In today’s business world, one of the biggest challenges faced by all organizations small and large is the increasing complexity of managing systems internally in order to cope with the fast changes happening on a global scale whether it’s technological disruption, socio-political and economic change or unforeseen crises such as the 2020 global pandemic. Change in the 21st century is exponential meaning the more it changes, the faster it keeps on changing.
Any organization therefore needs to not only adapt quicker than before, but also anticipate and prepare for the next wave of change that is coming. The fact is that there is very little one can do about external events and changes, not even governments and international institutions themselves can. Yet there is always something one can do within the organization to always become more adaptive, leaner and flexible to change evermore quickly.
One of the most effective ways to deal with change and uncertainty is through building smarter systems that are interconnected and integrated in a way that gives the most efficiency, effectiveness and keeps the greatest harmony within the organization as a whole. Harmonization is not something that is heard often in the business world as we are more used to the 20th century concept of productivity and more equals better, instead of being smarter, efficient and harmonious. This is the secret behind 21st century business success. To have systems within an organization working in harmony doesn’t only mean more productivity but more importantly sustainable long-term growth and adaptability.
Building Smarter Systems in Harmony
The key idea is building smarter systems that work holistically to give better flexibility and adaptability to whatever changes are happening outside of the organization. Many companies grow in complexity because they add more systems and tools or applications within their business units but these systems end up as silos, not working together and thus adding workload, inefficiencies, complexity, duplicate work and wasted resources.
Some companies are in fact adopting the concept of Enterprise Resource Planning software or ERP, which basically means a unified platform that contains, merges and interfaces together several tools used between departments. ERP can be an effective and easy way of approaching the idea of having smarter systems working together and it is a far better solution than having silos working independently within the organization.
However ERP might not be the perfect solution for some organizations. The main reason is that ERP as an off-the-shelf solution, might not best fit the particular needs and problems of an individual organization and the business environment it is in. A custom-designed solution is often a smarter way to go and it is more cost-effective in the long run.
Enter Systems Integration
At KaapiSoft we offer what we refer to as Systems Integration. Systems Integration is a custom designed solution for integrating together two or more systems that is based on the particular needs and requirements of the company concerned. Quite often, the case is that the company has a legacy system that needs to work better with other newer systems, or systems used by different units need to communicate and work together in order to solve complexity and inefficiencies.
This is a situation we come across often at KaapiSoft. The industry or market environment might be different but the underlying problem seems to be the same. Without the necessary foresight and planning, companies find it harder to manage systems as the company grows in size. Things start slowly getting sluggish and at some point get out of hand. This is where complexity overwhelms the system.
To counteract this, we first study in-depth the workflows, processes and systems within the organization. This is the most important part as it provides an overview not only of the problem but the best path of action towards the solution. We often find that the inefficient workflows and lack of best practices are built around technological oversights such as having too many systems working as silos. So the reverse is also true. If one can fix the underlying technical issue and integrate two or more systems in order to work together efficiently, then workflows can also be fixed.
The best part of systems integration as against for instance Enterprise Resource Planning, is that for some companies not all systems need to be integrated for there to be more harmonization. Sometimes it’s just between two central systems such as sales and marketing, finance and human resources, customer service and the IT department, and so on. This is why understanding clearly where the disharmony lies in the organization is the most crucial one.
Ultimately, having systems build that work in harmony together is not only the most important thing to have in order to thrive in the 21st century fast-changing world, but more importantly it’s a gateway to bring in the balance between the people and the way they work, collaborate and strive forward to create more success.