Newsletter June 2007

So, what if you really can't do something?

We started this series by speaking of six different types of IT problems. After thinking about it for a while, we've decided to reorganize a little. Our last newsletter covered people and—by extension—process. So this time, we're going to discuss "transactional problems," that is, problems that really are the fault of the system. In other words, what if something technological doesn't work and it’s not just a matter of management? Perhaps your business has grown so quickly that your software isn't quite suited to its new tasks.

The major challenge in dealing with system problems is that people refer to them as "system problems." Since most people are not experts, if they're unhappy with any part of their IT infrastructure, they blame the problem on the "system." From slow Internet connections to old PCs, incorrect custom reports and difficult user interfaces, everything gets blamed on the system.

As consultants, our first job is to find out what kind of technical problem actually exists. Spoiler alert: we're going to give away the ending. Most of the time, there is little reason for replacing the entire system. While we are certainly happy to advise you if you want to do that, 9 times out of 10 it's not the problem. So, what are the problems? In general, we see three types:

1. You can't get information
2. You can't satisfy customers
3. You're not competitive with others in your industry

1)     You can't get information
Back when I was more directly involved with software sales, a colleague remarked, "We sell vision and implement general ledger." This may not be as funny to you as it is to me. Fundamentally, many people spend ages getting complex systems to work, but then can't get any information out of them. Often this results in them blaming the system as insufficient and thinking that their very expensive investment just wasn't worth it.

We advise taking a different approach: spend more money on excellent reporting tools. But if your staff is doing everything in Excel spreadsheets after you've gone live, we can make several suggestions that will improve your life and your ROI.

What are some of the ways to get information out of your system?
a)     Make sure you know what your system can do. I recently gave a lecture at a users' group about the particular data structure of a piece of software. While the focus was on creating custom reports, I also asked how many people were using certain built-in tools. About 70 percent of the audience didn't know about standard things that were part of the package, because they hadn't been trained.

b)     Take a methodical approach to data. Too often, when the "system" fails, spreadsheets take over. Whether employees download reports and then go to work in Excel or manually re-key data from multiple systems, these reports lose accuracy with every keystroke. Instead, you need to have a central repository for all your reports controlled, hopefully, by one person. If you have lots of spreadsheets floating around, it's time to gather them all up, organize them and decide how to create a single set of accurate reports that are used by everyone.

c)     Actually consider new tools. You may or may not have heard the terms "business intelligence" and "data warehouse"—we'll explain more next time. But too often, people in mid-size companies only think of buying software that "automates something," like creating a check or billing a customer. There's lots of software out there that helps analyze something, and despite the hype, it really is possible to "touch a button" and get the information you want. For more details, watch for the next newsletter.

Red Three Consulting: Transforming Information Technology into Answer Technology