All too often I hear my company’s products confused with “business intellegence” systems.  While it is possible to configure those types of solutions with our platform, that would be equal to saying every car Chrysler builds is a pick-up truck. It’s just not the case. A solution platform such as ours is really about one thing…coming up with the common sense solutions and implementing them effectively.

We have all heard about the 80/20 rule when it comes to productivity and I pose the same thing applies to business solutions, just in reverse. Far too often 80% of the effort goes into solving problems that are only 20% of the real issues. The real solutions are the ones that make people more effective at their tasks, providing focus on business needs, and eliminating ambiguity. Solutions that require…common sense.

Think about what would make the most difference in the course of a person’s day. Not the big, “boil the ocean” kinds of differences.  The kind that put information where people need it, when they need it, and give them the actions to apply to that information.  Let people do what people are good at rather than spending their time “cranking widgets.”

Real problems need real solutions.  They don’t need cookie-cutter apps or shrink-wrapped tools.  Each problem and it’s corresponding solution is unique in the details.  There may be similarities, but there’s always at least a couple things that are special to just that situation.  Understand the problems you are solving and then apply the technology to that yardstick.  Let someone else try to “boil the ocean.”