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Supersize Your Subscription Sales Revenue
11.05.2023
Subscription Management
Effective Add-On and Upsell Management
Okay, so imagine this. You’ve worked like mad to launch your subscription business. You get established. You’ve got your customers subscribed to your offerings and things are ticking along.
So you set up that hammock, grab the icy cold adult beverage of your choice, and sit back, because now you’re on easy street and don’t have to do anything else.
Yeaaahh, exactly. That’s not really how it works, is it?
Because then you’d be overlooking one of the biggest revenue opportunities in the entire industry – add-on and upselling. In fact, it can be a goldmine. And customers will thank you for it.
Don’t believe us? Tell us you never went with the popcorn and drink deal at the movies. Or grabbed a pack of gum at the grocery store check-out. Or super-sized your Mcdonald’s meal.
We all love add-ons and upselling. And as customers, we’re generally pretty happy with the results when we say “yes.”
And it’s easier to sell to existing customers than it is to new ones. That’s why mastering the art of add-on and upselling management is an essential ingredient for maximizing subscription sales revenue.
But why are they so crucial, and how can you harness their power to drive growth for your subscription-based business?
Priority #1
No matter what you choose to do, you have to make sure your add-ons and upsells offer additional features, services, or products that complement your core subscription offerings.
Mcdonald’s doesn’t offer a digital hipster-friendly record player with their Big Mac meal supersize option. Because they don’t go together.
Customers need to see value in your add-ons or upgrades. They need to keep up with all their expectations.
But that can be challenging:
- What if you have little or no visibility into your customer’s needs and preferences?
- What if your pricing strategies are ineffective and guesswork?
- What if you and your customers don’t or can’t communicate in a meaningful way
These can hinder your ability to sell add-ons and upgrades, leading to missed opportunities and reduced revenue potential.
But don’t worry- we’ve got your back with some fool-proof strategies to overcome these obstacles and make the most of your add-on and upsell offerings.
Know Your Customer: Research and Segmentation
You must understand your customers inside out. We’re sure you conduct customer research and segmentation to identify their needs, preferences, and pain points. Or get professionals to do it for you. Don’t you?
This knowledge will help you tailor your add-on and upsell offerings to resonate with all your customer segments. You’ll create targeted offers that truly address their needs and desires. That’s how you get a higher conversion rate and build trust and loyalty over them.
Pricing and Packaging that Packs a Punch
This can be a tricky one, but it’s so important. Develop targeted pricing and packaging strategies that make customers want to purchase add-ons and upsells. Let the offerings be persuasive. Even irresistible. The subscription equivalent of hot, crispy fries.
Experiment with various tactics, such as bundling, tiered pricing, or time-sensitive offers, to discover which approach works best for your business and for your individual customers.
The key here is to balance offering value to your customers and generating additional revenue for your business. A well-crafted pricing strategy goes a long way towards making your add-ons and upsells compelling.
Data-Driven Decisions: Personalization and Optimization
One of the easiest things you can do is to leverage data and analytics to personalize offers and optimize pricing. Collating customer behaviour and purchase history will help you figure out patterns and trends for creating highly targeted offers.
The more relevant the offering, the more your add-on and upsell conversions. And the data is there for the using, so don’t overlook this tremendous opportunity. Use data to guide your add-on and upsell strategies to put you one step ahead of the game and ready to capitalize on emerging trends and opportunities.
Let Go of the Toil and Tap Into the Power of Automation: Looping in LISA
Analogue subscription management both drains your energy, steals your time, and eats away at your bottom line. Why stay on this road for a second longer than you need to, especially when automation will do it all for you, at the flick of a proverbial switch?
Kick the old-fashioned way to the curb and say hello to LISA! Our cutting-edge automation solution puts all your strategies on autopilot, seamlessly handling customer research, pricing optimization, and personalized offers so you don’t have to.
LISA’s Smart Opportunities work wonders across your end-to-end subscription management process. From pinpointing add-on and upsell prospects in Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O to streamlining renewals, managing subscriptions, and uniting your operations and customer management activities, LISA’s got you every corner covered.
This means you could finally be free to focus on other vital aspects of your business- like innovating future products and growing your customer relationships even more.
You’ll be empowered to drive growth and innovation in your subscription-based business like never before.
The secret to maximising your subscription revenue is excellent add-on and upsell management. So why not unleash the full potential of your business? Let automation through LISA do all the hard work for you and embrace the exciting opportunities that add-ons and upsells have to offer.
Let your customer go super-size. Your subscription business will thank you for it!
Let’s chat further.
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Related blog articles.
15.12.2025
Subscription Management
The New Energy Provider: Why Unified RevOps Is Now a Competitive Necessity
The energy sector is undergoing a fundamental transformation. What was once a linear, asset-heavy industry is rapidly evolving into a service-led, subscription-driven ecosystem. Solar installations, heat pumps, EV chargers, home batteries, and smart energy services are no longer sold as one-off projects — they are bundled, financed, serviced, upgraded, and managed over time. This shift is creating enormous opportunities for energy providers. But it is also exposing a new kind of operational risk. Many organisations are still trying to run modern energy businesses on fragmented revenue operations — and the cracks are starting to show. From Energy Retailers to Energy Service Providers Today’s energy providers are no longer just selling electricity or installing equipment. They are managing long-lived customer relationships that combine physical assets, digital services, financing models, and ongoing support. A single customer engagement may now involve a solar installation, battery storage, EV charging infrastructure, software-driven energy optimisation, and a service agreement that spans years. Pricing structures vary, incentives and subsidies apply, and customers expect flexibility over time. This shift has fundamentally changed the revenue model — but in many cases, the operating model has not caught up. The RevOps Problem Hiding in Plain Sight In many energy organisations, revenue operations are spread across disconnected systems that were never designed to work together as a single lifecycle. Sales teams manage commercial commitments in CRM systems. Finance teams rely on ERP platforms for invoicing and reporting. Installation and service teams track assets and work orders elsewhere. Metering platforms generate usage data in isolation. And when gaps appear, spreadsheets are used to fill them. At low volumes, this fragmentation can be tolerated. At scale, it becomes a liability. The result is delayed billing, missed revenue from upgrades or add-ons, and increasing manual reconciliation at month-end. Forecasts become dependent on adjustments rather than trusted data, and teams spend more time resolving exceptions than improving performance. What looks like an operational inconvenience is actually a structural weakness in how revenue flows through the organisation. Why Fragmentation Becomes a Competitive Disadvantage As competition intensifies and margins tighten, fragmented RevOps stops being an internal issue and starts affecting market performance. Providers operating with disconnected systems often struggle to convert growth into predictable cash flow. Time-to-cash slows as billing lags behind operational reality. Customer disputes increase when invoices don’t align with expectations. Internal teams lose confidence in forecasts, making planning harder and riskier. Meanwhile, competitors with more unified revenue operations are able to move faster. They launch new bundled offerings more confidently, scale subscriptions without adding operational headcount, and optimise customer lifetime value with clearer insight. The gap between these two groups widens over time — not because of ambition, but because of execution. Unified RevOps: The Foundation of the Modern Energy Provider Unified Revenue Operations connects commercial, operational, and financial processes around a single, end-to-end revenue lifecycle. For energy providers, this means operating with one shared understanding of what has been sold, what is being delivered, and how revenue should be recognised. Instead of managing contracts, installations, usage, and billing as separate activities, unified RevOps aligns them into a continuous flow. Quotes transition seamlessly into installations. Assets are directly linked to billing schedules. Usage data informs accurate invoicing. Contract changes propagate automatically across systems. This alignment reduces friction across teams and replaces reactive firefighting with proactive control. Why Unified RevOps Is Now Essential — Not Optional Several forces are accelerating the need for unified RevOps in the energy sector. Increasing product and pricing complexity is one of the most immediate pressures. Bundled offerings, financing arrangements, and usage-based pricing models introduce variability that manual processes cannot reliably manage at scale. The need to scale without linear cost growth is another. Adding people to manage complexity may work in the short term, but it quickly erodes margins and increases risk. Sustainable growth requires systems that absorb complexity rather than amplify it. Customer expectations are also rising. Energy customers now expect transparency, accurate billing, and seamless service across long-term engagements. Errors or delays damage trust — and trust is critical in multi-year energy relationships. Regulatory and financial scrutiny is increasing across markets. Auditability, traceability, and revenue accuracy are no longer optional. Fragmented processes make compliance harder and more expensive. Finally, speed has become a differentiator. Providers that can launch, adapt, and scale offerings quickly — without breaking operations — gain a clear competitive edge. Unified RevOps is what enables all of this without sacrificing governance or control. The Energy Providers That Will Win the Next Decade The most successful energy providers of the next decade will not be defined solely by generation capacity or installation volume. They will be defined by their ability to monetise complex energy services reliably, scale recurring revenue with confidence, and maintain operational clarity as their offerings evolve. They will align sales, operations, and finance around a single version of the truth — and design their systems to support growth, not slow it down. Unified RevOps is not just an operational improvement. It is a strategic capability. Take the Next Step If your organisation is moving toward subscription-based energy services — or already feeling the strain of fragmented revenue operations — understanding what “good” looks like is the first step. Find out more and download The Energy RevOps Blueprint to explore how leading energy providers are building scalable, unified revenue operations.
05.08.2025
Subscription Management
Eliminating Revenue Leakage in Energy: How Automation Fixes the Hidden 1–5% Loss
Revenue leakage is one of the most persistent, and underestimated, challenges facing modern energy providers. It rarely appears as a single, obvious failure. Instead, it hides in the gaps between systems, teams, and processes. A missed billing line here. A delayed contract change there. A pricing adjustment that never quite makes it onto an invoice. Individually, these issues may seem minor. Collectively, they can quietly erode 1–5% of annual revenue, often without being fully visible in standard reports. As energy providers scale into more complex, service-led and subscription-based models, that hidden loss becomes harder to ignore. Why Revenue Leakage Is So Prevalent in Energy The energy sector is uniquely exposed to revenue leakage because of how revenue is generated and managed. Modern providers are no longer billing a single, static product. They are managing evolving customer relationships that include physical assets, variable usage, service agreements, financing models, and regulatory considerations. Revenue leakage most often emerges when commercial reality moves faster than operational systems. Where the 1–5% Loss Typically Comes From Revenue leakage in energy is rarely caused by one major failure. It accumulates across multiple points in the revenue lifecycle. Missed or delayed billing is one of the most common sources. When installations go live before billing is activated, or when service start dates are not aligned across systems, revenue simply isn’t captured on time. Unbilled upgrades and add-ons are another frequent issue. EV chargers added after an initial installation, battery upgrades, additional service packages, all introduce incremental revenue that can be missed if contract changes aren’t automatically reflected in billing. Manual handling of contract changes creates further risk. Mid-cycle upgrades, downgrades, pauses, or co-terminations often rely on emails, spreadsheets, or hand-offs between teams. Each manual step increases the chance of error. Usage and metering discrepancies also contribute. When consumption data is captured but not reliably linked to billing logic, under-billing becomes a silent drain on revenue. Poor visibility and delayed detection compounds all of the above. Without real-time insight, leakage is often discovered weeks or months later, if at all, making recovery difficult or impossible. Why Traditional Controls Don’t Catch Revenue Leakage Many organisations assume that revenue leakage will be caught through month-end close, audits, or manual checks. In practice, these controls tend to detect symptoms, not root causes. By the time discrepancies surface, invoices have already been issued, customers may have been undercharged, and correcting errors risks disputes and dissatisfaction. In some cases, teams choose to absorb the loss rather than reopen old billing periods. The longer revenue leakage persists, the more it becomes normalised, baked into forecasts, margins, and expectations. Automation as the Turning Point The most effective way to eliminate revenue leakage is not more controls or more people.It is automation across the entire revenue lifecycle. For energy providers, automation ensures that revenue logic moves in lockstep with operational reality. When contracts, assets, usage, and billing are connected end-to-end, revenue leakage becomes far harder to hide. How Automation Closes the Gaps Automation addresses revenue leakage by removing the manual hand-offs where losses typically occur. Contract-driven billing ensures that every commercial agreement, including upgrades and changes, directly governs what gets billed and when. Automated change management means that mid-cycle adjustments propagate automatically across billing, revenue recognition, and reporting, without relying on emails or spreadsheets. Usage-linked invoicing connects metering and consumption data directly to pricing logic, reducing the risk of under-billing. Real-time validation and exception handling surfaces anomalies early, when they can still be corrected without customer impact. Full auditability and traceability ensures every revenue event can be explained, traced, and defended — reducing both financial and compliance risk. Together, these capabilities shift revenue management from reactive correction to proactive prevention. Why Energy Providers Can’t Afford to Ignore the 1–5% In a capital-intensive industry, margins matter. A 1–5% revenue loss may not trigger alarms on its own, but it directly affects cash flow, profitability, and investment capacity. As providers scale, that percentage translates into increasingly material sums. More importantly, revenue leakage undermines confidence in the numbers, in forecasts, and in the systems meant to support growth. Energy providers that address leakage early gain more than recovered revenue. They gain clarity, control, and the ability to scale without fear that growth is masking hidden losses. From Leakage to Control The shift from fragmented, manual processes to automated, unified revenue operations is not just an efficiency improvement. It is a strategic move. By designing revenue processes that absorb complexity rather than amplify it, energy providers can protect margins, improve customer trust, and build a foundation for sustainable growth. Book a Consultation If your organisation operates subscription-based or service-led energy models and wants to understand where revenue leakage may be occurring, the first step is a structured review of your revenue architecture. Book a consultation to assess your revenue operations and identify opportunities to eliminate hidden revenue leakage.
02.07.2025
Subscription Management
Preparing for Scale: How to Make Dynamics 365 FSCM a Growth Engine, Not a Bottleneck
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management (FSCM) is trusted by many organisations as the backbone of financial control. It delivers strength where it matters most: governance, compliance, core finance, and operational discipline. But for subscription-based businesses preparing to scale, FSCM is often asked to do far more than it was originally designed for. As recurring revenue models mature — with subscriptions, usage-based pricing, bundles, renewals, and frequent contract changes — many organisations hit a familiar inflection point. Growth accelerates, but operational friction grows alongside it. Month-end close takes longer. Billing exceptions increase. Manual workarounds creep in. Forecasts require constant adjustment. And finance and operations teams spend more time managing complexity than enabling growth. At this stage, the problem is rarely FSCM itself. The problem is trying to run modern subscription businesses on transactional ERP assumptions. When Growth Exposes the Gaps Dynamics 365 FSCM excels at traditional, linear processes: sell, invoice, recognise revenue, report. That works well for one-time or predictable transactions. Subscription businesses are different. They operate with: Ongoing customer relationships rather than discrete sales Contracts that evolve over time Usage-driven and variable pricing Mid-cycle upgrades, downgrades, and co-terminations Multi-entity, multi-currency structures Continuous revenue recognition requirements As scale increases, these realities expose gaps between commercial activity and financial systems. Without a purpose-built subscription layer, teams are forced to bridge those gaps manually. Spreadsheets track renewals. Emails explain contract changes. Side systems calculate usage. Finance reconciles exceptions after the fact. The ERP remains “in control” — but no longer in sync with the business. Why Treating FSCM as a Back-Office System Limits Scale A common mistake at this stage is to isolate FSCM as a finance-only platform, while subscription logic lives elsewhere — in CRM notes, billing tools, or operational workarounds. This fragmentation creates predictable consequences: Revenue leakage from missed or delayed billing Inconsistent customer entitlements and disputes Increased audit and compliance risk Poor visibility across the quote-to-value lifecycle Forecasts that lag reality instead of guiding it Point solutions and add-ons often solve one symptom at a time, but increase overall complexity. Over time, the system landscape becomes harder to manage, not easier to scale. What Subscription Businesses Actually Need from FSCM To turn Dynamics 365 FSCM into a growth engine, subscription businesses need more than billing automation. They need a unified revenue backbone that connects commercial intent, operational execution, and financial truth. This is where LISA Enterprise plays a critical role. LISA Enterprise extends Dynamics 365 FSCM with subscription-native capabilities, without replacing or bypassing the ERP. It overlays directly onto Microsoft’s standard data models, allowing subscription logic to live inside the enterprise system rather than alongside it. For subscription companies, this changes everything. How LISA Enterprise Brings the Pieces Together 1. One Contract Spine Across the Business LISA Enterprise establishes a single, authoritative contract framework across sales, operations, and finance. Every subscription, pricing rule, renewal, and change is governed consistently — eliminating the disconnect between what was sold, what is delivered, and what is billed. This provides: Full lifecycle visibility from quote to renewal Consistent pricing, entitlements, and billing logic Clean audit trails for every contract change A true single source of truth inside FSCM 2. End-to-End Quote-to-Value Automation Rather than focusing narrowly on billing, LISA Enterprise automates the entire subscription lifecycle: Contract creation and amendments Usage and entitlement tracking Recurring and usage-based billing Revenue recognition aligned with IFRS 15 / ASC 606 Renewals, co-terminations, and multi-entity scenarios This allows subscription complexity to scale without multiplying manual effort. 3. Intelligence Embedded Where It Matters As subscription volumes grow, visibility becomes more critical — not less. By keeping subscription data structured and consistent within FSCM, organisations unlock better intelligence across the business: Early detection of anomalies and exceptions Improved forecasting accuracy Reduced reliance on spreadsheets and manual adjustments Faster month-end close with fewer surprises Finance teams regain confidence in the numbers, while leadership gains clearer insight into growth, risk, and performance. Why Headcount Is Not a Scaling Strategy Many organisations attempt to absorb subscription complexity by hiring more people — more analysts, more billing specialists, more coordinators. This may work temporarily, but it does not scale. Manual processes introduce fragility. Knowledge becomes tribal. Risk increases with every exception. And operational cost rises faster than revenue. LISA Enterprise allows complexity to be absorbed by the system — not by people — enabling sustainable growth without sacrificing control. From Bottleneck to Growth Engine When Dynamics 365 FSCM is extended with a subscription-native backbone, the operating model shifts: Finance closes faster and with fewer corrections Sales operates with confidence that deals will flow cleanly Operations gain real-time visibility into commitments and changes Forecasts become reliable decision-making tools Growth feels intentional, not reactive The ERP stops constraining the business and starts enabling it. Final Thought: Scale Is a Design Decision Scaling a subscription business on Dynamics 365 FSCM is not about replacing the ERP.It’s about designing it for the realities of recurring revenue. Organisations that unify subscription logic, automate the quote-to-value lifecycle, and embed intelligence early scale with confidence. Those that don’t eventually hit operational limits. The difference is not ambition — it’s architecture. Preparing for scale starts with understanding your current revenue architecture. If you’re running subscription or recurring revenue models on Dynamics 365 FSCM and want to scale without adding complexity, we can help. Book a consultation to review your subscription architecture and growth readiness.
13.02.2025
Automation
How to Use Power Automate to Export Data from FSCM to SharePoint
by Ahmed Eid, Lead Developer D365 Solutions at Bluefort Imagine a finance manager, overwhelmed by the daily task of manually exporting critical data from Microsoft Dynamics 365 FSCM to SharePoint, finally reclaiming hours of productivity. Or picture a sales operations manager who needs to export and share sales orders daily with the fulfilment team, constantly battling time-consuming processes that leave room for errors. This guide reveals how you can achieve the same transformation they did by building a Power Automate flow that seamlessly handles these processes for you. Whether you're managing monthly financial reports, automating the export of sales orders to streamline operations, or ensuring real-time updates for stakeholders, automating data export to SharePoint can save time, reduce errors, and boost efficiency across your organization. In this article we are going to demonstrate an example of exporting sales orders, you can define the entities that you want to export in the export package. Step 1: Set Up Export in FSCM Create/Identify a Data Entity: identify or create the data entity in FSCM that holds the information you want to export. Ensure the entity is available for O-Data access. Enable Data Management Framework: navigate to the Data management workspace in F&O and ensure your data entity is enabled for export. Data Export project: create data export project. You can configure this to run full or incremental. Step 2: Create a Power Automate Flow Now, use Power Automate to retrieve the exported file and save it to SharePoint. Log in to Power Automate: go to Power Automate and sign in with your credentials. Create a New Flow: Click on Create and select Automated Cloud Flow. Name your flow (e.g., " Export data D365FO ") and select a trigger. For this scenario, you can use the Schedule - Recurrence trigger to automate the process on a set schedule. Add an Action to export the package: Add the action Fin & Ops Export package action. Configure it to export the export project created in the earlier step, specifying the instance, definition group (project name), action as specified and the legal entity. Get the execution status of the export project: Initialize a Variable to hold the export project status named Execution status. Add Do Until action to keep looping till the status turns to succeeded. Add Fin and Ops action to get the package execution summary, this needs the Execution Id passed from the output of the earlier step of exporting the package. The action is named GetExecutionSummaryStatus. Add a step to set the created variable with the previous action output. Once the export package execution is over in Fin and Ops, this will end the loop giving the green line to go to the next steps. Add Fin & Ops action to get the export URL: Add actions and choose GetExportedPackageURL action and specify the execution Id. Add an Action to Save to SharePoint: Add the action Upload file from URL, specify the source as the output of the previous step, the destination file path is the file name, and you can choose either to overwrite the file if exists or no. Configure Get File content to get the content from the previous step specifying the File Id which is found from the previous step output. Use Create file on SharePoint action to create the file from the contents of the previous step. specify the SharePoint site address, Folder to use to save the file, file name and file content. Optional - Notify Stakeholders: Add an action to send an email or Teams notification to stakeholders once the file has been successfully saved to SharePoint. Step 3: Test and Validate the Flow Run a Test: Manually trigger the flow or wait for the scheduled trigger to run. Ensure the file is exported from F&O and saved to SharePoint. Validate the Output: Check the SharePoint library to confirm the file is saved correctly. Verify the file content matches your expectations. Tips for Optimization Error Handling: don't let failed exports catch you off guard! Build in condition checks and error-handling steps to ensure your flow gracefully navigates hiccups and keeps things running smoothly Dynamic File Names: use expressions to create dynamic file names based on the date or other parameters. Security: don't let failed exports catch you off guard! Build in condition checks and error-handling steps to ensure your flow gracefully navigates hiccups and keeps things running smoothly Conclusion Transform the way you manage data with the power of automation. By combining Microsoft Dynamics 365 FSCM with Power Automate, you can eliminate manual processes, reduce errors, and boost efficiency. Imagine never worrying about missed exports or data delays again! Your automated flow takes care of it all, from exporting sales orders to delivering timely updates to your SharePoint library. Why wait to level up your operations? Start creating your Power Automate flow today and experience the freedom to focus on what truly matters: making strategic decisions, driving growth, and empowering your team. The future of streamlined data management is just a few clicks away!
06.01.2025
Retail
Automating Subscription Lifecycles in Microsoft Dynamics 365 FSCM: How Manufacturing Leaders Can Eliminate Manual Workflows and Reduce Delivery Errors.
As we move deeper into 2025, the subscription economy continues to transform traditional business models across manufacturing and distribution sectors. According to McKinsey, subscription-based revenue streams have grown 5x faster than traditional sales models since 2021, compelling industrial leaders to adapt their operational infrastructure. However, many organizations still grapple with outdated, manual subscription management processes that create substantial operational inefficiencies. This is particularly evident in companies with large product catalogues and complex distribution networks spanning multiple countries—a scenario where manual intervention becomes increasingly problematic as subscription volume grows. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management serves as the foundation for financial operations, supply chain logistics, and core business processes. While it provides robust ERP capabilities, subscription lifecycle management requires additional automation to handle mid-cycle modifications, proration calculations, and revenue recognition. This is where LISA Enterprise seamlessly extends Dynamics 365, ensuring a fully integrated, automated subscription management experience The Hidden Costs of Manual Subscription Management Manual subscription lifecycle management represents a significant yet often overlooked drain on financial and operational resources. Research indicates that organizations relying on manual subscription modifications can experience up to 72-hour latency in processing customer changes, resulting in considerable error rates, especially during peak demand periods. These inefficiencies translate into tangible financial losses, with some manufacturing enterprises reporting significant value in write-offs annually due to billing system misalignments. The challenges extend beyond direct financial impact. When subscription modifications require manual backend updates through proprietary ERP interfaces, the process introduces substantial operational friction. Finance teams can spend considerable hours per adjustment calculating pro-rated credits using spreadsheets - a process that becomes exponentially more complex when managing thousands of active subscriptions across multiple product lines and distribution channels. This administrative burden diverts valuable resources from strategic initiatives and creates bottlenecks that impede growth. Perhaps most concerning is the impact on customer experience. In today's competitive landscape, businesses expect real-time responsiveness from their suppliers. When subscription changes take days rather than minutes to process, customer satisfaction inevitably suffers. For manufacturers where just-in-time inventory management is critical, such delays can disrupt entire production schedules and damage long-term business relationships. Key Subscription Lifecycle Pain Points in Manufacturing and Distribution Several specific pain points characterize manual subscription management in enterprise manufacturing environments: Manual Subscription Modifications When customers need to adjust delivery intervals, shipping addresses, or order quantities mid-cycle, traditional ERP systems often require manual intervention. This creates a cascade of inefficiencies, as each change must be manually propagated across multiple systems—from CRM to ERP to logistics platforms, and longer for third party integrations especially when customized. For organizations with thousands of active subscriptions, even minor modifications quickly overwhelm administrative capacity, creating backlogs that compromise service levels. The absence of self-service capabilities further compounds this challenge. In today's digital-first environment, business customers expect the ability to make subscription adjustments independently through intuitive interfaces. When such functionality is unavailable, each modification generates a service ticket that must be manually processed—extending resolution times and increasing operational costs. Proration Calculation Challenges Mid-cycle subscription changes necessitate complex proration calculations to ensure accurate billing. Without automated systems, finance teams must manually determine appropriate credits or additional charges for partial billing periods—a process fraught with potential errors. A Forrester analysis found that manual proration processes result in calculation errors in approximately 9% of cases, leading to either revenue leakage or customer disputes. The complexity increases exponentially when dealing with subscription models involving multiple components, tiered pricing structures, or volume-based discounts. Each variable introduces additional calculation requirements that manual systems struggle to accommodate with consistency and precision. Revenue Recognition Complexities Manufacturing organizations transitioning to subscription models face considerable revenue recognition challenges that traditional ERP systems weren't designed to handle. Under ASC 606/IFRS 15 compliance standards, subscription revenue must be recognized over the service delivery period rather than at initial invoice—creating complex accounting requirements that manual processes struggle to manage effectively. Finance teams using conventional systems often resort to maintaining separate spreadsheets for tracking deferred revenue, creating a parallel financial system prone to errors and inconsistencies. This approach becomes particularly problematic at month-end and year-end closes, when reconciliation between systems can delay financial reporting by days or even weeks. For publicly traded manufacturing enterprises, these delays introduce compliance risks and reduce financial transparency. The situation grows exponentially more complex when handling subscription modifications, where revenue must be reallocated across revised service periods. Manual recalculations of revenue schedules following mid-term changes frequently introduce accuracy issues which directly impact financial statement accuracy and audit readiness. Cross-Channel Visibility Gaps Modern manufacturing organizations operate across multiple sales channels, from traditional field sales to e-commerce platforms and even emerging immersive technologies. Without integrated subscription management systems, these channels often function as operational silos, creating visibility gaps that compromise the customer experience. For example, sales representatives visiting client sites may lack real-time visibility into changes made through e-commerce platforms, leading to contradictory information being provided to customers. Similarly, back-office staff processing subscription modifications may be unaware of concurrent changes being negotiated by field teams, resulting in conflicting updates that generate inventory allocation conflicts and fulfilment errors. The Automation Solution: LISA Enterprise powering Microsoft Dynamics 365 Addressing these challenges requires a comprehensive approach to subscription lifecycle automation. The combination of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Bluefort's LISA Enterprise platform offers a particularly powerful solution for manufacturing organizations seeking to streamline subscription management processes. Automated Proration and Billing Adjustments Perhaps the most significant advantage of an integrated subscription management solution is automated handling of complex billing scenarios. LISA Enterprise's proration engine automatically calculates appropriate adjustments when subscriptions are modified mid-cycle, ensuring accurate billing without manual intervention. This functionality extends to various scenarios, including: Subscription upgrades or downgrades Quantity adjustments Temporary suspension of deliveries Early renewal or cancellation Add-on services or products The system maintains comprehensive audit trails for all adjustments, providing complete transparency for both internal finance teams and customers. This visibility is particularly valuable during financial audits and compliance reviews, where manual adjustments often face heightened scrutiny. Advanced Revenue Recognition LISA Enterprise provides advanced revenue recognition automation that aligns perfectly with ASC 606/IFRS 15 requirements. The system automatically generates appropriate revenue recognition schedules based on subscription terms, with built-in intelligence to handle complex scenarios such as multi-element arrangements, variable consideration, and contract modifications. Revenue schedules adjust dynamically when subscription terms change, eliminating manual recalculations and ensuring compliance with accounting standards. The solution provides finance teams with real-time revenue forecasting capabilities, enhancing financial planning while reducing month-end close times by up to 65% compared to manual approaches. Self-Service Portal Capabilities LISA Enterprise extends Dynamics 365 with robust self-service capabilities that empower customers to manage their own subscription modifications. Through intuitive interfaces, customers can adjust delivery schedules, update shipping information, modify order quantities, and make other changes without requiring manual intervention from administrative staff. These self-service capabilities not only enhance customer satisfaction by providing immediate control over subscription parameters but also dramatically reduce administrative workload. Changes made through the self-service portal automatically propagate across integrated systems, eliminating the need for manual updates and reducing the potential for transcription errors. Multi-Channel Coordination Bluefort's LISA Enterprise addresses the critical challenge of cross-channel visibility by providing a unified subscription management platform that integrates with all customer touchpoints. This integration ensures that subscription information remains consistent regardless of which channel customers use to interact with the organization. Sales representatives gain real-time visibility into subscription status and historical modifications through mobile applications, enabling informed conversations during client visits. Similarly, customer service teams access comprehensive subscription histories when addressing inquiries, eliminating contradictory information that undermines customer confidence. This unified approach is particularly valuable for organizations managing subscriptions across multiple entities or subsidiaries. LISA Enterprise's capabilities for handling intercompany transactions ensure that all entities maintain synchronized records, even when subscriptions involve complex internal fulfilment processes. Integration with Microsoft Dynamics Ecosystem As an extension of Microsoft Dynamics 365, LISA Enterprise leverages existing investments in Microsoft's technology stack. The platform integrates seamlessly with other Dynamics modules, including: Dynamics 365 Finance for revenue recognition and financial reporting Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management for inventory allocation and fulfilment Dynamics 365 Sales for opportunity management and pipeline visibility Power BI for comprehensive subscription analytics and performance monitoring This ecosystem approach eliminates integration challenges that often plague standalone subscription management solutions, providing a cohesive platform that supports the entire subscription lifecycle from initial sale through recurring fulfilment and renewal. ROI and Business Impact Organizations implementing automated subscription management solutions typically realize substantial returns on investment. Bluefort research indicates that automation of subscription processes can reduce administrative costs by up to 75% whilst almost entirely eliminating billing errors. For large, global manufacturing organizations, these efficiencies can translate into annual savings exceeding millions in direct labour costs alone. Beyond cost savings, automated subscription management delivers significant operational benefits. Order accuracy improves dramatically, with fulfilment errors decreasing by 85-90% following implementation. Customer satisfaction metrics typically show double-digit improvements, reflecting enhanced responsiveness and service consistency. Perhaps most importantly, automated subscription management creates a scalable foundation for subscription growth. By eliminating manual bottlenecks, organizations can expand their subscription offerings without proportional increases in administrative overhead—a critical advantage in competitive markets where agility determines success. Building a Future-Ready Subscription Foundation For manufacturing organizations committed to subscription model growth, automated lifecycle management represents not just an operational improvement but a strategic imperative. The combination of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Bluefort's LISA Enterprise provides a comprehensive solution that addresses the full spectrum of subscription management challenges, from customer self-service to complex financial calculations and multi-channel coordination. By implementing these technologies, forward-thinking manufacturers can eliminate the operational friction that impedes subscription growth while delivering the seamless experience that customers increasingly expect. The result is a subscription management foundation that supports not just current business requirements but future expansion into new markets, products, and revenue models. See LISA Enterprise in action. Book a free demo today and unlock a more agile, automated future for your business.
06.12.2024
Automation
Empowering Recurring Service Workers: The Impact of Real-Time Information Flow
Information is power. And this is particularly true for the recurring service industry, because workers need the right details to do their job. Without it, a recurring service company has to contend with delays, mistakes, unhappy customers, churn, and job dissatisfaction. These problems have a knock-on effect for the business in both the short and long-term. Fortunately, an operations system that promotes the free flow of information across teams in real time empowers service workers. It streamlines resource allocation and revolutionizes both operations and results. In this article: Why the Lack of Information Makes Service Workers’ Jobs Hard How It Hurts You As a Recurring Service Business What Real-Time Information Flow Brings to Service Workers The Extra Benefits You Get Recurring service workers need accurate instructions on where, when, how, and what they’re supposed to do. The problem is that many recurring services companies don’t give them what they need to delivery a service. So how can they do their job correctly? The short answer is they can’t. And that can have a massive impact on the bottom line of a recurring brand. But providing all the information necessary is a mammoth task if your operations are manual. This article will discuss the problems that come with the lack of free-flowing information. It will analyze how these problems impact your workers and your business. It will then give a good picture of what is needed to turn things around, smoothing out service provision and improving the bottom line for your business. Why the Lack of Information Makes Service Workers’ Jobs Hard Recurring service workers have jobs that require information to be correct and available. This includes things like contracts, terms, and usage. Recurring services companies that use manual processes will have fleets that struggle to deliver consistent, reliable services. In these circumstances, here are the ongoing pain points they contend with on a daily basis: Silos everywhere: When there’s little or no information sync between the financial, sales, customer service, and other teams, the chances of the information going through being correct and timely plummet. Delays aplenty: Thanks to both the manual recording of data and the manual retrieval of information, the data’s delayed, and so is service delivery and decision-making. Bottlenecks in the day: Manually created workflows (especially combined with the delayed and incorrect info) impede service workers' productivity and service quality. This makes bottlenecks that can put them hours or days behind. Mistakes in delivering service: Any outdated data (which can occur at any time with siloed data) leads to costly mistakes in service provision. Resource misallocation: Without reliable information, and with bottlenecks, effective resource allocation becomes impossible. Plunging worker morale: Frustration from manual processes, delays, and lack of access to real-time data, and mistakes in resource allocation can lead to decreased job satisfaction and motivation. All of these throw a monkey wrench into your operations and revenue while both disappointing and infuriating your workers. And these problems will impact your business as a whole as well. How It Hurts You As a Recurring Service Business These problems can spread across anywhere in your recurring service organization. Do any of these impacts sound familiar to you? Higher cost and less incoming revenue: Inefficient operations cut into revenue at any given time because you have to spend more to get results. It also cuts future revenue, because you have continual delays in service onboarding, contract processing, etc. Resource allocation: This is one of the most important challenges in recurring service. You can’t allocate your resources properly when there are delays and data silos that stop information flow. Because manual operations mean phone calls with suppliers. Sales and customer service teams phoning customers putting out fires. Finance checking with sales and customer service about contracts and terms so they can set things up and approve installation. And these scenarios are just for starters. Expensive worker turnover: Employees in burnout or employees who quit are expensive. Either way, it’s most costs for you as you look for replacements who will face the same challenges. Customer dissatisfaction: Customers need consistency in their service quality from installation all the way through the lifetime of your relationship. Without it, customers get unhappy. They rumble. They complain to your customer service department. You’re forced to offer benefits and discounts that you wouldn’t have had to before. Less cash flow: Because inaccurate invoicing, billing discrepancies and delayed payments slows down inbound revenue, you’ll get cash flow issues, and perhaps creditor and supplier issues too. That adds more pressure to workflows to find the money from somewhere else. Churn: There are multiple reasons why you’ll have more churn, and not just because of the problems directly related to your service team. Word of bad service gets out. You competition will notice you’re losing customers. If your base catches wind you’re having service delivery and operations problems, that damages trust in your brand. It also harms your relationships with your customers which drives up customer acquisition and cuts Customer Lifetime Value costs. Given these harms, it’s no wonder that original problem of lack of the free-flow of information poses such a threat. Fortunately, with the right information flow, things can look up, and fast. The solution comes in the form of subscription management platform that analyses and shares data in real time. It brings all the benefits of real-time information, with zero additional effort from you and your workers. In fact, you’ll save them time and resources. What Real-Time Information Flow Brings to Service Workers Subscription management software eliminates data silos so that all the information about your customers, their needs, their contracts and terms, and usage are readily available, anytime, and all the time. It’s accurate and free from manual errors too. This information is available to you, your sales team, customer service, finance, fleet management, and anyone else in your operations who need it. Real-time information flow transforms how service workers operate within recurring service businesses. They get real-time access to important data, which includes usage, changes in contract terms, offerings, and service schedules, preferences, inventory/supplies, etc. This helps them with any decision-making they’ve got along the way. When data flows in real time across the service-related departments, service workers know where they are supposed to go, when, and for what. Management becomes more…manageable because the free-flow of data also gives them bonuses - proactive issue resolution, predictive maintenance, and personalized customer interactions. Workflows are nicer too, because they’re not based on errors or guesses. Which all means…satisfied service workers with a much less stressful day-to-day schedule. And that’s not all… The Extra Benefits You Get Just like the lack of data flow causes knock-on impacts for you and the greater business, so does free-flowing information. Here’s how things turn around for the greatest business and brand beyond your happy service workers: Your customers get an exceptional experience: Everything from fast responses to personalized services right down to the service delivery and invoicing/payments, everything’s customized end-to-end for them. That creates loyalty and cuts churn in general. Siloes are cut down, and communication is better between all teams: Real-time data that is automatically and freely shared means that numbers are more reliable, forecasting more accurate, and reports are great foundations for strategic decisions. All people can collaborate more effectively because no one has to chase or guess anything. Resource allocation is optimized: It won’t just be your service team that loves this free flow of information. When your scheduling is efficient, your maintenance planned, and your resources utilized in the best way, you cut costs and boost efficiency. More revenue growth: With proactive service management and the best billing and payment processes that are automatically run for you by a good solution, revenue grows because you don’t have costly errors. Your teams aren’t throwing out expensive discounts to keep customers with later service on side. You aren’t replacing your burned out service workers. You’re not waiting for payments. And word of mouth works in your favour between customers. Long story short, you get the competitive edge. Conclusion Real time information flow isn’t just a tech upgrade. It’s a necessary investment in the contentment of your service workers, and the future revenue growth of your business. The efficiency and effectiveness of service workers will play a pivotal role in any recurring service business. They just need the tools necessary to their jobs. Going with the right subscription management solution will solve these problems and bring so much more to the table. Curious to see how it will work for you? Book a free Discovery Call with our team today.
Bluefort is the Microsoft Cloud Partner and Authority with core competence in Subscription Management and Recurring Revenue automation for SMBs and Enterprise Business.
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