This might sound strange coming from someone who works with computers -- sometimes computers just don't belong.
Many business owners decide to get a computer. They don't really have any idea why they chose to get a computer. Sometimes it just seemed like the thing to do. After all, all the other business owners were buying computers.
The problem is that computers can't fix every problem. You might be able to hide the problem for a while with a computer; you might even be able to ignore the problem with a computer; but the problem is still there. Waiting.
Before any company gets a computer, the people in charge need to ask a few simple questions.
Although the questions are simple, the answers, often, are complex. If you have a system that works well, adding a computer will not necessarily make the system better. As an example, let me give you an anectdote:
My wife worked for a department of a US university. I won't say which university and I won't say which department.
The university department (UD) handled large amounts of paperwork. Paperwork is normal in most large organizations. Moving paperwork from place to place is probably among the top three activities at any large university. Adding a computer (or two or three) seems like an ideal way to reduce the workload, freeing up human capital (workers) to do other, more productive things.
The sad ending to the story is that the computers were added, but not used properly. Information comes into the department in a number of formats. It is entered by a worker into one computer, so that it can be printed in a uniform format on another piece of paper. That piece of paper is moved to another office, where the information is typed into a computer, so that it can be printed in a uniform format (different from the first uniform format) onto another piece of paper. I never really did learn how many offices, pieces of paper, and uniform formats the information went through to reach my wife's office. She would take the information from the neatly printed piece of paper, enter that information into, yes, her computer, so that it could be printed in yet another uniform format to yet another piece of paper, so that someone else could mail out a response.
The people involved are not stupid. Most have college degrees. The process is flawed because nobody took the time to ask a few questions. The decision was made to add computers with no thought to getting the computers integrated into the current system and no thought to replacing the current system with a better system.
Alan Cooper, in his book The Inmates are Running the Asylum, talks about "Computer Apologists". Computer Apologists are people who know about computers - they probably work with computers daily. They know about computers and think that computers could work much better if only people would think more like computers. They defend poorly written software as simply being a challenge to learn and to work with.
I think we need a new term, "Process Apologists", to refer to people who defend shoddy processes as simply being the way that things have always been done. These people impede process improvement, and can actually make more work, because people have to learn how to use complex, shoddy software on top of a complex, shoddy process.
I'll stop ranting now.