As I begin blogging, I hope my thoughts are useful to some you out there. The power of the internet is the transactions and interactions that it creates. This is where collaborative magic happens and I look forward to the conversations and feedback that are created.
In working with literally hundreds of customers over the last 20 years in the IT business, I see a similar problem all of the time. People invest a great deal of time and money to implement new state of the art technology so that they can be leading edge and then spend an equally staggering amount on making it do what they do today. The argument is often cloaked in well founded arguments around how the processes they have are working and don’t need to be changed. The horse and buggy, quill pen and typewriters all worked as well. This approach is particularly evident when organizations are changing their direct store delivery software and route accounting systems.
When we dig into it, we find that a lot of the processes we see in the field are created due to physical limitations that were caused by data only being communicated when field representatives returned to the office or the physical passing of paper. With wireless communications and real-time information those limitations are gone. This creates the opportunity to rethink some of those basic assumptions. If we receive orders in real time, do we really need to wait until tonight or tomorrow to pick them? If the inventory is already on a truck that is nearby, can’t we just dispatch that truck and call it done? It is really about using our workflow management solutions to change the way we work. Fax machines were state of the art less than 20 years ago. Wireless technology is changing the way customers want us to serve them. The real question is, will we keep up and create the opportunities that grew our traditional businesses in the first place?
Image via Flickr user Beaverton Historical Society.
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