I have a laptop, wireless mobile device, and a raft of productivity tools that I use to document, design and communicate with. Interestingly but unsurprisingly, I’m using email less and less to exchange documents and ideas but I am using it more for one liners and a means to receive updates from various systems that connect me to clients, colleagues, family and friends.
I’m a huge fan of easy to use collaboration tools, by this I mean a clientless (web browser based) central point that my project team, client and 3rd parties can exchange documents, ideas and all things project related. The trouble is you still have other systems that play a key role in keeping the wheels of your business going round which means the team that’s focussed on delivering a project are distracted from time to time, flicking between different systems, signing in with a plethora of usernames, passwords and pin codes. The other issue is that your projects might run over such short periods of time that it appears (from the outside) that it’s not a top priority to invest in bringing all your systems together into one central ‘portal’ The fact is that it should be a top priority because if an ROI was put together on centralising all your systems you might think differently. The end result of doing so is typically an Increase in user efficiency (wasting less time on accessing multiple systems), increased user adoption (the ‘I want to use this system’ sort of feeling) and a decrease in duplication through centralising your assets. Most importantly, financial benefits are made because a typical working day is spent working without the hassle and time wasting of juggling multiple systems.
Things start to get interesting once you’ve created a central portal. You can begin phase 2 which is to look at each system and the possibility of decoupling it from your enterprise. Take your CRM system for example and imagine putting it in a new home that runs on a platform that’s not your problem with a pricing model that reflects how much you use it. Forget about the hardware, software and running costs that affect you right now. Because you’ve invested in the central portal that acts as a mediator between you and all your systems, you can now start to move them about without impacting your end user. Obviously this idealist model will need a well designed portal that plumbs your systems together in such a way that means moving it doesn’t result in a poor user experience and a new set of addresses or pointers.
This is all very nice but for the realists out there, you know that this is no small feat, but you are thinking this is possible if we produce a long term roadmap to get us there. How many more upgrades, replacements and maintenance windows do you want as your company grows or shrinks. Shrinking is a particularly poignant thing right now. A number of large organisations have shrunk by x% but they’re still footing the bill for infrastructure that supports the original organisation size.
Food for thought and maybe more on this in a future blog...