Somehow I’ve managed to wind up with case of pneumonia, and thus my recent absence. While I continue to fight it off, UK-based Monarch expert Grant Perkins has kindly volunteered to share a few of his ideas over next few posts.
Here’s Grant’s first submission.
Back in 2009 The Register ran a series of reports by Dale Vile of FreeformDynamics that presented, among other things, the result of some polls of IT industry workers regarding how well they thought there employers were making us of their IT systems.
The last one in the series caught my eye – “The Unrealised potential of ERP and CRM” – which carries the sub heading “Digging up that buried treasure”.
Now to me that strap line reads like a perfect introduction to the potential for involving Monarch and the Datawatch family of applications.
I can’t easily summarize what is already a very trimly presented report and therefore encourage you to have a look for yourselves. It’s only 2 pages and has some graphs that get the message across very succinctly. The message seemed to align very closely with my own experiences as a vendor consultant for business applications over the past three decades. How do they fit with your experiences?
I’ll pick a few headlines.
10% of respondents thought that the ERP/CRM systems they were involved with were fully implemented.
Around 75% thought that “More value could be unlocked” by “Making better use of the information held in the system”.
Even access to the systems and their information, whether from corporate offices or in more mobile situations, is reported as being less encompassing than it might be.
Now whilst some of the benefits mentioned by respondents involve taking steps to make better use of the software (in other words complete the implementation as originally envisioned – or at least get closer to that vision) by moving from desk top based ‘office systems’ (Masses of small databases, word-processed documents and spreadsheets) – much of the benefit comes from being able to get at all the collected information and do something with it.
Thus the interest in “BI” in recent years.
The report’s closing line;
“… in many cases, a significant amount of additional value can often be tapped into with a relatively modest level of incremental investment.”
That sounds good (and familiar) to me. Where to start?
Well, given that the poll suggests that visions from above often fade before full benefit can be obtained …. how about we start ‘at the coal face’ and promote ideas upwards in the chain of management?
It may work in some companies and not in others – but it has to be worth a try.
Monarch users may be in a strong position to develop and offer benefits to their bosses, their company and therefore themselves. All that is required is enough business understanding to spot the best areas of need for which you can provide a solid solution. Some may be obvious, so go for them. Some may look challenging. The need is there but the method of delivering the result may not be obvious.
That’s where awareness and a wide exposure to the potential within Monarch – even if you don’t use that potential on a regular basis or, indeed, have never used it – can be the catalyst you need find a way forward.
In future posts I will offer some suggestions that might fit into this area of murky knowledge for some users, not so much to provide packaged answers but more to offer ideas to be stored for when the time is right.
Meanwhile I really do encourage readers to read the report linked above and consider how the observations and outline conclusions fit with your own experiences.
Grant enjoys being a professional photographer at a racetrack when he isn’t finding new ways to excel with Monarch.
