The building industry is a beehive of activity. On top of the (literal) heavy lifting in the yard, there’s also the bevy of different in-house teams scrambling to get work done. Unfortunately, most of these teams — from Sales to Ops to Accounting — operate in silos occasioned by disconnected systems.
To break out of this frictional cycle, many teams have opted to go paperless. Their preferred tool? Enterprise content management (ECM) software.
ECM is an excellent digital storage solution — but is that all there is to it? Perhaps it’s time to start viewing ECM as not just a tool that fills a gap but a solution that truly elevates cross-department productivity.
ECM: More Than Just Storage
In a bid to supercharge their workflows, many teams opt for Google Drive and Dropbox — two of the finest document storage solutions out there. But that’s all they do: store. They lack features for access management and built-in workflow automation.
ECM, on the other hand, isn’t just a basic digital document management solution. Where Google Drive and Dropbox fall short, ECM more than makes up for it by enabling built-in process transparency — not just access. Every team member can closely monitor what document is headed where, why, and when.
The outcome? Clear, no-frills, automated sales and operations workflows where everyone knows exactly what they’re supposed to do, every single time. No more misplaced documents, finger-pointing, or constantly seeking clarity.
Sales Use Case
Sales teams utilize a whopping 10 tools on average to close deals. The pressure to close quickly can mean scrambling to pull together documents and data from across different systems. If only sales teams could have access to the right documents at the right time, every time.
Well, they can. With ECM, sales professionals don’t waste precious minutes digging through disparate systems and email chains. Everything they need, from quotes to contracts and spec sheets, is accessible with a single click.
Additionally, ECM makes customer hand-offs to Ops simple and hassle-free. For many organizations, post-sale hand-offs are fraught with challenges relating to missing or incomplete documents.
Unrestricted access, real-time updates, and document consolidation are some of ECM’s strongholds. Why have teams chase down paperwork when they can work more efficiently and drive consistent revenue for your organization?
Operations Use Case
Between handling incoming hand-off documents and overseeing daily to-dos, Ops teams manage a complex web of responsibilities. The margins for error here are as fine as they get, so team visibility and process tracking are crucial.
Without a clear picture of where a purchase order or change request document is in the workflow, the next step is to seek clarity. One question soon becomes several, and before long, the whole situation can disintegrate into chaos and confusion.
With ECM’s built-in status flows, time-wasting questions like “Who’s got it?” turn into high-fives because everyone knows exactly where a document is in the approval process. And where there is consistent clarity, there is progress.
Accounting Use Case
Fish that invoice from an email thread. Check if the purchase order (PO) is in that file server. Extract approval document X from physical storage Y.
It’s the story of every accounting team on the planet that’s still stuck with paper-based processes.
The constant rummaging through repositories can cause delays or, worse, errors during reconciliation. When that happens, the organization bears the brunt of any monetary loss incurred. That’s backtracking, not progress.
ECM pools invoices, POs, and approvals in a centralized repository accessible to everyone, from anywhere. That means Accounts Payable (AP) and Accounts Receivable (AR) teams don’t have to wait in line to view or verify important, time-sensitive documents. Instead, they can quickly log in to the ECM collaboration tool and make decisions on the fly based on real-time uploads. Everything moves along swiftly and accurately, improving efficiency and reducing the risk of errors.
The Power of One Unified System
The true power of ECM lies in connecting multidisciplinary teams through a single, all-action, unified content system.
Sales, Ops, and Accounting have one thing in common: They all rely on divergent systems and email chains more than they should. ECM tackles this problem once and for all.
In place of frequent email chains, your team gets real-time document access and updates. And in place of endless (sometimes unfruitful) searches, you get the power to make decisions faster.
How Roofers Mart Improved Its AP Workflow with ECM
One of our clients, Roofers Mart, consistently struggled with long approval cycles and missing documents. The outcome? Recurring delays when processing invoices — which often translated into vendor frustration and missed discounts.
By implementing WorldView’s ECM, Roofers Mart was able to transform its workflows and bring all invoices, POs, and approvals under one roof. The impact was immense, with 720+ hours saved annually and $72K+ recovered in early payment discounts.
Why WorldView?
We’ve been in the game long enough to know what works and what doesn’t. Our ECM has four key features that most other ECMs lack: intelligence, extensibility, enterprise-level benefits, and DMSi integration. In short, it works.
Ready to get your whole team on the same page? Let’s talk ECM — schedule a demo today.
