By 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets

In Jan 2010 Gartner predicted that '...by 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets..' http://www.gartner.com/.  By this they mean that businesses will adopt cloud computing but they didn't state business size.

One year in - are we are we getting there?  Our experience with breatheHR suggeests that many more SMEs see the advantages of joining the cloud revolution with maybe 1 in 5 prospects telling us that they intend to have no office based servers.  A long way off 20% of all businesses but a good step in the right direction..

The cost of complexity (aka KISS)

Human beings seem to like making things complicated, but when it comes to business systems this can be bad news.

System reviews often start with a simple, but pressing, requirement eg.

• get a better idea of what sales are being worked on;
• what marketing works;
• store all information centrally.

Then best practice says you should:

1. list your requirements;
2. assess what is available to meet those requirements;
3. meet with a shortlist of vendors;
4. evaluate and make your decision;
5. implement.

I don't disagree with any of the above but the work involved must be in proportion. There are traps to fall into at each stage:

1. List your requirements - if you sit down with a blank sheet of paper you will almost certainly produce a lists of 'must haves', 'wants' & 'would likes'. It's worth understanding the three categories as the longer the list, the more complex & costly the finished system.
2. Assess what is available to meet the requirements - if stage 1 went well then you have a good solid list. If you spend too long looking at the options then you will generate a mountain of information that will take even longer to filter through. Three or four options should usually be enough and please consider your budget at this stage. If a system is too expensive then it probably isn't right for you.
3. Meet with a shortlist of vendors - it sounds silly but the most common trap here is to have a short list that isn't short. If you invite 15 vendors to the party then nobody gets what they need - least of all you.
4. Evaluate and make your decision - if there is an obvious choice then that's OK, you don't need to look to make it more complicated. If it's not obvious, then a team meeting, a white board and simple scoring system might do the trick. List your requirements and score each system as to how well it meets them - 1 = doesn't, 5 = completely. This will highlight where you need more info and may give you an answer. Please don't rely on the vendor to do this exercise as they may be biased!
5. Implement - This is where it is crucial to keep the list from stage 1 handy. Systems people call it 'project creep' - new requirements added along the way will cause sleepless nights as well as cost and time over runs. Set your goals, make sure everyone sticks to them and have some measurable objectives if possible.

There is always a reason why an IT project goes wrong and being over ambitious or complex is up there at the top of the list.

Where is all our data held?

Most companies have all the data they need to make informed decisions - it's just not in a format that can be accessed or used.

I had a great conversation a while back with a friend & business colleague about email - is it data or is it a bucket that has data in it? This may seem like a technicality but in my view it is essential to realise that it is a bucket!

How many emails do we all get in a day - 50, 100, more? Many are junk but some contain nuggets of data that are valuable. We need this data to make informed decisions. Most people store useful / important email in some sort of file structure - typically in Outlook folders. On the face of it this is great, but it falls apart when we want to access the data contained within the email. We can search by sender, subject or content - if we know where to look (maybe it is in folders that I don't have access to) and can guess at some of the words used. I would claim that unless you are really organised, or have time on your hands, much of the useful data contained in filed email is lost.

Document management systems have long been heralded as the key to a paperless office but they are expensive, difficult to set up and maintain. They can however provide a solution to the issue of managing data in emails (much more than managing a filing system for email).

We have been looking at ways to open up the document management tools to SMEs that don't have a huge budget and are really excited to have found KnowledgeTree.

KnowledgeTree provide affordable, easy to use systems to manage documents, promote collaboration, reduce paper and most importantly release data held in documents. We are just finalising our plans and will have more information about KnowledgeTree available shortly.

With information comes light.

I heard a senior executive from Facebook say this recently and it has stuck with me. Taking this saying and stretching it to its limits was an interesting exercise (sad I know, but my excuse is that I was stuck on a packed commuter train heading home from London).

If information brings light
then
knowledge must be an open door with the light shining through and the conviction to walk towards it
leading to
understanding as one recognises the source of the light.

To run a business we must have information but, to take informed decisions, we need to turn it into knowledge and act on that knowledge. Only after acting do we stand a chance of understanding.

Decision Making

How many decisions do we take in our business life? Many are taken without thought, as part of our daily workload. Some demand more attention and have a greater impact. There are only two outcomes to the decision making process - 'do something' or 'do nothing'. When I say 'do nothing' I include 'get more research', procrastinate and all the other things that result in no action being taken.

How any businesses consistently monitor the results of 'do something' decisions? The best businesses always measure outcomes and adjust decisions accordingly.

When it comes to 'do nothing' decisions, very few businesses consider the outcome. However, how can we as business people improve our decision making process if we don't do this? If we decide to not invest in a new server, we should measure what that decision is costing us (or not costing us). If a decision is taken to not invest in an ageing product then we must recognise that a drop in sales is possibly the reaction to that decision.

For the last couple of years it's been easy to take 'do nothing' decisions but if we were wrong then the consequences will show up sooner or later. Isn't it better to monitor the results of all high impact decisions (both 'do something' and 'do nothing') so that we can adjust our actions quickly?

I like the idea that there are no wrong decisions, only right decisions that are not reversed quick enough.

Lies, damned lies and statistics

Lies, damned lies and statistics, the phrase attributed to Benjamin Disraeli (though not found in his work), could be applied to the Office of National Statistics reporting for UK GDP. I'm not suggesting that there had been any underhand dealings going on but rather a desire to be over cautious that the press capitalised on

You may remember that the ONS reported UK GDP to have fallen by 0.4% in the third quarter of 2009. This caused a public (press?) outcry against the government - why weren't they doing more? At the time I remember reading minor reports that the figures were likely to be revised up towards the end of the year for very valid reasons. But, being British, the bad news was over played.

So now that it is the end of the year, it seems that the true figure for the third quarter looks more likely to have been a fall of 0.1% and may even have been neutral. See "Office for National Statistics data suggests recession already over."

What has this got to do with running a small business? Two things - first, business morale took a further battering which we really didn't need and second there is a lesson about how to turn information into knowledge. The ONS knew the factors affecting the calculations accuracy and alerted us to the possible update, but the press decided to largely ignore this.

With any management information, if one relies on the headline figure and doesn't bother to understand the surrounding information, a bad decision can be taken. Every manager needs a set of key performance indicators (information) but they must be applied with understanding (knowledge).

One version of the truth.

How many times have you questioned the information you use to run your business? That nagging feeling that a part of the management information might not be correct or you see the same information from two sources that doesn't agree. Would you expect sales information in your CRM system to match the invoicing totals in your accounts system? Probably, but there are legitimate reasons why it may not.

Businesses often have the same or similar data stored in different places and whilst this isn't ideal, it's not necessarily a bad thing. What it does mean is that greater care needs to be taken when compiling data. Time needs to be taken to understand the way each system holds data and to get a real understanding of the reporting tools provided.