No matter what your IT Service Provider, let me tell you that I believe in the mantra “less is more.” If you are going to construct a perfect solution for your company, then you may as well just do it.
At least this way you do not have to spend countless hours trying to define and validate your idea. What we need to focus on instead is to learn more about our industry, our company, and become excellent problem solvers. All of these will take work, of course, but you should only do the planning15 minutes a day to make sure everything flows together.
I have always found a great way to get all of my back-end ideas checked off my list is to compile a list of your competitors weakness of your current tracking system. Let’s say for example, you have a Marketing department and the IT department believes that a CRM system is an absolute must have.
How does this affect the rest of your departments. Well, in a way it does nothing. But consider this way of thinking. What if somebody in each department spends time trying to build this CRM system and starts to look for different vendors with more features, better reports and more bells and whistles. Did you know that these functions are actually being split up into multiple projects? It happens. Most companies spend tons of money on software, and get no more out than a decent minimum ROI.
Here are some key points to consider.
1. Recognize your weaknesses in a timely manner.
2. Spend time in your department discussing your huge success (or failure) with all departments.
3. Don’t waste 100% of your time trying to get every last detail, and don’t spend lesser time creating your own report
4. Work within your time and make sure that you are limiting your how you think about the project.
• Do not confuse erosion of loyalty. If you are twiddling your thumbs and reading reports, is this hurting your department today or is this a temporary situation, and in time you will need quality material again. If you are devoting 100% of your time to these tasks, it is probably hurting your problem. Don’t be guilty of switching hats. Even if you have hired exceptional people, work in a new department, go back to even-ies, and there are things you are doing, you are still having to do work outside of your comfort zone which will not lead to your success.
5. If you are spending more time trying to analyze numbers than actually doing them then you are probably drowning in an ever increasing amount of information. Keep in mind that the company that has more information is more likely to be the one with the competitive advantage. If you are devoting 100% of your time to 100% of your data and not noticing a steady increase in revenue, then that is your problem.
6. Here is the hard part. The problem is not the data alone, but trying to decipher what your company does not want you to see. Your account management and sales managers for example are evaluating your big data requests once they come in. How do you make things better? How do you analyze unique departments, not HR, inventories, victories, emotions, and all the other services across the entire company? What about your security, Quality, and IT departments? Are they being inundated with old data to generate reports?
7. Think about the seamless integration of your Vision into the information that is already happening in your organization. It costs a lot of money if you are only taking measurements for Reports… you are losing a lot of real value. Make sure that you have study and analysis within the core business of your company.
7.1. For the best results, analyze the core business, not the data you collect and report. For example, rather than saying if you are selling one item, analysis that you are selling one item that is a reasonable reason like a salesperson being in the right traffic zone, the only thing being the item is sold.
In this short article I have tried my best to give you my thoughts on technical and business planning. My hope is that you will be better able to understand why the information in this brief article is not complete by taking this information and applying it to your IT Systems as you continue to plan for the future.
