Having the right systems in place for a business is to my mind an interesting challenge that all successful companies face from time to time. I would think that in most instances the story is quite similar and the following stages may sound familiar.
Stage 1 - Company starts with a few PC’s a suite of Microsoft office products and possibly a small accounting system – although this function might live in excel for some time.
Stage 2 – Excel is creaking and about to fall over – we have everything on a very large excel spreadsheet – payroll, customer feedback and our “accounting system” – Action Step: business needs some accounting software . Accounting software acquired and installed – but probably not used for 6 months as no one has been trained on it and the person responsible for the accounts (who probably has a hand in marketing, sales and product development) really prefers excel.
Stage 3 – The founder of the business manages to take an afternoon away from working in the business 15 hours a day and attends a business seminar where some wizz bang customer relationship software is demonstrated. Of course he buys it – brings it back to the office which has now grown to a team of 5 people and it’s installed on someone’s computer (no network server yet!). Again no training so no one really knows how to use it – the MD can remember some parts of the presentation he saw so that forms the basis of the “User Acceptance Testing” and “Implementation”.
Stage 4 – Somewhere between stage 1 and 3 a website has been developed by a team member’s nephew (Sam) who knows something about the internet – it’s unsupported and making any changes is dependent on Sam being available – he lives by night and not by day so support during working hours can be tricky!
Stage 5 – Fast forward 5 years - Company has grown significantly and there are now 13 “systems” in place – some integrate with others and others don’t. An IT/Systems manager has been employed –in reality he spends most his day keeping five year old PC’s alive. In the meantime a consultant has been engaged who has introduced another piece of software that manages the all important mid back office function. It does work but not how the consultant said it would and has cost ten times what we thought it would. Reality no one really knows the true cost its hidden in consulting fees and some has been capitalised on the Balance Sheet! So much for the promised efficiency gains.
Sound familiar – probably a slight exaggeration in some cases but I am sure most recognise some of those steps. Especially those working in or who own successful companies because the bottom line is successful growth creates some great challenges to work through.
Silver Chef initiated a company wide system review 18 months ago which I am heading up with a project team – the first steps included finding out what systems we actually had, what gaps existed in our existing business needs, what level of integration existed and most importantly did we have the right systems in place for the next 3 to 5 years. Fortunately some of the systems we have and most importantly the mid back office and our accounting system are robust and functioning well – having said that we recognise the opportunity to continuously improve and integrate systems ensuring our systems can keep pace with our business growth and future goals.
We have recently finished the gap analysis phase of our system review and are currently sourcing and implementing solutions for a number of our business areas and in other parts of the business preparing to invest in enhancing existing system functionality and integration.
In the next few months I will share our GAP analysis and new solution evaluation methodology with you through this blog – and I anticipate we will also be able to show the demonstrated success in our approach and the outcomes.
In the meantime I wait in keen anticipation to see what new software Allan found on his recent skiing trip in Canada that he would like us to implement!
Charles Gregory