How to convince your C-Suite to invest in an eQMS

Making the business case to secure the tool you deserve

It’s fair to say a bottom-line focused CFO might not immediately see the financial benefits of an electronic quality management system (eQMS). But as a quality professional, you understand the limitations of manual/paper systems and the difference in speed, safety, and efficiency an eQMS would bring to your organization. 

With every department looking to secure budget for the upcoming year, now is the time to make your case for an investment in technology that will upgrade quality control and compliance while simultaneously reducing costs. 

Let’s make it easier for your CFO to say “Yes” to your eQMS request by translating quality language into the financial language they care about.   

Identifying expensive inefficiencies

If there’s one thing CFO’s don’t like, it’s wasting money. So the first order of business is identifying your company’s current processes and determining whether or not they’re cost-effective.

Here are some common, inefficient practices you might recognize: 

• Reliance on paper reports, spreadsheets, and physical storage/archives; 
• Electronic files stored on different computers in different departments or sites;
• Signs of duplicated efforts, especially with respect to risk management and/or audits;
• Corporate governance systems that are not aligned with quality, risk management, and financial systems;
• Quality, risk management, and financial systems that are not linked.
• Engineering change order processes that are not streamlined

How should you approach your CFO about the costs associated with each one? For starters, collaborate with the finance team to attach a dollar figure to any adverse events in the most recent fiscal year that can be traced to any of the above process gaps, such as:

• Time and data lost to the reliance on paper reports and files, which are easily misplaced and error-prone;
• Productivity lost to searching and comparing data on siloed electronic files, eliminating duplicate files, and ensuring information is available and updated/accurate once the right files are identified.
• Adverse events that are unrecorded, partially recorded, recorded in duplicate, or recorded late.
• Time and costs associated with inefficient engineering change order processes
• Audit reports that are lost, incomplete, or duplicated.

Once you’ve quantified the costs related to process gaps, you’re practically guaranteed to attract the attention of the C-suite. You don’t have to be a sales whiz to do this; the numbers will speak for themselves. And they don’t even take into account any costs associated with future client or regulatory audits, which could lead to additional slowdowns if observations pop up.

The best thing about building your business case is you’re giving your executive team what they want: solutions to maximize savings and boost return on investment (ROI). And that’s exactly where an eQMS comes in. 

Closing the gaps

Paper files, spreadsheets, and older quality control processes may have been adequate in an era when regulations and risks were much more predictable, but times have changed. An organization’s quality and risk management systems need to meet today’s new challenges. To that end, CFOs are more likely to welcome an investment in an effective eQMS that does three things:

• Enhances compliance
• Reduces risk
• Comes as close as possible to eliminating adverse events

With an efficient eQMS, all of your documentation stays linked, aligned, and unduplicated, which goes a long way towards eliminating costly adverse events. Additionally, you’ll find that reporting for audits, risk management, and compliance requires minimal staff support, but leads to maximum ROI. 

The good news for CFOs

Aside from the immediate benefits mentioned above, there are plenty more cost-related advantages to having an effective and efficient eQMS system in place:

• The right system is fit-for-purpose. Organizations don’t have to worry about paying for a system twice as big as they need.
• The right system allows unlimited access to all modules for all staff, without having to worry about seat licenses.
• The right system, coupled with strong tech support, translates into little to no downtime, even for new users.

It’s time you and your quality team received the right tools to do your job effectively, instead of just making due. By arming yourself with familiar financial language and clear data on current inefficient processes, you can present a strong case to your CFO about how an eQMS can provide the value your company is looking for. 

If you’re ready to move to a more cost-effective system, ZenQMS is ready to help. Let us show you what an eQMS can do. Contact us today!