Discover the signs that home-made systems are bringing your business to its knees.
Bending your business into shape
When you first set out in business it’s hard to imagine all the twists and turns your company will experience. After all, a high proportion of new businesses don’t survive more than a couple of years. So in those early days you were most likely focused on putting in all the hard work that’s made you a success.
But during all those twists and turns, what has happened to your fulfilment business? Is it the same now as it was when everything was brand new? Chances are that by now you’re not only a different size, but also a different shape, having bent to accommodate the changing needs of your customers, and been flexible enough to grab hold of a few passing opportunities.
There is no pause button for anyone wanting to really take stock of where their business is, how it’s faring, and whether it is still adequately supported by the systems and process it relies upon.
A ‘make-do-and-mend’ philosophy
Large, all-encompassing IT systems have tended to be the preserve of larger, well-established businesses; yes they are expansive, but they can also be expensive. Which is why, for many small businesses who came into being 10-20 years ago, a make-do-and-mend philosophy has tended to be prevalent.
Is your business running on a make-do-and-mend philosophy?
Specifically developed IT systems
It could be that you had an IT system developed specifically for you at an early stage in your company’s history. Although they may have been built to an exacting set of requirements, there’s a good chance they don’t scale particularly well. It’s often said that smartphones contain more computing power than the the computers used by NASA to land the Apollo 11 crew on the Moon.
You might not have wanted to send anything into space in the course of your business’s life, but the range of items you’re dealing with, the number of clients you have, the breadth of delivery options they want from you … that will all have taken off in recent years.
Can an ageing bespoke IT system keep up with those changes? Of course it can, providing you don’t mind the cost of having it maintained, updated, and reconfigured. And if it was built using non-standard software, you might be paying through the proverbial to have it supported. But writing reams of new code to try to make a square peg fit into a round hole is unlikely to make sound business sense.
But if you can use a platform that’s been built on standardised software, you really can have the best of both worlds; something that has been configured to meet your needs today, but built on code that will accommodate changes tomorrow.
Can your IT systems keep up with the pace of change in the fulfilment industry?
An over-reliance on spreadsheets
Another common practice, particularly in small-to-medium sized businesses, is to adapt a series of spreadsheets to meet the needs of different parts of the business. Spreadsheets are, of course, fabulously accommodating and used for a variety of purposes.
Where they start to fall down, though, is in just how manual they are. Even if you’re able to use lots of macros and formulae, there still comes the point where a single data entry error can throw everything out, and can take an absolute age to identify and fix. The more complex the spreadsheet, the bigger it can be too - until it goes so far to the right of where you started that you are scrolling constantly back and forth.
If you are manually inputting data from one source into another system any inherent data errors are going to be passed on. Added to this is the time taken up by labour-intensive processes, which can take so long to complete that reports are already past their best by the time they are being passed round.
Relying on manually updated spreadsheets can lead to errors throughout your business.
Future proofing your business
Trying to future-proof your business may sound like a truly impossible task. After all, there has been so much change in the retail and fulfilment sector in the last five-to-ten years alone that no one could reasonably be expected to predict the future. But therein lies the clue to the best kind of preparation; you have to anticipate being called upon to do things for your customers that don’t even exist as services today.
If you’re still herding spreadsheets or putting your faith in an ageing bespoke IT system, how confident are you that you’ll be able to rapidly turn on a new service when asked to by a demanding client? Not very, in all likelihood.
Building on solid foundations
The fulfilment business of the future will need to be more flexible and adaptable than ever before, but with ever-increasing competition it won’t be possible to throw caution to the wind; you’re going to need very solid, data-driven foundations for your future business to rest on, and a single, reliable top-down view of all your business data and information whenever you need it.
Takeaways:
- Your IT system needs to evolve with your business.
- An over reliance on spreadsheets will lead to errors.
- Plan for the future of fulfilment and build on solid foundations.
Discover how you can overcome the challenges facing the fulfilment industry. Download the first of our two part guide, Fulfilment in the UK, Challenges, Solutions and Future Proofing.
