BSI Article: What <i>really</i> makes the world go 'round: love, money... and technical support

Here's a rule of thumb in the software biz: six months after you roll out a business application software, the data that's been encoded into it is already worth more than the software itself.

Intending to build a business that you can bequeath to your children? You need more than just "cool software;" you need to be able to count on it day in and day out for 10 years or more.

Think about it. When you calculate the cost of the man-hours spent encoding data into the software, and the man-hours spent training the users, indoctrinating the report consumers, and rearranging your internal processes - in six months you're likely approaching or exceeding what you originally paid to purchase the software to begin with.

But what takes the value of the data over the top is a new circumstance: the organization-wide realization that you now rely heavily on all that encoded data. The new ability to coordinate effortlessly that couldn't happen before, because that encoded information simply didn't exist then.

The thrilling new clarity about business information that simply wasn't available before. The ability to produce on-demand MIS reports to guide faster, more confident decisions. The new speed at which things get done compared to before.

New refinements to three Balmori solutions

Ergonomics have subtle but far-reaching implications

News for users of our SURE! AR/ AP/ DMS and SURE! AR/ AP/ LAMA enterprise solutions, and our SURE! PayMaster payroll app:

We've recently streamlined the main menus and certain submenus of these three business solutions, with a view to making them even easier to use than ever before.

Ergonomics are not a trivial issue in software design. Thoughtfully designed interfaces, crafted with non-technical computer users in mind, improve outcomes by minimizing opportunities for clerical error.

And when clerical errors occur less frequently, the organization spends less time on reconciliation and rework. Reconciliation and rework burn up numerous man-hours all across an enterprise. Reducing reconciliation and rework increases productivity all around.

Good ergonomics also improve outcomes by giving users instantaneous understanding of the gestalt - the big-picture context - of a task. In an interface with good ergonomics, each screen is unambiguous as to what tasks it is all about.

This in turn gives software users confidence; a confident user saves time when he is less timid and tentative in engaging with the software. Users engaging with good ergonomics are able to get on with their data encoding or report extraction much faster.

And good ergonomics make it easier to introduce new hires to the software; its simplicity and clarity get them confident and productive - faster and sooner.

What exactly are these latest ergonomic improvements?

First, we modified the Set-up Menus to make it easier to distinguish between basic set-up data that's mandatory - the user must input these to enable the software to work at all - and set-up data that users can safely address at a later time.

The implementing team can thus zero in on the absolutely necessary set-up data, while feeling zero anxiety about temporarily ignoring nonessential set-up data. That saves huge amounts of time.

It shortens their set-up time, reduces stress on the roll-out team, and lets users get on with enjoying the software's productivity benefits much sooner.

Second, we modified several menus in these three products to make it easier for users to zero in on the tasks they most frequently undertake in real life. The revised menus group frequently done tasks together in one "gang" of menu options; occasional tasks are in a separate "gang."

All these ergonomic refinements will of course be welcomed by all users in an enterprise, but one special type of user will be most thrilled: that class of users who are interested exclusively in the report outputs, and have zero interest in the technology - the CEO, CFO, and other senior company officers.

We're confident these refinements will improve everybody's computing experience using Balmori Software solutions.

All of this adds up to productivity gains whose value far exceeds the original cost of the application. (You wouldn't have bought the software otherwise.) And it's the gift that keeps on giving; the longer you use the software, the longer your productivity gains abide, and the further back in the dust the cost of the software is left behind.

But mind, computerization brings with it its own problems. Human society - and the world of business in particular - concluded long ago that the benefits of computerization far outweigh the problems it creates. Reasonable people have made the calculation that computerization's problems can be dealt with, but the problems do indeed lurk.

What are the relevant computer-related problems for the typical business concern? Experience shows that the biggest headaches for Philippine SME businesses are a) algorithm obsolescence, and b) data corruption. (At Balmori Software, data corruption is 70% of our technical support practice.)

Algorithm obsolescence, for one, is an inevitability. Take payroll. Philippines-based companies are required to deal with, and report to, at least four government institutions: the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), the Social Security System (SSS), the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), and the Home Development Mutual Fund (HDMF).

If just one of these government entities requires a new report, or changes the arithmetic of the employee contribution computation, all organizations that have employees must change their algorithms for whatever report or computation has been affected by the regulatory change. This means that all payroll processing software in the Philippine market, regardless of who developed it or wrote its source code, has to be rewritten.

The required rewrite can be minor or massive; you'll only know once the regulation gets promulgated. A payroll application that is not revised to address the new regulation will provide "wrong" results. And wrong report outputs usually result in formal penalties, and also a lot of time-consuming data reconciliation.
When external conditions like these render your software algorithms obsolete, or your data get corrupted, all the wonderful computerization benefits that your company has come to rely on ... stop. Until you can get someone on the case.

That someone is called the technical support provider. And not just any technical support provider, but a knowledgeable technical support provider.

Unless you can count on reliable, knowledgeable technical support for a software application, then you can't count on being able to build a business for the long haul using that application. (We're talking here of mission-critical applications like logistics and integrated back-room, not tools like spreadsheets or word processing.) At some point, there'll be a crash and then you can't perform your business mission to the standards your customers have come to expect.

Sure, you may enjoy smooth sailing for a few months; but sooner or later, trouble will strike. A new law or tax regulation will eventually render your current algorithms obsolete, or your data will get corrupted (that's a surer bet than a Manny Pacquiao fight); then what do you do? You'd better have knowledgeable technical support that'll get you back on track really quick.

Consider what it would be like to buy a car that doesn't have a dealer service organization. "Oh, it looked so sleek in the pages of Car and Driver I just had to buy it!" Sure, for a few months it'll run well.

Once the mechanical problems start, what are you going to do? You either repair it yourself - and good luck with that, Mr. or Ms. White Collar - or you bring it to a generalist talyer. Or a specialist talyer ("We specialize in all kinds of cars"). And the generalist talyer, or the specialist talyer, with its knowledge base of general principles of the internal combustion engine from models of 10 years ago, will muddle its way through this strange brand's fuel injection system, or use trial and error to figure out how to rip out the panel covering the aircon evaporator. And they'll do this every time you come back for servicing, thus butchering your exotic, technically-unsupported pride and joy - in slow motion.

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Filipinos may long for the quirky charm of Renault Twingos or Dacia Dusters or something or other from Brazil or Poland or Tuguegarao, but most of them are smart enough to stick to Toyota Corollas and Honda CRVs and Hyundai Tucsons, because these things have the one thing that - for the down-to-earth person - outweighs sexy looks and interesting design specifications: technical support in times of trouble.

Similarly, a business application needs a reliable technical support infrastructure before you dare count on it for more than two weeks as an enabler of your critical business processes. If you're intending to build a business that you can take to an IPO or bequeath to your children, you need more than just "cool" software; you need software you can count on day in and day out for five years at a stretch or more.

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