In the first part of this story we talked about how you can turn your vision into a plan and then pointed out that you need to begin by removing the technology from the technology equation and think more about the people in the system, how they work, how they can work better, and how they can enjoy the work far more.
We’ll conclude by talking about what to do after you’ve removed the technology, namely adding everything back to create a whole new paradigm, a completely transformed environment both digitally and otherwise.
Putting the Big Rocks in First
There’s a classic management lesson that presents you with rocks, pebbles, water, sand, and a jar. Your challenge is to get as much of that material into the jar as possible. If you’ve ever done it, you learn that you’ll get everything into the jar if you just start by putting the big rocks in first.
In the case of DX, probably the biggest rock is ERP, the big system that runs your daily operations, manages your order processing, inventory, customer accounts, and most every core business function. Having an ERP installed in your data center was a major move toward process automation that promised enormous returns in efficiency and business impact. It was also very costly in terms of the equipment that you needed to install, power, cool, connect to internet access and maintain over the years.
The biggest step you can now take to realize more of your business vision through your digital transformation is to actually remove the ERP from your premises and let a cloud computing service run it for you in the cloud. You’ll still have all the great functionality of an ERP, and probably much more given the ease of access to related systems your Cloud ERP will bring.
Your own employees will only concern themselves with using the ERP to do the business they’re there to do. All the underlying technology stops being your concern. Just the advantages remain.
Rock On
Now that you have the big ERP rocks in the cloud you can begin to add all the other elements. Basic word processing, spreadsheets, communications, and all the other services your computers can access are easily added from cloud computing services. In fact, the next big rock is probably a productivity suite which brings all these applications together on one platform so they integrate with each other as fully as possible, meaning users will find they work together seamlessly.
Your next rock may be analytics. Many companies find they need more detail, more agility, more interpolation between data entities than is possible inside any ERP. That’s why so many powerful analytic platforms have emerged in the market. The goal of adding more powerful analytics is to gain deeper insights, to learn more from the data, to infer strategy from the data. Choose your platform carefully to assure that it’s easy to transfer your data from your ERP, CRM, and other systems to the analytics engine. Also carefully assess the capabilities to make sure you can generate the kind of reports you most need.
Now that you have the big rocks and many medium stones already back in the jar, the pebbles are utilities that protect you in various ways. Data backup is the most important, right next to its sister, security. These two go hand-in-hand and must be present at every level of your network. You use these utilities to avoid disruption and create a non-stop business environment.
And lastly, the water and sand that surrounds and seals all the material in the jar. It’s what you need most for cohesiveness - an advisor you can trust who has the experience and the knowhow to always guide you in the right direction to the most effective technologies for you.
Talk to our team at Algorithm. Ask us to elaborate on what we’ve said here and begin your journey toward realizing your vision for your business. We’ve helped many others realize theirs. Why not be next? If you have any questions or comments, let's chat!
November 7, 2024
