Excel sheets are great - and dangerous. They are great because you can put just about anything in these spreadsheets and put all sorts of formulas into them. Great for keeping things insightful, you might say. However, they are dangerous if they are not linked to the central database. In doing so, you create Island Automation.
One of our relations gave a striking example of this early last year: 'Henk has been working with us in administration for 28 years. He keeps meticulous records, but in his own way. He likes to process the figures differently than our system requires and keeps track of things in a spreadsheet he developed himself. That meant that during MT meetings, his sheet was always presented separately. That was difficult, because we had to make a translation each time. It also gave a distorted picture of the turnover. Of course, we asked Henk a few times to use the system, but he said that he couldn't do that. Besides, he knew exactly what he was doing! Well, he did. But Henk was also the only one who knew what he was doing. So when he fell ill for a long time last year, we had a problem. Then we realized how vulnerable we were as an organization by allowing certain knowledge to reside with one person. Henk had created his own island.
The wholesaler in this example was shopping around for a new software package anyway. We advised them to switch to Wholesale. As it turned out, this standard package contained all the functionality that this wholesaler needed. Although Henk - now recovered - actually wanted to continue his way, the MT decided that he had to adapt his working method to the package. Despite his initial protest, thanks to our guidance he was soon able to handle it just fine. Not only does the MT now have clear insight into the current figures at all times, but they were also able to noticeably improve the efficiency of the business operations at various points.
