It took me several moments to realise that he was most likely on the phone with his insurance company arranging to come and change the tire. Now, the good Samaritan in me felt ashamed that I just drove past, and yet the realist in me started making excuses. The first thing that came to mind was a moment I shared with my grandfather a few years before he passed.
We were also driving on the highway, and we happened to pass a scene where a roadside assistant was helping another young man change his flat. “Kids these days… why do you need to phone somebody just to replace a flat tyre. If it doesn’t come with a screen they don’t know how it works. In our days if we had a flat, you either changed it yourself or you walked 10 kilometres to the nearest garage where they would shame you for not knowing how to fix it”.
Given, things have changed a lot since those days but a lot of what my grandfather said rang true. We gave our baby crib to some of my friends, and when I went to their newly bought house to assemble it, I was shocked to hear that they don’t even own a toolbox or screwdrivers. “But how did you mount the television or hang all your pictures?” I asked astonished. “We phoned a handyman to come and install it”. This frustrated me, surely there are still some things that we can do ourselves and we don’t always need to phone the “expert”. There are some skills that I look forward to teaching my kids – changing a flat tyre, drilling a hole in a wall, and wiring a plug. Please don’t get me wrong, I won’t be changing tyres for a pit crew, nor can I wire an entire house to safety standards… I am no expert by any means. But there are some tasks so simple that with only a little bit of effort, you can’t go wrong.
I then started thinking about how this might be true for more complex modern tasks. A few years ago, building a Customer Relationship Management or Content Management System would have sounded daunting. Businesses would rather buy off-the-shelf software, and then get a developer house to customise the system to suit their needs. However, modern enterprises can now use platforms like SharePoint and Dynamics 365 to build their software solutions with very little experience. Small businesses don’t have to invest in software licenses that rival their annual turnover. With a simple Microsoft D365 license, a bit of patience, a lot of reading, and a strong will to succeed, anybody that understands forms and excel can start to build their bespoke solution. It might not be perfect and far more advanced feature specialised development will be required, but the sandbox environment allows you to try and fail and try again.
For some solutions, there are even white-label applications that a business can modify to suit their needs. It’s like having your vehicle jacked up and wheel nuts already removed. All you have to do is remove the flat and attach the spare.
In a few years, we might look into an office and see a technician installing an “off-the-shelf” CRM. Will we then also be left thinking “Surely they can just build their own CRM?”.