Were you looking for new software to improve the functioning of your company or tie stand alone systems together? Do you have trouble justifying the expense, especially with the uncertainties of the time we are in? Here is a cost effective alternative you might want to consider:

 

 

To give you some ideas, here are a number of examples that could apply to your company:

 

-          You use an older, text based system that is rather cumbersome to operate because each bit of information has to be accessed with a new query. A new interface can extract existing data from your system and present it in a more universal way that allows better and faster decisions.

 

-          You have a stand-alone accounting system that ‘accounts’ just fine but it requires lots of effort to extract data and process them with Excel into the form you want. A new interface can automate these activities, saving you lots of time while reducing the chance of errors considerably.

 

-          Lots of your process critical data are stored in countless individual spreadsheets all over your company, creating problems with accessibility and using up to date information. A custom designed application can solve many of these problems too.

 

If you want to know more or explore some specific ideas of yours, please feel free to contact Owl Database Applications.

Tough times need new solutions, solutions ‘outside the box’. How often do we try to solve basic problems of our company with tweaks and band-aids, adding or removing layers of our organization without even looking at the deeper cause of our problems?

 

To start thinking ‘outside the box’ you have to start looking at the box from outside and ask yourself if ‘it’ makes sense. My high school math teacher drilled us to ask this same question every time we were done solving a math problem. As illustration he used the following little story I would like to share:

 

In the early 1900’s an engineer starts his first job after graduation at a shipyard. He is given the task of calculating the center of gravity of a new ship. So he takes a set of drawings and his slide ruler and goes to work. After about three weeks he has the result and brings it to his boss. The boss looks at it for just a few second and says “wrong, do it again”. Since in the early 1900’s you didn’t question your boss, our young engineer goes back, thoroughly checks his calculations, corrects a few mistakes and after another 3 weeks comes up with a slightly different result. When showing the new result to his boss, he gets the same comment “wrong, do it again”. Now, truly angry, our young engineer blurts out “I worked a total of six weeks on these calculations and you looked at the results for not more than 10 seconds, how can you tell the result is wrong?” “Well” says the boss, “the center of gravity can not be outside the ship”.