Biggest productivity drain: March Madness or bad software?

All year long, companies sputter along with their outdated systems and shoddy software. They re-enter data manually, use un-integrated systems, and organize all their data on spreadsheets. When March Madness rolls along, everyone starts talking about lost productivity.

What about the other 11 months of the year?

This article on CIO.com entitled, "March Madness Productivity Drain: Calling a Technical Foul," highlights the issue very nicely. If productivity is so important (as it should be), these companies should fix the real productivity-killers: Their bad systems and software.

Now, I’m aware that some companies may not realize there is a more productive way, and therefore not realize their methods are out of date. Here are a few of the more common examples of unproductive software/systems:

Manual data re-entry: Do you, or multiple people in your office enter the same data into multiple systems? This is a result of un-integrated systems, or in non-technical terms, systems that don’t communicate with each other. If your systems are not integrated, you are wasting valuable time and resources.

Ad-hoc reporting: Do you have to wait to receive reports from your IT department? These days, you should be able to run reports by yourself without waiting on anyone. Here’s an example of simple reporting. Here's another.

Excel Overuse: Do you keep all of your data in Excel? Do you analyze data and email spreadsheets to co-workers? This is both unproductive and dangerous. This forum article explains why.

I could go on. The point is, if you’ve ever looked at your software and/or systems and thought, “There must be a better way,” you’re probably right. If any of these problems sound familiar, I recommend you check out m-Power. It will connect your systems, bring your applications to the web, and reduce your need for Excel. You can take m-Power for a Test Drive here.