How many times have you encountered a business problem that could only be solved effectively with an IT solution? Hard working IT teams are constantly struggling with too many “priority” projects, and rarely have enough time or resources to complete them. Small and hard to quantify projects are hard to get on the priority list.
I have encountered this many times throughout my career. My reaction to this was to put on my “improviser” hat. This included anything from creating physical work arounds, excel hacks, .csv file transfers, and pre-packaged software. However, this rarely created a real solution and only temporarily helped. Usually these types of solutions are brittle and not scalable.
The Background
No experience exemplifies this more than when I was overseeing a warehouse that had dual functions: labeling and distribution. I need to provide some background information about the situation to help you understand the full impact. The company would produce goods that were the same for many countries. The only difference was the labeling and packaging. For the labeling function the warehouse would store the unlabeled bulk products and only label and package when a country needed new finished goods. The other function was to distribute customer orders to the US and Canada. In addition we had just been acquired by another company so the warehouse was working on several different systems at once. The warehouse staff was very hard-working, dedicated, and resourceful and when they encountered a problem would do their best to find a solution.
The Problem
So in this environment we were asked to find a solution for the people in Canada with PO Boxes or rural addresses. Really the only viable solution was to use the combination of USPS/Canada Post for deliveries. Previously we had been using UPS for all packages to Canada as we were already integrated with them and the customs clearance was seamless. Because of IT priorities, API integration was not an option. I began a search to find a packaged or SaaS software that allowed us to upload our order information via files, and could assign packages a box size. I researched many software solutions, and even created accounts in some, and finally decided on one.
The Work Around
It became clear the chosen solution was great for an ecommerce platform like Shopify or WooCommerce. However, our industry specific and custom software would be a lot harder to integrate. I was determined to deliver a solution with limited IT resources available and set out to make it work. I spent about 2 days trying to understand and configure the software to get it ready to test. It was fairly complex because these were cross border shipments and additional information was required. To make this work we had to create spreadsheet reports from 3 different systems. Luckily the IT team was able to create one of the reports with the format we needed to upload into the new software, but the other 2 reports had to be manually converted to the correct format.
People will find work-arounds to the problem even if they aren’t the best ideas.
The Result
We began to use the new system and our warehouse manager took on the new role of getting these orders ready to go. It started slow and insignificant, however, once customers found we could now ship to these new locations the amount of daily orders increased significantly. While visiting the warehouse 2 weeks later I walked in to see the warehouse manager’s office full of boxes and orders for that day. The manager informed me he spent 80–85% of his time managing and fulfilling these orders. As you can imagine this caused cascading problems at the warehouse as the manager’s availability decreased. (Sure the manager could have assigned the duty to another person, but it would still tie up manpower that was needed elsewhere.) The manager did not complain but I could see the frustration and impatience on his face. We did this process for about 1 year.
This experience taught me several things.
- People will find work-arounds to the problem even if they aren’t the best ideas. (They may not have all the information and the solutions may cause more problems elsewhere.)
- Burn out can occur from too many manual processes
- When productivity goes down it can affect the morale of team members and managers alike.
So what is the solution? Sometimes bringing in a contract developer to solve the problem is the best (and cheapest) solution. Even though the cost of using a custom software solution might look big at first, it can decrease total costs over time and improve efficiency.
Things to consider:
- If you are going to hire an outside developer make sure the new software they provide is written using the same systems and languages already supported by your IT team. Not only will it make it easier for the IT team to maintain, but it will help avoid any internal conflicts.
- Make sure your outsourced provider documents their code and provides any training documents to your team. Because the software will be maintained by people who did not write it there MUST be clear documentation on how to manage it.
- Make sure your current IT team is aware and up to date on the project. Again this will help facilitate the handoff when it is complete.