Karl Reed is chief marketing and solutions officer at Elingo.

Technological advances allow for full integration between communication systems and workflow tools. These advances will engender significant changes in the way companies do business. But an organisation’s ability to take advantage of these developments rests on its ability to assess its status quo before it seeks to move forward.

Many workflow solutions and technologies have historically operated in silos, providing tools or processes operating in isolation from the organisation’s communication system. This lack of integration creates the process bottlenecks that have frustrated so many decision-makers over the years.

The fast emerging alternative to the silo workflow approach is communication-based workflow. Here workflow processes are fully integrated into the communication structure, including communication involving external service providers and business partners. This system doesn’t wait for a person to select a task to complete, because it understands what each entity within the service chain is tasked with at any moment, and pushes appropriate tasks at individuals. An effective system will see the loop closing slowly, with the final stages of closure including after-sales services.

This kind of integration allows decision-makers to assess actions taken by each party across the supply chain – even if they are not direct employees. In addition, because new generation systems are inherently open on a structural level, a complete roll-out can be achieved in less than six months.

There is, however, a catch. You can’t implement a workflow solution until you understand your pr ocesses as they currently exist – and developing that understanding is no simple matter.

As much as we all talk about our strong processes in the marketplace, the reality is that many of these have evolved organically within the organisation and are thus hard to pin down.

With the right system in place, it is more than possible for the product to be scanned simply, and the resulting set of actions to be completely automated. But before this vision can be a reality, you must understand the status quo.