The Case of the Expensive Mess

Tara drummed her fingers on her desk, staring at yet another overdue report. Through the glass walls of her office, she could see her friend Shruti approaching, and she couldn't help but smile despite her frustration. After all, she had personally recruited Shruti as their new Director of Operations just two weeks ago.

"Please tell me you have good news," Tara called out as Shruti entered. "Because I'm about ready to throw my laptop out the window."

Shruti raised an eyebrow. "That bad?"

"Worse," Tara groaned, slumping in her chair. "We just lost the Martinez account because it took us three weeks to process their paperwork. Three weeks! And don't even get me started on the security breach last month. I'm still getting emails from angry customers about their data being exposed in that email hack."

"The famous email hack," Shruti nodded, taking a seat. "The one where—"

"Where some genius hacker got into Tom Leery's email and got to about two hundred fifty sensitive customer files just sitting there in his attachments? Yes, that one." Tara buried her face in her hands. "I don't get it, Shruti. We've spent a fortune on software that's supposed to make us more efficient. Why are we still moving at the speed of a three-toed sloth?"

Shruti pulled out her tablet. "Well, I've spent the last two weeks diving deep into your operations, and I have some... interesting findings."

"Why do I feel like 'interesting' is code for 'terrible'?"

"Remember in college when you'd use your mini fridge as a TV stand?"

Tara squinted. "That was my idea of efficiency..."

"Well, you're basically doing the same thing here. You're using your productivity platform as an external collaboration system – it technically could do some part of the job, but it's really not designed for that purpose."

"Go on," Tara said, looking increasingly worried.

"That's why everyone's resorting to email for sharing documents. It's the path of least resistance, but about as secure as posting the documents on a billboard on Main Street." Shruti paused for effect. "Then there's your records management system, which is so old it probably came on a floppy disk. It doesn't talk to any of your ERP and CRM tools, so your team has to manually enter everything. Which, surprise surprise, they often skip because who has time for that?"

Tara slid further down in her chair. "There's more, isn't there?"

"Oh, yes. My personal favorite is how everyone has to manually download credit reports and file them. It's like having a sophisticated coffee maker but insisting on grinding the beans with a rock."

"Stop, stop!" Tara held up her hands in surrender. "I get it. We're a mess. A very expensive, very inefficient mess." She straightened up, looking determined. "Okay, Dr. Efficiency, what's the prescription?"

A slight smile played on Shruti's lips. "Ever heard of Box Platform?"

"Box? Like... Box that my CPA uses to share my returns with me?"

"Exactly," Shruti chuckled. "Kudoz to your CPA but Box can do much more than that especially when you start leveraging it’s API integrations. It’s a secure content platform. Think of it as your all-in-one solution for document management, collaboration, record management and workflow automation."

“Are you suggesting adding another piece of software to our stack?”

"You can retire several other tools and tie the rest together with it. Box automatically creates folder structures for new clients directly within your ERP, extracts and applies metadata without anyone lifting a finger, and even allows adding custom code to pull credit reports automatically. Plus, it comes with free eSignatures, a great way to consolidate cost."

"And it's secure?"

"Fort Knox secure. No more email attachments floating around like loose cannons. Everything stays in one secure, compliant environment."

Tara sat back, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. "And you've implemented this before?"

"Remember those efficiency metrics I showed you from my last job? The ones that made you hire me? That was all Box. We took our customer onboarding from weeks to minutes."

"Minutes?" Tara's eyes widened with disbelief.

"Minutes," Shruti confirmed with a confident nod.

Tara felt hopeful for the first time that day. "Where do I sign?"

"With BoxSign you can sign from any device," Shruti grinned.

"Okay, very funny," Tara said, but she was already reaching for her phone to call a meeting with the executive team.

?Disclaimer: For this and other stories, I refer to a real use case we helped our customer solve. Names have been changed to protect privacy. A little bit of dramatic tension and suspense added because fall is the best time for true crime and mysteries.

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