A recent article on Ellen’s The Software Revitalist blog called “Once, Twice, Three Times? SHOOT!” talks about a key problem that companies face every day. I believe that this issue should be #9 on “8 ways to use Technology to be more efficient“ That issue is that in many companies data is keyed in to multiple systems every single day. It maybe that you have a new account form and that data needs to be keyed into your CRM tool for follow-up tracking, into your Accounting system for billing, and into your project management system. This requires someone to re-enter the data into multiple systems just to for you to be able to do business with them. The problem as Ellen states:
This wastes time and money.
So how do you stop this from happening? You need to share the data between systems. That may mean replicating it into the different systems or even better having the data in a central location. This type of solution will provide multiple benefits:
- Single Entry of Data
- Reduced margin for error
- All systems stay up-to-date
Ellen does a great job of describing some of the options for creating this type of solution. This is another important focus point for the Efficient Use of Technology: Decrease Data Maintenance redundancy.
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