OperationsAn operations lead at a 30–300 person company

When each department already uses its own tool, I want to choose one everybody shares, so the data stops breaking into pieces that do not join.

Khi mỗi phòng ban đã dùng một công cụ riêng, tôi muốn chọn được thứ cả công ty dùng chung, để dữ liệu thôi bị chia thành nhiều mảnh không nối được.

Job context

Who: An operator asked to standardise tooling
When: When a report needs data from three systems
Trigger: A number disagreeing between two departments with nobody knowing which is right
Situation: The current tools were chosen by the people who lose most from changing
Constraints: Cannot force a department off a tool it has learned

Each department has invested in its own tool
High
The switching cost lands on them while the benefit lands on the company.
Root cause: Buying decisions are made at department level
The shared tool is worse than the specialised one
High
Something for everyone is usually worse for anyone.
Root cause: Departmental needs genuinely differ
Data does not join across systems
High
One customer has three identifiers in three places.
Root cause: No shared identifier was ever agreed
Migration disrupts running work
Medium
There is never a good moment to stop and switch.
Root cause: The work has no natural pause
People drift back to the old tool
Medium
The old tool is still there and still easier for their work.
Root cause: Nobody shuts the old tool off for fear of losing data

A solution is not the same thing as a product — a customer can hire a behaviour or a workaround too.

Standardise on one platform
Product
Solves the joining problem by making every department slightly worse off.
Integrate the systems
Service
Keeps the specialised tools and creates a layer that must be fed forever.
Agree one shared customer identifier
Behaviour
The cheapest effective step, and because it is not a project few people do it.
Export to spreadsheets and join by hand
Workaround
Operators become the integration layer, monthly, by hand.
Let each department keep its tool
Behaviour
The status-quo decision, correct more often than people admit.

The switching cost falls on the department while the benefit of joined data falls on the company.
Why existing solutions fail: Tool budgets sit with departments and data benefits sit with the company, so every locally rational decision leads to a globally wrong outcome.
Potential opportunity: Paying migration costs from a central budget, so the right decision is also the cheap one locally.
Joining data requires a shared identifier, which must be agreed before anyone buys any tool.
Why existing solutions fail: Nobody thinks about a shared identifier when buying the first tool, because there is only one system and nothing to join.
Potential opportunity: Making a shared identifier a purchasing condition, starting with the first tool.