COVID-19 disrupted business operations across industries last year. A massive number of people lost their jobs while others had to shift to working from home.
However, all of us imagined this setup to continue for the short term. Nobody knew we would have to stay out of the office for more than one and a half years.
Even now, the omicron variant is creating fears across the world. We may have to extend our working from home timelines for a few more months.
In addition, 73% of employees want to enjoy remote working options even when things get normal. Does that mean work from here is to stay?
Will processes like back office still have to be managed from living rooms?
The Impact of the Pandemic on Back Office
The coronavirus changed many business processes and working conditions. However, most of the focus remained on the client-side teams that deal with customer interaction.
Yet, the back office is a vital foundation that impacts the overall productivity of the company. This department handles crucial processes that support the day-to-day operations.
The employees in the back office also work in moderate close physical proximity. Therefore, the risks of spreading the virus were ever-present.
As a result, companies were forced to allow employees to work from home. Additionally, a team of few people visited the office occasionally to manage the paper processes.
Somehow, businesses were able to perform back office duties without giving it a hard thought.
The Transformation of the Back Office
People began to realize that the pandemic was going to stay as 2020 rolled by. Companies started realizing they had to plan for the long-term to sustain themselves and be competitive.
As a result, we saw a different approach to working with a focus on remote work. Companies began to set up secure home offices for their employees and even offered incentives to work from home.
Therefore, the back office went through a massive transformation. It was in line with the findings of McKinsey that predict the greatest transformations for jobs involving physical proximity.
How was the back office able to achieve this feat?
Elimination of Paper Processes
A majority of businesses, including real estate, were still relying on paper processes before the pandemic. It needed employees to manually collect, sort, and manage documents and files.
Let’s take the example of the accounts payable (AP) process handled by the back office. You have your invoices arriving by mail that need sorting. Then, you need to add the invoices to your accounting systems and verify information manually.
Some businesses rely on a property management tool but still handle some paper processes. In addition, making payments also included manual paper processes.
You have to write your checks, put them in envelopes, and mail them.
Fortunately, the back office teams were able to streamline and reduce paper processes. They worked hard to replace paper spreadsheets with cloud solutions that allowed access on the go.
As a result, suppliers could upload invoices directly or submit them through emails. Additionally, they integrated their disparate tools to create a single source of truth.
It eliminated duplicate entries and errors to improve data accuracy.
Adoption of Seamless Payments
Global spending patterns have been undergoing a change for the past few years. The growth in eCommerce and digital wallets are pushing more people to shift to cashless payments methods.
As per McKinsey, non-cash transactions increased by 6% between 2019 and 2020. Therefore, businesses are also adopting faster and more seamless ways to pay instead of relying on checks.
Data from Nacha also back up the trends in B2B payments. The ACH network experienced massive growth in payments last year that amounted to a total of $26.8 billion.
In addition, B2B payments themselves grew by 11%, reaching 4.4 billion.
The support from Nacha and other services allowed back offices to pay on time. This was an important step to maintain vendor relationships and ensure business continuity when supply chains were falling apart.
Focus on Automation
The pandemic expedited the digital transformation initiatives businesses planned for the long term. Companies invested heavily in automation to conserve resources and achieve operational efficiency.
Back offices also joined the list and adopted digital ways to do business. The technologies that came in handy the most include robotic process automation, artificial intelligence, and virtual assistants.
Let’s take the example of AP to illustrate what we mean. Many real estate agencies started using expense management tools last year to reduce manual AP processes.
For instance, such a tool can allow the automation of receipt management. In addition, they can eliminate the need for manual data entry or even collecting receipts.
Anyone can upload invoices on the platform, even from outside the office. In addition, you can interlink your tool with your accounting software to close your books automatically.
Best of all, it may even help you save 30% of your operational costs, according to Gartner.
It is a big event that real estate agencies were able to automate vital back office processes. It allowed them to achieve a task they have been waiting to do for many years.
Moreover, the process ensured employees could work from home to limit the spread of the virus. Additionally, the back office could keep providing the support it needed to conduct business operations.
Virtual Meetings for Optimum Collaboration
Video conferencing is not a new thing. Businesses have been relying on this technique to connect minds and collaborate across borders for many years.
As a result, the shift to remote meetings was not so hard on the back office staff. Most of them were already used to apps like Skype to keep in touch with their friends.
So, they could easily adapt to collaborating on Zoom instead of around the table.
Final Thoughts
Remote working is becoming a new norm across industries. Departments like back offices are also doing their best to adapt and excel. The big part of the task is already over and remote working is producing productive results. From here, we need to keep working for a streamlined and more efficient future for the back office.
