Our sales and service teams have been utilizing a Workflow CRM. However, we've hit a limiting point where every new process requires manual configuration, duplicate approvals, and regular follow-up from department managers.

For instance, when a sales opportunity actually results in a customer, the process of setting the account up, onboarding and initiating a service requires separate workflows for each team. If we take too long to get one approval, onboarding can be stalled for days, resulting in a flood of people requesting the same information.

As the Director of Business Applications, I wonder if this signifies that our Workflow CRM might be too rigid or if we are just simply putting together poor processes. I also worry that if we use more automation, this could make it harder to solve problems later.

Has anyone redesigned their Workflow CRM successfully to eliminate approval bottlenecks while retaining the required approval process and audit parameters?