Want that new Supply Chain System? Avoid These Hot Buttons

A recent article over on the Harvard Business Review that chronicled eight things executives hate about IT just handed you a checklist that you can use to make sure your request for that new IT system isn’t immediately denied. All you have to do is find a system that doesn’t have any of these issues.

  1. IT Red Tape

    If your organization has an IT bureaucratic process that rivals the tax code in complexity, and approval depends on IT’s okay, you’re probably already sunk.

  2. Heavy Internal Support Requirements

    In most organizations, high level people in IT are never available and the low level tech support is overworked. Although this won’t be a show stopper, if enterprise history is that most platforms with heavy internal support requirements end up becoming shelf-ware, you’ll be fighting an up-hill battle.

  3. Fixed Process Requirements

    Your business, and the process that run it, are always changing. If it’s hard to change the workflow, that software essentially comes with an expiry date that’s not much further out than a litre of milk.

  4. Flashy Bells and Whistles

    You’re in business to make money. Flash doesn’t add to the bottom line, features do. And paying for functionality you’ll never use is one of the reasons Gartner says that eight out of ten IT dollars is “dead money”.

  5. Extensive Implementation/Integration Requirements

    Chances are there are already too many never-ending IT projects in the organization. The last thing the C-suite wants is another one.

  6. Not Forward Looking

    Organizations want to be strategic and proactive, not tactical and reactive.

  7. No Innovation Support

    Even if they don’t actually do it, everyone wants to say they’re innovative. So the platform better support innovation!

  8. High Likelihood of Bad News

    Executives know that even a successful launch is always accompanied with the inevitable onslaught of bugs, crashes, and change requests. If it looks like the number of these will be higher than usual, you’ll have a lot of eye rolling to deal with, at best.

I’m not saying finding such a solution will be easy, but if you can do it, you’ll probably get your system (provided it doesn’t cost more than the GDP of some smaller countries).

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