How to become a hero of digitalisation

Simplicity beats perfection

For over 20 years, I have been advising companies on digitization and accompanying such projects. In this blog article, I describe, using a true example, the most common mistake made and what to pay special attention to.

Do you recognize this? - Software bought expensively - but no one can use it.

In 2005, a medium-sized company was looking for a time tracking system to record and process all times for over 300 employees, so that the data could be transferred directly and, ideally, completely automatically to payroll. A lot of money was spent on many terminals and software that could do all of this. In 2020, the company still has not achieved this goal, and 3 employees in the HR department are meticulously preparing the recorded times in Excel.

Wrong digitization can frustrate everyone.

The boss is frustrated: “I spent a lot of money and I am disappointed. I am convinced the software can do it, but my employees seem overwhelmed. Why can’t my employees manage it? Why do I always have to hire more HR staff?” The HR staff are frustrated, and you hear phrases like “the software can’t do that!” or “I wasn’t trained.”

Escape the complexity trap.

How did this happen? The root of all evil was the original objective: “the software should be able to do everything on its own.”

A better objective is: We are looking for software that my employees can easily use.

Yes, of course there is software that can process all data. But it requires a lot of input to make that even possible. The underlying complexity is repeatedly underestimated and demands a lot of expertise (e.g., wage types, tariffs, laws) and skills (analytical thinking, logic). It is absolutely understandable that employees are overwhelmed, and thus a lot of frustration arises.

Magic - the illusion of simplicity

...いますが、その裏には常に論理があります。デジタル化の際には、従業員にとって理解しやすく、習得しやすいソフトウェアのみを導入するように注意してください。そして、ソフトウェアがすべてを単独で行いという幻想を抱かせる「魔法使い」に騙されないでください。

In the end, all you'll get is a magic box, and your employees will need to be able to perform magic.

What conclusion did we draw from this? Successful systems like WhatsApp had such great success because they are extremely easy to use and therefore manageable by everyone. The most important value of SMARTCHILLI is simplicity, and that is our most important quality criterion in the development of our solution.

Do you want to contribute to the ecosystem of the event industry? Are you a visionary, service provider, and restaurateur with passion? Then apply, and perhaps you will be among the 18 lucky companies that can contribute to their simple software. Apply now.