An Interview with the Brains Behind ProcessComposer
Smart engine, ProcessComposer, was recently launched on the Salesforce.com AppExchange and offers advanced process-building for companies, especially in the Financial Services industry.
I caught up with Travis Rychnovsky, CEO and President at parent company, Orchestrate, LLC for a quick Q&A about the inspiration behind and future of ProcessComposer.
LB: What was the inspiration behind ProcessComposer?
TR: In 2007, Foster Group (the Registered Investment Advisor I work for) was using an industry-specific CRM solution called, "Junxure." We had been using Junxure for a few years and were very intentional about developing our processes and imbedding them into our CRM. This (integration) is critical; if your processes aren’t imbedded into your real-time workflow, you are not capturing maximum efficiencies.
Anyways, we reached a point where we realized we needed more flexibility, scale, and transparency and really wanted to adopt a scalable platform on which we could run our business. After evaluating several major technology solutions, including Microsoft CRM/Dynamics, NetSuite, etc., we settled on Salesforce.com. [...] We (Foster Group) chose Salesforce.com and realized we were going to need something more comprehensive and scalable than their out-of-the-box workflow mechanism. And that was the birth of ProcessComposer.
We have been using it (ProcessComposer) to standardize most every dimension of our firm: compliance, client on-boarding, client service, employee on-boarding. Anything that needs a reliable, repeatable and transparent process is in ProcessComposer. After using if for 3 years and running over 40,000 processes through it, we put it on the AppExchange in late 2011. Defining our process, selecting the right CRM, and using ProcessComposer to embed those processes in Salesforce has allowed us to reduce our cost of service per client by 31% over the past several years.
LB: Your biggest market is in Financial Services. Why?
TR: Our focus is in Financial Services for now, because this is the market we know and grew up in. Leading the technology, operations and client services aspects at Foster Group has given me the opportunity to meet a lot of great people in our industry. There are several great initiatives going on in our industry and there seems to be a convergence around Salesforce.com. Of course, given my background, I see great opportunities for Wealth Management firms to take advantage of ProcessComposer, but we see great potential in other Financial Service sectors as well such as lending and insurance. Professional services companies that work in a team environment and rely on consistent processes to provide a great client experience—that is a fit for our tool.
LB: What was your first reaction, when you saw ProcessComposer on the AppExchange?
TR: We were certainly excited to see our vision come to reality! We have tried to be very intentional and thoughtful in our work. With each new feature we think about adding, we are purposeful. "How much appeal with this have?" "Will people understand it?"... There are endless tasks that can be done in any startup, but to be successful, we need to concentrate on efforts that will create the highest probability of success for us and our clients.
LB: What’s next for ProcessComposer?
TR: We are still in the awareness-creating process. Making ourselves known and understood in the market is crucial to our success. We continue to align ourselves with practice management professionals, Salesforce.com consulting firms, like Doextra, and influencers in the Financial Services industry. We have a roadmap of great features we plan to add in the future. This is technology—if we stay the same, we are irrelevant.
Image by Alan Berning.