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This. I work in a small, physical goods business in the Midwest (~30 employees), and the amount of time spent doing data entry is incredible. Documents (often

This. I work in a small, physical goods business in the Midwest (~30 employees), and the amount of time spent doing data entry is incredible. Documents (often PDFs, sometimes excel) flow between buyers, shippers, freight forwarders and internally. These documents are often updated. I'm looking into EDI for a solution, but there's so much value to be created from cutting out all this data entry. At least 1-1.5 full time employee's worth at our size.

dhruvkar 7y ago
And these industries are so far outside the tech bubble, it's two different worlds. Facebook and Co. get a bad rap for many things, which I agree with. But I credit these social platforms in speeding up tech adoption rates for the average person, who can now use this knowledge at their job.
the-dude 7y ago
I read about EDI in the early 80s.
- dhruvkar 7y ago
  Right. It's been around for 30+ years and it's meant to solve this exact problem. However, the cost of training staff and implementation is often out of reach for SMBs, still.
- exhilaration 7y ago
  The largest companies in the world - Amazon, for example - still actively use EDI.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
dsaavy 7y ago
Ah, I dealt with this data entry manual process many times at work. We were able to build a few solutions to remove 80-90% of the human work for these processes. It took a few years to get good at but now I run a business that specializes in this type of stuff.
robocat 7y ago
And how do you find a solution that will last more than a few years, and also handle changes as they occur? Software solutions require ongoing work: ongoing maintenance costs of a customised solution could easily be higher per year than 1 cheap FTE.
- dhruvkar 7y ago
  That's definitely a question to be answered. More than the # of hours involved, it's the error-prone nature of the work and the lag between when the data should be entered vs when it's actually entered. These three factors -- hours saved, errors prevented, time lag avoided -- make me think that it's worth automating. You're right, however, it's not clear cut it's the right way to go.

dhruvkar 7y ago

And these industries are so far outside the tech bubble, it's two different worlds. Facebook and Co. get a bad rap for many things, which I agree with. But I credit these social platforms in speeding up tech adoption rates for the average person, who can now use this knowledge at their job.

the-dude 7y ago

I read about EDI in the early 80s.

dhruvkar 7y ago
Right. It's been around for 30+ years and it's meant to solve this exact problem. However, the cost of training staff and implementation is often out of reach for SMBs, still.
exhilaration 7y ago
The largest companies in the world - Amazon, for example - still actively use EDI.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

dsaavy 7y ago

Ah, I dealt with this data entry manual process many times at work. We were able to build a few solutions to remove 80-90% of the human work for these processes. It took a few years to get good at but now I run a business that specializes in this type of stuff.

robocat 7y ago

And how do you find a solution that will last more than a few years, and also handle changes as they occur? Software solutions require ongoing work: ongoing maintenance costs of a customised solution could easily be higher per year than 1 cheap FTE.

dhruvkar 7y ago
That's definitely a question to be answered. More than the # of hours involved, it's the error-prone nature of the work and the lag between when the data should be entered vs when it's actually entered. These three factors -- hours saved, errors prevented, time lag avoided -- make me think that it's worth automating. You're right, however, it's not clear cut it's the right way to go.