The Important Thing Is to Take It One Step at a Time | 3 Scary Stories About People and Organizations That Don't Do DX (Part 6)
This is the 6th installment of the scary stories series.
If a company cannot perform business model DX, it cannot survive (Sales Down)
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Even if you try to change jobs, individuals without a "#DX" tag (strength) will not be hired
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Even if you manage to get a job, your work will be taken by new employees with DX skills who have received GIGA School Program education
As a way to break this vicious cycle,
Grow while practicing in your daily work
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Employee growth = Corporate growth
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Market competitiveness increases because there are personnel who can perform business model DX
I will introduce a way to create this virtuous cycle.
Who should read this article
All working professionals
Problems that arise with back-office DX
Our company's situation
At our company, as part of our internal DX, several BPR (see below) projects are proceeding in parallel.
BPR stands for "Business Process Re-engineering," which means reforming business operations by reconstructing business flows, organizational structures, and information systems from the perspective of processes.
This is not handled by a few people who are knowledgeable about IT, but by selecting one DX committee member from each department and having all committee members work on it together.
Both those who are knowledgeable about IT and those who are not are working together to reconstruct business processes.
BPR Case Study: Company Vehicle Operation Management DX
1. Current Situation (Visualized with a flowchart)
・Print out ledgers created in Excel, bind them in files, and manage them for each company vehicle
・Administrators periodically collect the files and check things like mileage
2. Problems (Brainstorming with multiple people)
・It is difficult for the next user to know the remaining fuel level in advance
・Physical ledger operations (printing, collecting, transcribing data, risk of loss)
・The hassle of filling it out every time and calculating mileage
3. Ideal (Visualized with a flowchart)
・Manage the table in Excel (users and administrators edit it together online)
・Want to reduce the burden on users when entering data (want to make it easy to enter from mobile devices)
→ Want to turn it into an app!
A problem emerges
Once the ideal form has been drawn up and you enter the implementation phase, the following discussion inevitably arises.
So, who is going to build this app...?
The DX committee members selected from each department are in charge of their respective practical tasks, and they are certainly not IT professionals.
Should the system department do it, or if that's impossible, should we outsource it?
Then that's no different from when we were outsourcing system development.
If we don't do it ourselves, we won't improve our skills.
No, but we can't just start developing all of a sudden.
We don't have time to study, and even if we did, it wouldn't become easy to do.
The hurdle is too high.
Actually, you can!!!
The important thing is to take it one step at a time
By the way, everyone, what do you think an app is? (Abruptly)
When people talk about app development, many think it means "designing the screen displayed on a smartphone."
But in reality, database design is the most important thing.
If this isn't solid, it becomes very difficult to use.
This is because an app is an interface (contact point) that mediates between the database and the user (human).
You take information from the real world, capture it from a certain perspective, and record it in a database.
When you need it, you retrieve the recorded information from the database.
To put it very simply, an app is what mediates this.
A database is, in other words, a "table".
※The database referred to here is a relational database.
Therefore, the first hurdle is being able to use Excel.
Of course, this is on the condition that you follow the unified rules for machine-readable data notation in statistical tables.
In short, it means "keep to one data per cell so that the computer can process it."
Surely everyone uses Excel for work, right?
So you've already cleared the first hurdle!
The next hurdle is data normalization.
To put it very simply, it means creating a table of just the options on a separate sheet in order to create a pull-down list.
▼Reference ①
▼Reference ②
In the case of the operation management table mentioned above, if you turn it into an app, data input and viewing (from mobile devices) will of course become more comfortable.
But even if you input and view directly in the database itself, it's sufficient to a certain extent, isn't it?
That's why I think you should start with online collaborative editing in Excel, and once you've gained the skills, try reaching out further.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Developing an app from scratch is a high hurdle, but making a solid table in Excel is a lower hurdle, right?
(Or rather, I think many practitioners are already doing it.)
That's why the person in charge in each department can do it themselves!
…That is the reason.
Of course, you also need typing skills, mastery of shortcuts, and basic knowledge of hardware and software.
It's not like "this is all you need to do."
Let's learn and practice every day!
(The author is also currently in the middle of intense input and output.)
※RPA (cloud flow) construction, which is also said to be a high hurdle, actually varies widely. If you start with the easy things and gradually step up, you won't end up in a situation where you "can't do it at all." (Based on the author's experience)
→I hope to write an article about this in the future.
※This is written with the goal of helping non-engineers get a rough grasp of the concepts, so please understand that from the perspective of a professional engineer, there may be descriptions that are not rigorous or are technically inaccurate.
How many bridge personnel can you secure within your organization?
▲ As discussed in this audio content, bridge personnel play an important role in the DX of business models and back-office operations.
The author believes that the goal of human resource DX is to create as many of these bridge personnel (and potential candidates) as possible.
They understand the field to some extent, and they also understand development to some extent.
Organizations with many such personnel can be said to have a competitive edge in the coming era.
The Phonett Education Division's ICT/DX Promotion Section is working on developing bridge personnel!
If you have any inquiries regarding DX support, please feel free to contact us!
※ We would be happy to receive your comments, such as your impressions or themes you would like us to cover!