Understand the problem and you’ll understand the solution.
Ability is Business Management Software. It’s like SAP – “The best-run businesses run SAP” – but for smaller companies. Smaller ‘enterprises’ as they like to say.
A decision about a business management system is not taken easily. It’s going to be costly and it’s going to be disruptive. Whether a new system actually works is another matter – there are many horror stories of solutions that took months to implement and of businesses which were worse off after implementation. Which solution to opt for? Considerations include (1) ease of implementation (2) scalability (3) whether the solution is Microsoft-based and (4) return on investment.
When we interviewed CEOs who had implemented Ability, a theme emerged: success was the very thing getting in the way of them taking their companies further. Bogged down in the day-to-day, they could no longer do the sort of big-picture thinking which had established their companies in the first place.
Jim Collins describes the problem in his book, Good to Great: “Entrepreneurial success is fueled by creativity, imagination, bold moves into uncharted waters, and visionary zeal. As a company grows and becomes more complex, it begins to trip over its own success – too many new people, too many new customers, too many new orders, too many new products.” *
It was like opening a vault or a treasure chest. Here was something which transcended the ever-changing, ever-updating specs of business management solutions. We had revealed the deeper problem that needed solving. We had come across Ability’s big idea.
Ability. Discover ours. Rediscover yours.
* Collins, J. 2001. Good to Great. HarperCollins: 121