All My Systems

All My Systems Increasing customer happiness and improving business insight. We provide Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Data Anlaysis and web design expertise to businesses.

Your normal process is probably fine. It's the exceptions that are running your business.Most processes work fine, right...
28/08/2026

Your normal process is probably fine. It's the exceptions that are running your business.
Most processes work fine, right up until something changes.

A rush job. Something out of stock. A customer who needs it done slightly differently this time.

That's when someone sorts it. A phone call, a note in a spreadsheet, a "just this once".
And it becomes routine because the workaround usually works. So it happens again. And again.

Before long, that's not the exception any more. That's the process. It's just never been written down.

I see this a lot with the businesses I work with. The official version is clean and sensible. The real one lives in a few people's heads and a shared inbox.

Neither version is wrong exactly. But only one of them is true.

So next time something needs "a bit of extra handling", have a proper look at what actually happens. Not the fantasy version, but the real one.

What's the "just this once" that keeps happening in your business?

26/08/2026

I had someone tell me their system was rubbish and needed replacing. Turned out, it wasn't the system.

It happens often; someone's convinced their system's the problem, when really, it's how it's being used.

You go through the whole palaver of moving to a new system, spend the time, spend the money, put everyone through the upheaval, but you land in the same place. Same problems, different login screen.

So before anyone signs off on a system change, I always encourage people to properly understand what they've already got. Talk to the users. Go through the use cases. Really get under the skin of it.

You want to know: why isn't it giving us the functionality we need? What are we doing off system that we should be doing on it? And what's that actually costing us?

That analysis is never wasted, even if you do end up moving systems eventually. It's exactly the groundwork you'd need anyway.

Changing systems is a big ask. Staff time, data migration, cost, inconvenience, the lot. So only do it once you've run your current system properly, in the most optimal way it's capable of, and it's still not working for you.

Your old system might just be fine. Give it a bit of love first and see where you land.

Your next growth idea needs a stop rule before it needs a budget.A few years back, I tried to accelerate our growth befo...
21/08/2026

Your next growth idea needs a stop rule before it needs a budget.

A few years back, I tried to accelerate our growth before we were really ready.

We had more work coming in. Good problem to have. But quoting, handovers and customer updates were still held together by people remembering things.

For a while, it was fine. Then it got busy...

When the market shifts, it is easy to jump at the next idea. More stock. A new service.

Before you spend much, agree:

• What would make us carry on?
• What would make us change it?
• What would make us stop?

Like trying one dish before changing the whole menu.

I believe stopping early is better than keeping a project alive because nobody wants the awkward conversation. What is your stop rule?

19/08/2026

You wanted a Transit van.

Somehow, you’ve ended up looking at a Rolls-Royce.

That’s a classic with systems.

You start with a fairly straightforward problem. Maybe quoting is taking too long, people are checking stock in three places, or invoices are getting held up because someone has to chase the right spreadsheet.

But then the scope starts growing.

Before long, you’re looking at a system built for a business operating across seven countries, with multiple companies and all sorts going on.

It might be a very good system. It just might not be right for you.

And it's expensive. More setup. More training. More things to maintain. More chance that the team just sees it as another job to do.

Avoid this by going back to the original brief. What were you actually trying to fix?

Start there. Get that working. You can always add more later if you really need it.

A system should make the day to day less painful, not turn it into a bigger project.

Your old system might be just fine.Sometimes the problem isn’t in the system. It could be how it’s being used in the fir...
14/08/2026

Your old system might be just fine.

Sometimes the problem isn’t in the system. It could be how it’s being used in the first place.

And you can end up going down a road that takes you to a new system with exactly the same problems.

Before making that decision, spend some time understanding what you’ve already got.

Speak to the users. Go through the use cases. Look at:

-What the system isn’t solving for you
-What people are doing off-system that should be on it
-What those workarounds are costing the business

That analysis is massively helpful either way.

If you do need to change systems, you’ve already built the foundations for doing it properly.

But if you don’t need to change, stick with what you’ve got and give it some love.

Changing systems is a big overhaul. Staff time, data migration, cost and, sometimes, a fair bit of inconvenience.

Make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons.

12/08/2026

Fast growth is often just slow problems arriving all at once.

I’ve fallen into the temptation myself. You see a business quite similar to yours and think, “I could grow mine to that level in that time frame.”

But you’re often wanting things that are beyond where you are as a business at the minute.

When you try to grow too quickly, your systems usually are not mature enough to deal with it. You have not gone through the pain points at each stage, adapted the process, and learned what needs to change.

And you can't really skip those stages.

The people you start with might not be the people you finish with at the next stage either. Their capability might be right for where you are now, but not where the business needs to be later on. That’s not a criticism. It’s just growth.

So always steady progress over rapid growth.

Learn from each stage. Sort the people, process and systems as you go.

In two, three or four years’ time, you will probably be way ahead of where you would have been if you had gone for fast growth plus problems.

You're still running your business at 9pm. Not on a laptop. In your head.Did that order ship? Have we invoiced the big j...
07/08/2026

You're still running your business at 9pm. Not on a laptop. In your head.

Did that order ship? Have we invoiced the big job?What did we quote them in March?

You can’t do a thing about any of it until morning. But you’re carrying it anyway.

People often ask for “one screen” where they can see everything.

One place to look, and you know where things stand.

But it isn’t really about software.

It’s about what you stop having to hold in your head.

What I tend to find is that the person carrying the most is usually the owner or manager.

Everything routes through you.

“Where’s that up to?”

“Have they paid?”

“Who’s dealing with this one?”

So you become the single version of the truth. Which is a horrible place to be, because you can never really switch off.

A simple thing I’d try:

For one week, jot down every question you get asked more than twice a day.

You’ll spot the pattern fast.

Things like:

-Where’s that order up to?
-Have they paid?
-Who’s looking after this customer?
-What did we agree on price?
-Then pick the one you get asked most.

Decide where the honest answer is going to live. Tell the team that’s where they look before they ask you.

You’ve not bought anything or changed a system. You’ve just taken one loop out of your head.

Do that with three questions and hopefully the evenings get quieter.

What’s the question that follows you home?

05/08/2026

A big consultancy will never tell you your project is too small for them.

They can't, really. They've got targets to hit, and so what starts as a straightforward system for five users can quickly turn into something built for thirty.

And here's the thing. If you need a simple system for five users, then you need a simple system for five users. Even if you'll be at six or seven in five years, you're still not going to need something built for thirty plus.

From my experience, it's the same as any other kind of advice. When you want legal help, you don't march straight up to the Big Four. There are sensible levels in between, and you pick the one that fits.

So right-size your supplier. Match them to:
-the size and capability of the system you actually need
-what your team can realistically do with it
-where you'll genuinely be in five years (the real version, not the fantasy one)

Get that right and you tend to find the overscoping just doesn't creep in.

Now, if you're turning over £30, £50, £80 million plus, then yes, the Big Four might be exactly right for you. But be honest about which camp you're in before you sign anything.

Best fit beats biggest name, nearly every time.

So what's held you back before, the worry of going too small, or the pull of a bigger name?

Everyone in the business knew that big order was slipping.Finance found out when the month closed.That's a classic. And ...
31/07/2026

Everyone in the business knew that big order was slipping.

Finance found out when the month closed.

That's a classic. And it's not because your Finance team is bad at forecasting, they're just working off numbers that were already out of date by the time they saw them.

Here's what tends to happen:

The sales pipeline lives in one place. The delivery schedule lives in another. And the two never really talk to each other. So Finance builds a forecast on what sales said would land, not on what delivery actually knows is happening.

Then the order slips. The delivery team saw it coming three weeks ago. Nobody told Finance, because there was no obvious moment to tell them.

And so the month closes short, and everyone's surprised. Except the people who weren't.

So here are a few things that can help, and none of them need new software:

-Get sales and delivery in the same short meeting once a week. Fifteen minutes.
-Agree one shared view of what's actually landing this month, not the hopeful version.
-Let Finance sit in, or at least see the same numbers everyone else does.

It's not glamorous, but one version of the truth, updated weekly, beats a beautiful forecast built on last month's guesses.

The calmest operations I've seen have one thing in common. Finance stops finding things out last.

When was the last time your delivery team and your Finance team looked at the same number in the same week?

29/07/2026

Functionality does not make a system project work. People do.

When you're choosing a supplier, it is easy to get caught up in the tweaks, the bells and whistles, and what the system can do.

But that's only part of it.

You're going to spend a lot of time with these people. On calls. In workshops. Making decisions when the answers are not always obvious.

So, you need to know you can have honest conversations with them.

And they need to know the same about you.

From my experience, the best projects start with a bit of rapport and a willingness on both sides to ask awkward questions early.

Meet more than one person before you commit. See how they listen. See how they challenge things. See whether you would be happy putting them in front of your team.
Because if the right answers do not come out during the workshops, the system will struggle past the post.

Then you end up with blame culture. That is a horrible place to be.

I believe cultural fit matters just as much as functionality.

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