Posted By
Reetika Chandra
on
21. February 2012 23:46
At AllianceTek, we often describe ourselves as business solutions architects rather than just software developers. This is because software alone does not necessarily provide any benefits to a business, and may in fact, be detrimental to its operations. Instead of just providing technology, our role is to determine how technology can best be applied to a business.
A business, or any other organization with a function, is essentially a collection of tasks to be performed at various times. As businesses attempt to leverage information technology to gain an advantage, they are basically trying to find a solution that saves time, money, and improves the quality of these tasks. Unfortunately, the reason a new IT solution may not result in these expected benefits is because the technology does not align the people, processes, and systems that make up a task.
All tasks – from paying a bill every month, to installing a new system, to assembling a product – require three parts. There is a human part that initiates it, a process with a series of steps, and a system that controls the frequency of the task.
When these parts of a task become misaligned, the result is lost time, money, and poorer quality. For example, if the task has no system to regulate the frequency, then it may not be performed on time. If a task has no process, then the person performing the task wastes time determining and re-determining how to do the task each time. And if a task has no human element, then the quality may suffer because there is no one there to follow through with it and recognize how to make it better.
Issues occur when one part of a task tries to do the part of another. Your workers should not have to be responsible for remembering how and when to do a repetitive task; these things should be handled by the process and system elements. Forcing workers to remember these things prevents them from contributing to an instance of the task and causes a business to stagnate rather than grow.
How do the people, processes, and systems become misaligned? One reason is because the task may not be clearly defined. Try this as an experiment: Take a routine task performed as part of your business and try to determine a way it can be automated. If this does not come easy, it may mean you have not clearly defined the task. Only clearly defined tasks can be automated, and automating a task forces you to define the task.
Recognizing patterns in the way a business operates and defining tasks from these patterns is largely how IT solutions can successfully deliver benefits. Once a task has been defined and its people, processes, and systems aligned, the task can now be delegated, automated, or outsourced. This empowers the people handling these tasks, because now they can focus on finding more efficient and less expensive methods of handling the task.
