Why is it a risk to run your International Student Agency or School, with spreadsheets and task management apps
This is the most common mistake, trying to manage a complex business, such as a student agency or international school, with spreadsheets and simple task management apps. Although we can list an infinite number of reasons, it is just not enough to run their routines. Here are a few of the risks you’re taking on keeping these around:
Spreadsheets:
- Fragile data management: An inexperienced intern, an ex-employee holding a grudge, a laptop that gets stolen… it’s really a lot easier than you think to lose your files (or see them fall into the wrong hands)
- Duplicated or outdated information: Different versions of spreadsheets owned by different people end up creating duplicated registers. Can you imagine expanding your business to multiple locations or hearing sales reps in another country and having to email them new spreadsheets every week?
- Rework: The same information typed multiple times in different places. Besides generating rework, all this copy and paste is bound to end up causing mistakes
Task management apps:
- Wrong approach, focus on projects: Cost of project, Gantt Chart, Critical Path, Time tracking – all great features for projects, but if you’re trying to make your processes more efficient, these are the WRONG metrics! You should be looking for lead times, touch times and the tools that help you understand what are you bottlenecks of your “production line”
- You can’t create playbooks to guide your team: Everyone can do everything, like a large blank canvas. There’s no such thing as cumulative learning or standard procedures to be followed
- Lack of Automation: No workflows, integrations, efficiency reports, or rules and hacks that allow you to make your team more productive
- Poor quality of information: when creating a complex quote with more than one course + accommodation + services + extra fees, for example, everyone should at least provide the same set of information: What did they add to the quote? How many schools did they compare before sending the quote? Method of payment? Why was it sent?
How can you create these standards?…
How can you download school’s price list with one click?…
How to leave all these risks behind?…
Try Sellead! We help agencies and schools to keep organized and more productive by running their processes and day-by-day routines on an easy and intuitive tool, making them leave the past inefficient manual forms, spreadsheets and e-mail threads.
