Monday, December 12, 2005
How would you travel to...Penang??
I had a presentation about our company in front of the group of small business owners. I had to come up with simple explanation of why small companies should go for customized software solutions when market is jammed with so many cheap of the shelf solutions.
Finally, we came up with great example on which I explained the difference. I asked them a question - How would you travel to Penang and why? The presentation was held in Malaysia, thats why Penang :o). Penang is a city approx. 5 hours drive away from KL by car.
After asking a question - we had a little discussion and all people agreed that to save time and keep flexibility and convenience they would travel to Penang by car.
(You have to consider that I was asking the question from business point of view, where most of business owners value the most their time and convenience :o). This example wouldn't work in other scenarios that well.)
What is the paralel to making a business decision about what kind of software solution to use in your daily company life???
in PAPER - many small companies still use paper for everything - they write quotations and invoices in hand, they use paper notebooks to monitor daily or monthly sales, etc. It is a great way but of course very time consuming and not very efficient, especially if you have more than 10 customers or over 20 - 50 business transactions a month. I compared using paper to travelling to Penang by bicycle - it is a tool you can use(just like paper), but you would come to Penang not in 5 hours but in 15 hors or more, you would be very tired and with no energy to perform whatever you planned to do....would it be a smart decision? (Maybe if you go to Penang for holiday and you need to kill some time, but not when you are going to close important business deal, right?)
in EXCEL - many companies (even bigger ones) still hire people just to handle reports and manage data in Excel, Excel is a marvellous tool but 99% of the people that are using it can utilize barely 10-20% of its possible functionality, sometimes using Excel in a right way can be more difficult than using some automated software solution BUT still in a way Excel is customized solution - you define the process and required output yourself, it saves some time but still its not very efficient......It is like travelling to Penang by motorbike - you have the flexibility of deciding what time to go, when to stop but it would take you again at least 7 - 8 hours to get to Penang and it would be tiring too, which is moderate wasting of your valuable time & energy you can spend somewhere else
in OF THE SHELF SOLUTION - there are many companies (and unfortunately many consultants pushing customers to this) who just buy any solution available at the market (many times just because its cheap and you do not need to invest any time in defining it as its already done) and then adjust company operations to the solution - its very convenient solution - why??? As I said, it doesnt really require to know anything about the business or industry, company can take whatever is given and use it, many times again only very little percentage of the possible functionalities is used due to NO NEED ot NO IDEA on how to utilize them for company business - BUT its a nature of people to go for as much as possible for as little money as possible.
When comparing any off the shelf solution to Excel I prefer and recommend Excel - because no matter what, Excel is adjusted to company's way of doing business, of the shelf solution is adjusted to hundreds of companies in the same industry and thus unnecessarily overloaded with buttons and functionalities that will never be used, will confuse users and at the end company achieves less operational efficiency than with Excel.
Again comparison to travelling to Penang - its like travelling by bus - its more convenient than bicycle or motorbike, you just come and pay and go, no need to think or drive (put some extra effort to achieve desired outcome) BUT you have no control over what time to go, where to stop, etc. because bus company has a schedule and routines you as a passenger have to follow and again it will be more time consuming than travelling by your own car and much less efficient....
in RIGHT SOFTWARE SOLUTION - Here, RIGHT software solution comes into the picture = software solution that helps your company to save time, which you can in return invest in activities that matter - sales or customers service, etc.
Right software solution in your company is like travelling to Penang by your own car driving it - yes, there is higher initial investment & direct responsibility (you also need to know how to drive) BUT it gives you all flexibility you need to travel anytime you want, as fast as you want, you can adjust your own seat to your needs, etc......similarly RIGHT software solution requires higher initial investment, not just money but mainly time and your know how about your business so it can really reflect what is happening in your company and automate it efficiently to achieve desired outcome. From a long term perspective it pays off much more.
Generally, there are many business owners who will never understand the beauty of customized software solution because they do not understand the beauty of their own business fully - ONLY people who know what they want and how they want it will not stop there and would always go for the BEST solution (not the second or third best solution....)
What do you think???
How would YOU travel to Penang?
Finally, we came up with great example on which I explained the difference. I asked them a question - How would you travel to Penang and why? The presentation was held in Malaysia, thats why Penang :o). Penang is a city approx. 5 hours drive away from KL by car.
After asking a question - we had a little discussion and all people agreed that to save time and keep flexibility and convenience they would travel to Penang by car.
(You have to consider that I was asking the question from business point of view, where most of business owners value the most their time and convenience :o). This example wouldn't work in other scenarios that well.)
What is the paralel to making a business decision about what kind of software solution to use in your daily company life???
in PAPER - many small companies still use paper for everything - they write quotations and invoices in hand, they use paper notebooks to monitor daily or monthly sales, etc. It is a great way but of course very time consuming and not very efficient, especially if you have more than 10 customers or over 20 - 50 business transactions a month. I compared using paper to travelling to Penang by bicycle - it is a tool you can use(just like paper), but you would come to Penang not in 5 hours but in 15 hors or more, you would be very tired and with no energy to perform whatever you planned to do....would it be a smart decision? (Maybe if you go to Penang for holiday and you need to kill some time, but not when you are going to close important business deal, right?)
in EXCEL - many companies (even bigger ones) still hire people just to handle reports and manage data in Excel, Excel is a marvellous tool but 99% of the people that are using it can utilize barely 10-20% of its possible functionality, sometimes using Excel in a right way can be more difficult than using some automated software solution BUT still in a way Excel is customized solution - you define the process and required output yourself, it saves some time but still its not very efficient......It is like travelling to Penang by motorbike - you have the flexibility of deciding what time to go, when to stop but it would take you again at least 7 - 8 hours to get to Penang and it would be tiring too, which is moderate wasting of your valuable time & energy you can spend somewhere else
in OF THE SHELF SOLUTION - there are many companies (and unfortunately many consultants pushing customers to this) who just buy any solution available at the market (many times just because its cheap and you do not need to invest any time in defining it as its already done) and then adjust company operations to the solution - its very convenient solution - why??? As I said, it doesnt really require to know anything about the business or industry, company can take whatever is given and use it, many times again only very little percentage of the possible functionalities is used due to NO NEED ot NO IDEA on how to utilize them for company business - BUT its a nature of people to go for as much as possible for as little money as possible.
When comparing any off the shelf solution to Excel I prefer and recommend Excel - because no matter what, Excel is adjusted to company's way of doing business, of the shelf solution is adjusted to hundreds of companies in the same industry and thus unnecessarily overloaded with buttons and functionalities that will never be used, will confuse users and at the end company achieves less operational efficiency than with Excel.
Again comparison to travelling to Penang - its like travelling by bus - its more convenient than bicycle or motorbike, you just come and pay and go, no need to think or drive (put some extra effort to achieve desired outcome) BUT you have no control over what time to go, where to stop, etc. because bus company has a schedule and routines you as a passenger have to follow and again it will be more time consuming than travelling by your own car and much less efficient....
in RIGHT SOFTWARE SOLUTION - Here, RIGHT software solution comes into the picture = software solution that helps your company to save time, which you can in return invest in activities that matter - sales or customers service, etc.
Right software solution in your company is like travelling to Penang by your own car driving it - yes, there is higher initial investment & direct responsibility (you also need to know how to drive) BUT it gives you all flexibility you need to travel anytime you want, as fast as you want, you can adjust your own seat to your needs, etc......similarly RIGHT software solution requires higher initial investment, not just money but mainly time and your know how about your business so it can really reflect what is happening in your company and automate it efficiently to achieve desired outcome. From a long term perspective it pays off much more.
Generally, there are many business owners who will never understand the beauty of customized software solution because they do not understand the beauty of their own business fully - ONLY people who know what they want and how they want it will not stop there and would always go for the BEST solution (not the second or third best solution....)
What do you think???
How would YOU travel to Penang?
