I find that most people are so accustomed to the mediocre operationally mundane and strategically inept Business Information Systems implementations that dominate the business landscape that there is little or NO vision of what is really possible.
I discovered some years ago that even the mainstream big brand software companies and implementers did NOT understand many of the principles that I regard as fundamental and NON-negotiable and regarded configurations that I regarded as extremely poor as acceptable and the norm and even used terms like “best-practice” with regard to some of this configuration.
I eventually concluded that the distribution of value looked as follows and that the industry norm, which I have seen repeatedly during my Pulse Measurement investigations, was at the bottom left of the curve below and that which I considered as desirable was at the top right of the curve:
I continue to find that clients have NO vision of what the top right of the curve looks like let alone a vision of how they might attain such an outcome.
This article sets out what I consider to be essential deliverables for a business systems project. I hesitate to use the term “high value” because, in my view what I advocate here should be the NORM!
Following are the attributes that I regard as necessary:
1. High level of ownership throughout the organization
Executives, managers and staff have a high level of ownership of the system, understand exactly how it works and have a HIGH level of independence from implementer support with associated operating costs savings.
2. Wealth of information available
Executives and managers have access to a wealth of information, literally at their fingertips – orders of magnitude more diversity and accuracy than ever before -- coupled to a huge diversity of powerful and effective reports and models with dynamic and immediate drill down to full detail.
3. Significant business efficiencies achieved
Diverse business efficiencies have been achieved including headcount reduction of administrative staff up to and including middle management level. OR greatly increased organizational size with the same headcount. Audit time and cost have been materially reduced.
4. Corporate awareness of data quality
All personnel are highly sensitized to the importance of neat, accurate and complete data with the result that the data is entirely reliable and trustworthy. This leads to further efficiencies – including that the organization runs more smoothly.
5. Corporate leanness and efficiency attained
All the above lead to overall corporate leanness and efficiency such that the same white collar staff complement can manage a substantially larger organization highly effectively thus enabling substantial cost effective organic growth.
6. Better management decisions being taken faster resulting in increased growth and profitability
Greatly improved management effectiveness through greatly improved information immediately available. This is coupled to MUCH great information diversity resulting in better decisions made faster at all levels. This gives rise to dramatically improved competitiveness enabling accelerated growth both organically and through acquisitions.
These benefits are the consequence of applying ALL the principles and techniques that I advocate -- as presented on this website.
I look forward to discussing how I can assist you to attain this level of business outcome.
Download What does a HIGH VALUE Business Information System Solution look like -- White Paper in Adobe pdf format