Manufacturing Companies

Fred had a really ace IT team. Emphasis on HAD. That was until his IT manager walked into his office one morning and handed in his resignation. As financial director of a company that manufactures widgets, Fred is used to being on top of his game and taking the company from strength to strength. But at this very moment, he feels a tad out of his depths. He has a hundred staff working under him, but right now his crumbling IT team seems to be monopolising all of his energy.

1. No documentation

The head of IT has resigned and has left without any documentation or instruction on how to run the company’s IT. There is no IT IP, whatsoever. He (the IT manager) used to do it all out of his head, and now that he’s gone Fred is going out of his mind.

Software and systems, certificates, licenses and renewals, programme maintenance, you name it, nobody knows what they’re supposed to do now that he’s gone because he did it all himself and never showed anyone else how.

Fred has realised that his company may be at serious risk because the entire IP on which the company is run is all dependent on the person that has just exited the building. There is basically no documentation policy in place.

Even if Fred finds a really good IT manager to replace him, the new guy won’t know how to carry on where the previous guy left off. Hiring a new IT manager doesn’t seem to be the priority right now anyway, because the vetting and hiring process of a good candidate would just take too long.

Fred has to figure out how to keep the IT department running first and foremost.

He needs help covering his risk and putting new and temporary systems in place so that he can continue with business as usual in the short-term while he figures out what to do for the long-term.

2. Risk and compliance

Fred knows that the company has a database of all their clients and associates but he can’t be sure if this data is stored safely and whether or not the company is compliant when it comes to the government’s privacy legislation act. What he knows about compliance can be written on a postage stamp - very little, in other words.

The previous IT manager has flown the coop and isn’t taking calls or responding to emails and Fred simply can’t be sure that all the clients’ personal details they have on file are secure and above board.

What he needs is a CIO to make sure that he is compliant or to help to make him so if he isn’t. But again, he has no time to play HR to start sourcing a reputable CIO. This is becoming an IT headache for Fred, who has his own job that he should be working on rather than trying to put out an IT fire.

3. Lack of Automation

Fred has always ensured that the company hires really good IT staff. In fact, the people they have hired have probably been a bit too good, which is why his IT manager has now been poached by another company!

Because of the IT staff historically being so capable and hands-on, many of the company’s processes and systems were run manually, when they could’ve been automated and delegated to effective software a long time ago. But hey, “if it ain't broke, why fix it?” Now he must fix it.

Fred could really use advice from someone who would be able to put some smart automation in place so that everything that can be delegated to a clever piece of software instead of an expensive living breathing human being.

He has no idea what the potential for automation truly is because he doubts that IT staff would willingly volunteer information to him about software that could potentially put them out of a job.

4. 30 people to shout at

Now that Fred’s IT manager has abandoned him, nobody else is willing to step up and take responsibility for everything that needs to be done.

To Fred, it seems like there are now a dozen different vendors accountable for various IT outputs and Fred has no idea who he should be expecting what from.

In fact, Fred has no idea who he can hold accountable for anything. He wishes he had one target that he could focus on. One point of reference for anything and everything to do with IT instead of all these different vendors he now has to incorporate into his story and wrangle with when they don’t do as promised.

He can’t be sure that the current IT team is getting to all the projects they need to in order to grow the business. Now there are whispers in the corridor that some of the other members of the IT team may follow the previous manager to the company that has just lured him away.

Looks like Fred’s skeleton IT staff is about to get skinnier. He doesn’t have the time or resources to go in and re-motivate them with a pep talk. There’s no one body that he can hold accountable.

5. Supplier rip off

Yet another pain in the neck for Fred is that he can’t be sure if he’s getting a good return on investment from the IT vendors the company is currently using.

He has no idea if what they are charging is fair and whether or not there are better options that may be available to him.

There’s just a world of information that he doesn’t have access to because he doesn’t have the experience and the IT manager took it all away with him.

He wishes there was a way he could access data that compared these vendors and exposed him to the best vendors available at the best price.

6. The correct diagnosis

Fred is worried that he may have to hire new IT staff because he knows that he just can’t continue to manage everything himself. Since the previous IT manager left a void of skills and experience behind him when he left, Fred and the remaining IT staff have tried to do what they can, but it’s just not enough.

Furthermore, whoever else Fred was to hire at such short notice would probably not be as skilled as Fred would need this person to be. He also doesn’t have the time to off headhunting and trying to coax other stellar IT managers away from their current jobs.

Fred needs experienced IT people who are experts in their field - now.

He needs the input that only experience and expertise can provide. Where could he find someone or something like that?

If only he could upgrade the entire IT department and just outsource all his IT requirements to experts. He doesn’t want to have to worry about IT at all anymore.

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