About Colourtech
Colourtech is a South African printing and publishing company mainly focused on publications for education (http://www.colourtech.co.za/). They are a major player in Southern Africa and employ around 150 people. The organization has been using MeetingKing in all departments. In this story you will read about the experience of Linda Ingram VP of sales who uses it for all her sales team meetings, management meetings and client meetings.
The problem
As VP of sales, Linda leads a weekly sales team meeting which takes place in the office and has various project management meetings which are usually handled over the phone or through Skype. In addition she holds biweekly or monthly meetings with her customers either over the phone or at the customer’s location.
In the past each manager in the company had his/her own format of creating the agenda, writing minutes and managing tasks. Notes were taken by hand and later processed into a Word document, which was emailed to all participants. Each participant wrote down his or her tasks, in the hope that they would actually be completed.
Writing up the minutes after the meeting is a time consuming process and it usually took a few days before the minutes were sent around. Nuances were missed, participants did not remember the details well enough to provide feedback in case something was interpreted incorrectly. In addition, writing the minutes in these two steps took a lot of time. Finding notes from past meetings was difficult as there was not an efficient central archive and no standard format.
Task management was not reliable as there was no central task list and no efficient way of verifying that tasks were completed. Sales opportunities were missed, because not all tasks were completed and follow-up was missing from certain client conversations.
Colourtech printing facilities in South Africa
The solution
After exploring various options, Colourtech selected MeetingKing. MeetingKing offered them one solution that helps to:
- Standardize the agenda and minutes format
- Create an easy to search archive
- Helps to make sure all tasks are completed and nothing will fall through the cracks anymore
- Save time/improve efficiency in preparing and following up on meetings
Implementation and results
Colourtech has been using MeetingKing for more than a year and they have been very happy with the improvements it brought to their workflow and the business results.
During the meetings that Linda organizes, she is also the one who takes the notes. Other participants are not on a PC/laptop so their focus is entirely on the discussion. More focus means better decisions, less confusion and shorter meetings.
When a decision is made during a meeting, Linda immediately records it in MeetingKing. This summary function helps reduce any ambiguity and forces the team to come up with a real conclusion.
Whereas in the past she would have to work out her notes after the meeting, they are now immediately available to email to all parties involved. This saves Linda about 8 to 10 hours during a regular month and it saves her even double that during a month with more than the average amount of meetings. Needless to say that the subscription fee to MeetingKing is insignificant compared to the gains.
While saving time is great, the real improvement is in the task tracking and follow-up process. In the past opportunities would be missed because there was no secure way to follow-up on tasks. With the use of MeetingKing, which provides the central task list and the task tracking in follow-up meetings, more business is closed and customers are better served.
Colourtech distribution center South Africa
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