. Mobile workforce management platform capabilities include scheduling, automatic tracking of job notes and mileage, data management (e.g. worker job arrival and departure times), invoicing, and more.
Because a mobile workforce management platform addresses the unique challenges that mobile workers and companies encounter, it is as critical to a company’s tech stack as the other six elements. For employees, mobile work can create a challenge to remain connected with coworkers and the organization. For organizations, the challenges include delivering high-quality service to customers using a remote workforce, managing the complexities of daily activities, and governing operational issues, such as increasing productivity while keeping costs low.
This is where a mobile workforce management platform can make a difference. It tears down silos between various departments and disparate systems used by HR, finance, and billing to enable cross-functional collaboration and end-to-end workflows across systems. As systems communicate with each other, the platform generates interoperable data that can uncover important business insights that may otherwise go unnoticed. In turn, these insights can help streamline operations, reduce costs, and uncover new ways to improve efficiency and customer experience.
Create a Robust and Flexible Enterprise Tech Stack
The need of the hour is to design a strong, scalable, and flexible tech stack that will cater to your mobile workforce. Although CRM, finance, ERP, payroll, sales, and HR platforms are all vital elements in an enterprise tech stack, they are pulled together for seamless, full functionality and business insights with the integration of a mobile workforce platform.
Adding an intelligent mobile workforce management platform to your tech stack helps enterprises schedule, dispatch, and track jobs in the field with real-time visibility and communication. Book your free demo to see Skedulo in action!
