Creating an automation system is the same production process as in any factory. Often not understanding or denying this is inexperience. From a business point of view, the processes, interrelationships, optimization of the production process belong to the IT sphere just as much as to any enterprise producing engines, cars or office pens. Also, i would like to advice you to think about the possibility moving company crm.
The result of IT company’s work is a product. It may look like an information system (ERP, CRM, MES, XRM and others) or be the result of a business function. For example, the site has up-to-date information or the system is functioning correctly, and there are no failures or they are promptly eliminated.Нужен ли компаниям свой IT-отдел
Of course, business goals and objectives determine everything. But with this question, executives often fall into the trap. They determine – we need our own IT department to write our own systems for ourselves and maintain everything ourselves. Let’s break down with examples why this is a trap.
What it looks like from the inside, why we need to create everything ourselves. It’s cheaper than ordering the system from a profile company;
- We will be in complete control of the process;
- Our department won’t go anywhere, and contractors can disappear;
- It’s simple: a couple of programmers and the system is ready;
- There are many other arguments that are less common.
The creation of IT-products is a production. It is necessary to understand that you can get the desired result, or you can encounter difficulties and have “incomprehensible things” in the output. Our task now is to transfer the arguments from the plane of the IT-sphere, in which you need special knowledge to understand. Therefore, for some executives from the outside everything seems simple only at first glance.
Automotive plant
A company needs a car to deliver orders or mail, for example. Let’s build a factory to make cars. An amusing analogy, but in this case it clearly shows the absurdity of the logic and the above arguments, because they apply here as well.
It’s cheaper to make your own car than to buy a ready-made one
At first approximation, as with an information system – this is true. If it were about a car, then according to the reasoning for creating an information system, they look like this: there are 4 wheels, a body, and an engine. Well, we would also need a steering wheel and connect it all. We can buy a ready-made engine. We find a craftsman, or even a professional locksmith. No, we’ll do it this way: we’ll create a special department and take three specialists in cars, or even five. They will assemble everything.
What will happen in practice: the car will take a very long time to be manufactured, and the employees will do it for a salary. And even after a year it will go. And then it will take another five years to solve the problems. Let’s imagine this process by creating a car.
In the end the cost of the car will be many times higher than the purchase of the car, and the result will not be happy.
At first approximation, as with an information system – this is true. If it were about a car, then according to the reasoning for creating an information system, they look like this: there are 4 wheels, a body, and an engine. Well, we would also need a steering wheel and connect it all. We can buy a ready-made engine. We find a craftsman, or even a professional locksmith. No, we’ll do it this way: we’ll create a special department and take three specialists in cars, or even five. They will assemble everything.
What will happen in practice: the car will take a very long time to be manufactured, and the employees will do it for a salary. And even after a year it will go. And then it will take another five years to solve the problems. Let’s imagine this process by creating a car.
In the end the cost of the car will be many times higher than the purchase of the car, and the result will not be happy.
- Buy a car;
- Rent a car or take a cab;
- Contact a car-building workshop.
- All of the above options are better than creating your own car by setting up a car building department.
What it looks like with information systems:
Buy a car – buy a template information system that you can change to suit you, like in a car, replace the rims, the music, or put the seats with soft-body airing. You can replace the engine in the information system, and cut a hatch in the roof. You can add the right fields to entities or customers, even add a directory of something you need just for you.
Renting a car or taking a cab – this option in IT is called a SaaS solution. That’s when you get access to a service for a subscription (monthly payment). You can’t do anything with the car, just like with the information system; it’s someone else’s, you just use it.
Turn to professionals to create a car. For example, you need a car with certain requirements. For example, it should consume 3 liters of gasoline, be designed for 6 people, have a bed for a change of drivers on trips, the ability to carry a boat, well, and still swim. And it should also have an autopilot. Or it can be a specialized combine or other unique equipment, which is not on the market. If we talk about the information system, its requirements may be: it should not be a set of directories, and should perform business processes with one button, should optimize processes by 30%, should work very quickly with a database of hundreds of thousands of objects. It should also record calls and send them to the director via e-mail. And to make a forecast of the company’s profitability for the next month. The task for the specialists sounds like this: to offer variants of solutions for the specified tasks or requirements for a car, to make an estimate, in which the customer can refuse from expensive items, having weighed up their cost and benefit.
We will have complete control of the process
You buy a car, a solution for an existing task. Or you control the process of building a car in your company. Yes, indeed, you can go into the workshop every day and monitor how the specialists are tightening the nuts. What does this do from a business perspective? Arguments about safety are shattered on first approach, as are most others. It’s like in the proverb – “Do you drive or do you check?”, the process or the result. If you want process, that’s the right approach, but business is a story about results.
Our department is not going anywhere.
And he will always want to eat. But this is the second factor. The first one is that the automobile companies are certainly more confident that they’re not going anywhere than the software companies. But when you’re choosing a car manufacturer, you’re not buying a car from a company that opened yesterday either, are you? It’s the same with IT companies. You look at the portfolio and the period of work, at the projects that have already been created.
The second factor is that when you order a car, you get a car. If you build an entire factory just to produce one machine, you have to understand that you have to do something with that factory afterwards. And it seems like you have to service the machine, but it’s unreasonable to keep a whole plant for that, unless you suddenly need a second machine. So the argument that the department is not going anywhere is more of an anti-argument.
It’s easy: a couple of programmers and the system is ready
Indeed. What’s so complicated about making a car. Four wheels, body, seats, steering wheel. The engine and the pedals should not be forgotten. And the radio should have a screen, so you can poke at it. It is the way most people imagine information system and it’s absolutely normal. It is not necessary to know all subtleties of the automobile device. It is desirable not to look under a hood. The car should carry out the function. It should be convenient, comfortable, and meet all the specialized requirements of business. Because everyone has different business requirements for motor vehicles. It’s a little more complicated than just the requirements of all motorists for standard cars.
And it’s like, you really don’t have to know all the details and understand how it works to use it. The problems start when the false impression is created: it’s easy out there. That’s when attempts to make the machine yourself begin.
Yes, there are some people who can build a machine themselves. They are few in hundreds of thousands. It is exactly the same with information systems, but working with singles has a different type of problem. In all other cases, the creation of a business automation information system is a complex process with its own methodology, approaches, developments and many nuances.
Conclusions
Many companies, guided by the arguments above, begin to build their plants. After spending time and money, they realize the inefficiency of this process. Some companies cannot recognize this approach as erroneous and continue to act in the same inefficient way. And after all, money has already been spent on all this and it is not clear who is responsible for making the wrong decisions. And too many people will have to be fired, with specific tasks already tied to these people.
There are large companies that have chosen a different approach, a more successful one, where cars are produced in specialized workshops, and the company itself only has a department for quality control of cars. But the approaches of large companies to the creation of IT-infrastructure is a topic for a separate article.
