When we are faced with a challenge in our business, we apply solutions from the toolset we are comfortable with, hence Excel is the number one business application on the planet. When we have a problem that requires keeping track of stuff, Excel is the go-to-solution. There is nothing wrong with Excel spreadsheets. The issue really comes back to where this data you’re tracking in an Excel spreadsheet really belongs; and if this data needs to be shared, collaborated on, distributed, then Excel isn’t the ideal solution. Excel is selected because it is an available and comfortable tool of most people working in business today. Excel is a beginner relational database, most challenges that are solved by Excel belong in a real relational database (aka a software application which is really just a relational database with a user interface and user security wrapped around it).

In printers of all sizes, I see a common theme. When core technologies (e.g. Print MIS solutions, production management solutions, and web-to-print solutions) are not fully adopted or fully functional there are leaks in the form of processes and data storage. What does a leaky Print MIS look like? In the conference room you talk about how you use your Print MIS but if you take the time to really follow jobs around the shop, you’ll find all kinds of “other” data repositories and processes that are done outside the Print MIS. These are leaks.

This is why when we go on-site at a printer, we never like to meet with people in a conference room. Our strong preference is to meet people where they work. I don’t want to hear the story of how you work, I want to watch you work. In just a few minutes of sitting with someone in their cubicle we can start to get a sense of where the leaks are. Some have obvious physical characteristics (case boxes of printed job tickets under desk), others take a little more questioning. We were walking through the order entry workflow at a printer recently. As we were hearing the story of the CSR who gets notified of an order via email, goes into their web-to-print solution, copy and pastes into another solution, and then copy and pastes into a third solution to give the customer status; my colleague noticed an Excel file opened on a third monitor. This is where the CSR kept track of their jobs “just to make sure” – thus establishing a fourth system that he was copying and pasting into. You don’t find these things out in a conference room.