Bringing the world of Information Technology, Business and Health together

I attended a set of seminars at BITNET (Business and Information Technology Network) yesterday. The presentations were focused on Health Care and its use of technology, and the progress (or lack thereof) that was being made.

A lot of interesting presentations, especially if you are in the Health Care field. But what does it have to do with Small Business? Part of the presentation included the efforts of McMaster University in bringing together three part of the University to develop this area. They have created a structure that brings their Business School, the Health program and their Information Technology program to address the issues.

What a concept!

Much of my BLOG has talked about bringing business and technology together to provide business value and measure success, not by projects or successful technology implementations, but by successful business outcomes.

With McMaster's program, they have brought the needs (the Health Care industry) for information and decision support together with the tools (information Technology) and the Business Management into one group. They have the opportunity to bring business reality to the Health Care needs and Information Technology.

I have seen too many situations where needs are defined as all of the things that I'd like to have, and the solutions developed by an "I can do that" attitude. The results are often a complex technical solution that does little to solve the business problem at too high a cost.

Small Businesses don't need a large, complex organization to develop solutions. They do need technology. They do need to understand the business processes they are addressing and the business outcomes to be delivered. And, they need to keep control of costs. Too often software is installed and business results aren't delivered.

In the Health Care industry, MacMaster is trying to solve that, and I applaud them.

BITNET is expecting to post the presentations on their website. If you want to check them out, see BITNET. For McMaster's eHealth program see eHealth.

Computer Training and Support - Return on Investment (ROI)

Many businesses look at training as an expense to be cut whenever times are difficult. They also look at computer support in the same way. They don't get support unless they have no other alternative.

This article that I found talks about these two "expenses" as something that should be looked at as an investment. Although much of the content is worthwhile, the challenge is to show that benefit. Some of the recommendations in terms of in house support is something that I disagree with.

First let's look at training. A lot of the article talks about measuring the value of training. This is one of the BIG issues and is the primary reason why training is often cut when it is needed the most. How do you measure the value of training. The article talks about how much people have learned. Is this measurable? The real issue is that training is of little measurable value unless it returns something to the business. Generally, we know and understand very little about the capabilities of the software that we buy. There is plenty of opportunity to use much more of the software. But whether we know how to use it, whether we use it, and whether we get business value from it is the important question. If we start with the end in mind (getting business value), then we can get a return on our training investment. If we become more productive, if we get information we didn't have before, if we are able to increase revenues, then we have created value. This is how we get ROI! Training does not provide value! The results that we achieve by the training is what is important. You canlook at the article to see how you can make it happen.

The second area referenced is support. The article recommends that every small business find themselves a good computer support company. If the support company is proactive (fixes problems before they happen), then what you gain is increased productivity because you don't sit around with failing equipment. You also will get better performance and response time. You get better technical skills and don't spend your time on trying to hire capable computer technicians. Unless someone deals with computer support every day, they aren't good enough. Your son or the neighbour's son, who is great at games and social networking is not good at maintaining a stable environment. This savings will far exceed the cost of preventative maintenance.

However, I disagree with a few recommendations related to what should be done in house vs outourced. For inhouse support:

1. I agree that staff should maintain a list of all day-to-day problems. This is necessary to identify whether adequate support is provided and whether it is getting better.
2. I disagree with running of tape backups should be done in house. In house staff are focused on day-to-day production. They don't understand the implications of backup and recovery. When something goes wrong, they invariably do the wrong thing. I have seen many cases where backup fails and they are "too busy" to take care of it, or have a problem with testing recovery, but don't get it fixed. We now have remote backup services that can be monitored and managed by a supplier.
3. I disagree with handling all first level Microsoft/Desktop issues. Many problems are created by staff trying to fix problems. If the problems require fixes, they are installed improperly and your supplier doesn't know what was done. If the questions require a how to, the scope of the solution is based on the skills and knowledge of the person answering the question. The training portion of the article describes the problem here. Most of our staff don't have a good understanding of the software being used. So look for expertise and measure the results.
4. I disagree that strategic planning should be done by the outsourcer. This is a business issue! The business may not have the technical skills to define the technology strategy and they will need support for this. But they must define the business strategy. Their supplier can help them to identify the technology that will help to deliver it.
5. I disagree that the outsourer should develop the Disaster Prevention and Recovery plan. This is a business issue! Business recovery involves much more than technology. Only the business managers understand what is needed. The supplier can help to develop solutions.

The two issues identified are valid as well as a lot of their responses and recommendations. If you want to see the full article, check

Why IT Training and Support Makes Business Sense

Business Analytics and Business Process

Business analytics is a fancy name for getting information about your business. Most small businesses (the size is dependent on who you talk to) will probably not want to talk about business analytics because these projects typically have a big price tag. But whether they are big projects or not isn't the issue. The issue is whether there is value in getting information about your business to allow you to better understand your customers, your costs, etc.

Most small business owners think they understand their business, and they do, to a point. What is surprising are the things that they don't see. As a business grows, things change and from the owner's standpoint, they still look the same. One of the first things that I do when I start an assignment, is to look at data that is already being captured in a company. I also interview staff to get the personal perspective. I invariably find things that surprise owners and managers. Through the interviews, I also find out why this is happenning and what may have caused the change. This helps me to provide advice to the owners and managers on how to address the issues that I found. This isn't even close to what business analytics is doing, but the concept is the same. There is no way that a small business could afford the cost associated with something of significant depth.

Why did I title the article business analytics and business process? Because I found an article that talks about the failure or success of business analytics is based on an understanding of business process. If you don't have a detailed understanding of your business process, you can't get good data and you can't get a good analysis of that data. Bad data means poor decisions.

If you develop good business processes, ensure that your software supports your business process to give you good data, you can analyze that data to help you make good decisions.

Thinking Outside the Box

We have all heard the term "Thinking Outside the Box". We know that it is thinking differently, but how do we do it?

We need to start by what is meant by the box. A box has four walls (and a top and bottom). When we want to store something in the box, we must put it within those four walls. We can't put it outside the box, because then it won't be stored.

Our thinking is limited by the same four walls. Everything we know creates the four walls.

Why is this important? If you are limited by what you know, you can't think outside the box! That's why many inventions come from people who are not focused in the area where they invent. They have a different background (a different box). They think "outside of your box".

What can you do about this? There are many ways, including reading books in fields, taking courses, hiring a coach, talking to suppliers, etc. Having a mentor helps you think about your business and challenges differently. Often you can solve your own problems by having them ask questions. As you try to explain, you come up with the answer.

In my case, I do a lot of reading, I work with different types of businesses and get to learn as I help them. I am also a member of BNI (Business Network International) as well as an Ambassador with BNI. This allows me to visit other chapters. Each week, one of the specialists within the chapter gives a ten minute speech about his/her business. I have been amazed at how much I learned about subjects that I knew nothing about. My learning has not allowed me to be a specialist at these services. It has provided me an insight into problems that I may encounter in my business or in my clients' businesses. When I encounter these problems, I know who to go to. I know someone who specializes in solving or preventing this type of problem.

Have problems that you don't know how to solve? Need to think outside the box? Start to network and find people that can help you do it? It can save your business!

SOA - Another Technical Solution with the same issues

IT organizations and specialists come up with new buzz words and three letter acronyms all the time. One of the current ones is SOA - Service Oriented Architecture. At this time, it isn't of interest to small businesses, but the issues raised follow the same pattern that can be found in all IT related projects.

A recent article talks about ten mistakes that are made with SOA projects:

1. Failure to explain SOA's business value.
2. Underestimating the impact of organizational change.
3. Lack of strong Executive sponsorship.
4. Attempting to do SOA on the cheap.
5. No SOA skills on staff.
6. Poor project management.
7. Viewing SOA as a project instead of an architecture.
8. Underestimating the complexity of SOA.
9. Failure to implement and adhere to SOA Governance.
10. Letting the vendor drive the Architecture.

These issues are true for SOA, but they are also true for any IT project. SOA is new to most IT organizations. In the same way, new business software is new to a small business. Change the acronym to anything else, and you will have the same issues. In the past 30 years, significant effort has been expended by IT organizations to solve the overall problems. The failure rate is still very high. Even worse than absolute failure is that those organizations that feel that they have succeeded, do not get as much value from the implementation as they could.

As the article explains, the biggest issues relate to people and process. This is true of all technical projects. If these issues are not addressed, your chance of failure is high.

The full article can be found at: http://www.cio.com.au/article/253821/10_mistakes_cause_soa_fail?pp=6

Are your systems too complex for your staff?

Is your software doing the job that you expected when you bought it? When a small business buys new software, they are usually looking for something that they don't have. They need new tools, improved productivity, reduced cost.

Most software products are built over many years with features and functions added to meet the needs of their customers. Each customer has unique needs. Some features are used by most businesses, but many find little use for most of the features. The larger companies are most likely to use more features. If you look at something as basic as Microsoft Office, how much of it does the average user know and understand. Most people never get beyond Word and Excel. Even then, how much do you Word. In my case, I used Word for over 10 years before I ever needed the Table of Contents function.

What does this mean to a small business? It means that you have a very complex software product. There is too much of it to learn and you don't need most of it anyway! The real question is "Do you know the features and functions that can help you?". If you don't, you are wasting money! You wasted money because you bought more than you needed. You are wasting money because there are functions that could help you be more productive.

This problem is not helped by the fact that software suppliers train you on the basic functions (because most people need them), but they seldom understand the real needs of your business. So they don't train you on functions that may be of the most value, because they don't know.

What does this mean to your business? The complexity can affect you in several ways:

• Your people are unproductive because they are doing things in an unproductive way (there are simpler ways of accomplishing the same thing).
• They don't take actions that could be of value because it takes too much time.
• They don't take actions that would help because they don't even know that it is possible.

How do you solve this problem? The best way is to look at your business processes before you buy software. If you look at your business process, you find what is working and what is not working as well as it could. You can streamline the business process. If automation can help, you can investigate software that can help you solve that business problem. You evaluate the software based on what it will do for your business and how easy it is to implement (not just what your software supplier tells you). When you buy, you won't buy what you don't need and your implementation will go much faster, thereby reaping benefits more quickly.

What if you've already installed? Can you still gain the benefits? You can gain major improvements by reviewing your business processes and how well they are working. Then look for ways to exploit what you already have. You won't save on what you've already invested, but you can still gain major improvements in productivity and quality of service.

Why should you focus on your business processes?

Business Process Management is a big thing in large businesses. It is a hot topic and many large companies have attempted to improve their business processes. There have also been many failures and I've mentioned some of the reasons in yesterday's BLOG.

But what about small business? Is there really any value in it? I recently came across some statistics that warrant a review at the point. This was from a study of business process management and two numbers are worth mentioning:

• Most managers spend 15% of their time searching for information.
• 42% of managers use the wrong information on average once per week.

The first number says that managers are not as productive as they could be if they have information at their fingertips. The second says that they are using the wrong information to make decisions almost half the time. This has a huge impact on their performance! Before you say that this is probably in large businesses, I have recently had an experience with a small company that indicates otherwise. It may be understandable in a large company because there are so many people involved.

Why does this happen? What is the impact? What does this have to do with Business Process Management?

The business processes that I saw were simple and straightforward. It involved all of the activities in a construction company from estimate through to billing and receivables. This is a straightforward process, so you would think. The business had grown and was no longer visible from end to end by one person. Estimates were made for new jobs verbally. Job scheduling came from what individuals remembered about these estimates. Job scheduling was difficult and often crews might sit idle while salespeople looked for new jobs. When the jobs were done, paperwork for materials and labour were submitted to the office. Because payroll and payables needed action, this is where the paperwork went first. Project Managers searched for the paperwork in order to produce the invoices. Since they were busy, they didn't have time to search, so days and weeks often passed before invoices were prepared. This created a cash flow and receivables problem.

The were two major problems identified in this process. Work could not be properly planned, delaying revenues and sometimes seeing work crews idle. Invoicing was delayed. Cost kept piling up, but revenues were slowed.

By focusing on the end to end business process, we started tracking all jobs when requests originally came in. We have a written record of the size of the job, and its priority. This allowed for proper planning and identified the potential times when crews might not be busy. It allowed the sales people to get out early and find new work, before the crews were idled.

We changed the flow of paper, so that completed jobs were highlighted and the necessary cost information immediately sent to Project Managers, allowing them to complete their costings and proceed with invoicing.

The net result was better productivity of work crews, faster invoicing and better cash flow. I think any small business would like to have that.