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If I Had A Hammer…

January 14, 2010

If I had a hammer…

No not the song… There is a story that the IT people like to tell, not sure if it is true but I love it so well…sorry Jimmy B.  It goes something like this.

A manufacturing company with a complex assembly line had a machine break down on them.  The machine was critical in the production of their products, yet try as they might to fix it themselves, they just could not keep it running 24×7.  Pridefully, the plant manager didn’t want to admit that his team couldn’t solve the problem, but he knew that soon enough the company’s product yield would be impacted and someone way above his pay grade would notice.  Time to call an expert.

The following week, the expert arrives at the plant.  The plant manager escorted him to the offending machine.  The expert set down his briefcase and began to ask a few questions of the plant manager and the line supervisor.  He then walked around the machine, climbed up the maintenance ladder looking around.  Climbing back down the ladder, he asked the line supervisor if he had a hammer.  The supervisor looked at him sideways and said, “well, uh, yea, I got one.”  So the supervisor went to his toolbox, retrieved a well worn ball-peen hammer and handed it to the expert.  The expert climbed back up the maintenance ladder and leaned over the side of the ladder to reach the broken machine.  He swing the hammer down sharply with a loud “bang”.  Instantly, the machine began to whir, the indicator panel on the side of the machine lit up with all green lights and production was running again!

The plant manager and line supervisor thanked the expert for his help to which the expert replied that he’d send his invoice for services later that week.

The invoice arrived on the plant manager’s desk and when he opened it the invoice contained a single line item for services.

  1. Repair of Machine…………………………………………………………………………………………………….$10,000.00

The plant manager was not happy.  He thought to himself, “How in the world can that guy charge me ten grand for swinging a hammer?”  He immediately called the expert and asked him for a detailed invoice.  The expert told him he’d send out another invoice immediately.  Two days later the invoice arrived.  The plant manager tore open the envelope.  The invoice read:

  1. Use of Hammer………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……….$1.00
  2. Knowing where to strike hammer………………………………………………………………………………$9,999.00

Isn’t this story much like business today when it comes to knowledge? Many companies are now measuring their enterprise data storage in petabytes.   Yet with all that data, they still struggle to answer questions such as—Who’s my most profitable customer? Or, Who’s my most in-need customer? Or, which customer is likely to leave for my competition?  How can I increase my business?  Where should I focus my efforts?  The answers are very likely embedded deep in the data stores of the company but the decision makers can’t get the answers they need, when they need them, how they need them, and how to apply the answers.  And therefore they aren’t getting the knowledge they need.   They have the “hammers” but they aren’t helping.  Enter Business Intelligence.  Sure, BI has been around for a long time, but it’s evolving just as today’s businesses are.   In today’s world, you need more than data.  You need more than information.  What you need is knowledge.  The fluid, meaningful, applicable evolution of data that allows you to “fix your broken machine”.   BI is your answer to unlocking the knowledge you need.

If you’re asking yourself important questions to which you have no answers, might be time to call the expert.

Written by John Gump · Filed Under Technology 

Comments

2 Responses to “If I Had A Hammer…”

  1. Suzanne Lorch on January 16th, 2010 2:17 am

    Nice post, John.

    But now, thanks to you – guess what song is running through my head? aaaghh!

    And probably that of “my brothers and my sisters” … all over this land…

  2. LUCRUM Incorporated on January 21st, 2010 3:55 pm

    Our own @JGump on the diff b/w using a hammer cuz you've got one and using a hammer cuz it's the right tool. http://tinyurl.com/yczdr5z

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