Finding that sweet spot

So much of effective organisational operation comes down to balance. This has particular relevance when you are investing in technology.  Finding that sweet spot between pain and gain.

Take your choices for managing your business processes. We all know that better processes mean more effective business – saves money, increases productivity. Ideally it should be clear in any organisation what should be done, and by who, and to have it all documented. But we all know that is rarely the case. There is a myriad of software choices out there to improve the state of affairs – but its hard to find that sweet spot…

Go cheap and cheerful and the accounts department is happy in the short term, but you are often left with a situation that is at best no improvement, and at worst, a rapidly spiralling situation where everything takes longer, is more complex, less transparent, and… you get the picture.

At the other extreme there is the high-cost option, which can come with a substantial front end investment, can require input from the IT department, and is so complex and unwieldy that its a full time job to understand its capabilities, and just when you get it all set up the way you want, business requirements change and it’s too difficult to make changes in the system and you wouldn’t be alone if, at the end of the day, you resort to what you know – the tried and trusty spreadsheets and folders.

There are options for planners who don’t want to spend the earth, or have a system that is over-kill for what they want. At ComActivity, we are all about finding solutions that make life easier and we LOVE the 2c8 Planning tool. It’s incredibly easy-to-use can be shared with colleagues. You can get as much information or as little as you like. All documents can be centrally stored and accessed at a click of a button. And best of all, we wouldn’t want to use the word “cheap” but frankly, it is truly affordable. So many planners should be able to purchase it without even getting sign-off by the boss. At the end of the day, we have found that when we have shown it to one of our customers, they buy one on the spot, and then come back and buy lots more. They say that its made it easy for them to map their processes, and importantly, improve them.

Its one of those bits of technology that sits perfectly between pain and gain – right in the sweet spot.