Introducing Corpa: True Enterprise Mobility
Enterprise software changed the way organizations manage their resources — processes, workflows, people, assets and more. We have come a long way to make all this management happen in real-time. But integrating enterprise resources still remains a daunting, expensive and complicated task. One of the principal reasons is the widely accepted thinking that organizations are complex entities so it’s hard to create a platform that can run an entire organization in a flexible, dynamic and uncomplicated way. From ERPs, CRMs, SCMs, EAMs to Business Intelligence, majority of enterprise software still remains rigid, expensive and complicated. Most of the current enterprise technology is still in the PC era even if we live and work in the post PC era. With all the mobile computing power in our hands what we need is a great software to harness that power and take enterprise mobility to the next level. We don’t need to be commuting and working so many hours when we can use mobile devices to get work done anywhere and any time. Will the future of work still be powerpoint presentations and spreadsheets? I don’t think so but time will tell. I see the future of work highly automated and connected via mobile, cloud, IoT and machine learning; pushing productivity and efficiency to the levels we have never seen before. With a single tap on your mobile device you can let the entire process run on its own. The future of work and true enterprise mobility is desk-less and allows for a better work life. We at Corpa are on a mission to create this new wave of enterprise productivity, efficiency and agility.
I believe that enterprise software must be at the heart of efficiency and productivity of an organization. It should reduce complexity and make work less complicated. It should integrate an organization into one entity rather than create silos. It must be flexible enough to align with the people and processes of an organization and not vice versa. It should require zero or minimum training for people to use. The flow of information should be smooth across the entire organization. All this is important to make enterprise software flexible, dynamic, inexpensive and uncomplicated to ultimately achieve the highest levels of efficiency and productivity. I have been part of the management consulting industry for more than 7 years advising almost all sizes and sectors of organizations on Business Performance (Business Process Engineering, High Performance Technology etc), Organization & Culture (High Performance Culture) and Innovation. In every single organization I know (small, medium and large) I have witnessed multiple applications being used to get stuff done. Processes, workflows and communcation aren’t integrated or aligned, given the multiple technologies - finance has its own version of software applications, marketing has its own, HR has its own and so on. Truth be told, most of these technologies don’t work together. So you have a typical organization with different areas (HR, Finance, Operations, Legal, Marketing etc) using different applications to deliver on their business processes and workflows. From the flow of information to strategic decision making this creates tremendous amount of friction and inefficiency on daily basis. Now you may ask why is this important? What’s wrong with using too many applications? The answer is pretty simple actually. An organization is a system with many different components or organs. These components or organs must be seamlessly integrated for them to work seamlessly together and operate efficiently. Think of the universe, solar system, galaxies and gravity!
Imagine an integrated, flexible, dynamic and uncomplicated mobile platform to run your entire organization. Imagine if via simple drag and drop you could build, integrate and automate your processes, workflows, reports, dashboards, communication, tasks and more. Imagine if everyone in your organization could use the same platform. Imagine if you could do all this from your mobile device without need of a PC or web browser. With this idea in mind I set out to build Corpa — an integrated enterprise platform(IEP).
An idea is not worth anything unless you can execute it and give it a form. Bringing Corpa to life led me to work with some of the best and the brightest people on the planet. I have been fortunate enough to have found them, learned from them and shared challenging conversations with them while we embarked on a tough journey of enterprise software simplification, integration and automation in the mobile era.
I am proud to finally introduce Corpa to the world. Let me tell you a little bit about how Corpa works:
Integrated Processes, Workflows, Reports & Dashboards
Corpa is an Integrated Enterprise Platform. Now you may ask what the heck is that? Well, Corpa allows you to run an entire organization on one single platform (It handles ERP, CRM, SCM, HRM, EAM, Project Management and more). Whether you are in HR, Finance, Marketing, Engineering, Legal, everyone uses the same platform. Everyone in your organization uses what we call Micro Apps (they are like lego pieces you put together to build something more complex) related to the stuff you do at work. The so called Micro Apps are highly flexible and comprise of configurable dynamic data types. You can create your own Micro Apps via simple drag and drop on your mobile device(no PC or browser required) using configurable data types without any programming. If you don’t want to create your own you can install our standard bundles for simple to complex process like Recruitment to Supply Chain Management. You can integrate unlimited Micro Apps together to integrate cross-funtional processes and workflows of your organization.
All these Micro Apps sit on the same platform so accessing the data is seamless and cross-functional areas can view information among themselves (this is based on your predefined area/user access configuration). Not only this, if you would like to automate a process you can do that as well. Automation can do simple as well as complex stuff like process auto-completion, auto assigning tasks, auto commenting, auto emailing etc. You can use an unlimited combination of conditions and sub-conditions to trigger certain actions. Think of it as an infinite loop. With a single tap on your mobile device you can run an entire process. You can think of infinite use cases where automation would be cool to have. I will leave those use cases to your imagination.
Once you have built, integrated and automated your Micro Apps you can capture data within those Micro Apps into the predefined data fields (text, number, date etc) in the form of elements (think of elements as documents or files). Element in itself is dynamic. If you create an element (say a work order for example) you can comment on that element, create a related task for your colleague(s). This way you have a structured communication related to that particular element in the form of an activity. You can view who has done what and when, attach files, run calculations and more. So instead of emailing a work order or having a static work order you now have a live one! This particular work order may be part of a more complex process where once the order is finished by one person someone else may pick it up and so on. This modus operandi applies to every element in every process and or workflow so you can be more efficient and productive. Corpa allows you to aggregate data from elements from different Micro Apps to generate reports and dashboards(charts). You can use data from Operations and Marketing (based on your access) to create reports, so you no longer live in a silo environment but an integrated one.
Integrated Communication — Comms, News Feed, Notifications
Communication is another important piece of organizational efficiency and productivity. The more integrated and structured the communication the better. When email came out it changed communication forever and it was kind of big deal to have an email. Email is everywhere today and I believe that it’s still pretty useful BUT I have always believed that it doesn’t allow for integrated communication. You have to leave your traditional enterprise software platform to communicate and the only way for you to communicate regarding a particular subject (say the above work order) is by attaching a PDF/Doc version of it unless the people you want to talk to have the access to the same platform. You cc a bunch of people and go back and forth. That is disintegrated communication even though it is structured in a certain way given it has a subject. This is not true for email alone but many communication platform and messaging apps.
Corpa on the other hand allows for integrated communication because we deeply linked and integrated the elements and Micro Apps. Therefore, all your work processes are integrated with the communication so you don’t have to leave the platform to communicate. Commenting inside elements is another important part of the integrated communication structure. We also created News Feed to keep you updated on what’s going on around you and allow you to communicate instantly via emoji reactions or comments. Enterprise communication after all is about enterprise matters and subjects that are related to work therefore it should be structured and integrated rather than random channels of communication.
Close
While we launched the first version of Corpa we still have a lot to do and improve. Our main focus is to make Corpa a true enterprise mobility platform — flexible, dynamic and uncomplicated. End user is key component of bringing this experience to Corpa so we will always listen to our users.
If you haven’t tried Corpa yet. Please feel free to try it out. Do tell us about your experience (feedback@corpa.io) and please share with others.
Thank you for taking time to read this (rather long) post. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. :)
Inam Haq
Founder/CEO
