SMR is by no means a large company. As of this writing we have 10 employees on staff. And yet, we have a lot of data… about our business, our financials, and especially our clients.

Which means we need to store this data somewhere — securely and in a way that allows for quick and easy retrieval as needed.

What we have discovered, however, is that while the concept of “knowledge management” (as all this is called) is easy to understand, making it work efficiently on a daily basis can be a challenge.

In our case, we utilize five principal systems for client-related information:

• ConnectWise PSA. This is how we keep track of client requests and manage client projects (email migration, network upgrades, etc.). It’s an off-the-shelf program that combines both Customer Relationship Management and Enterprise Resource Planning functionality for companies like ours that provide IT-related services.
• IT Glue. This contains all the detailed information about client environments: passwords, network diagrams, programs in use, etc.
• Quickbooks. After creating invoices in ConnectWise, the information is synched here, allowing us to track accounts receivable and other financial performance data.
• Sharepoint. Microsoft’s cloud file storage system. When working with a prospective client, we create a financial model within a spreadsheet and (along with other things) store it here.
• Fellow. This secure, meeting-management app synchs with team calendars and serves as a central place for discussion notes.

As I said, it’s a lot. And I have to confess, we have not solved the data storage problem entirely.

The fact is, no company — of any size — has. There is no perfect solution. It comes down to making smart trade-off decisions based on the specifics of your situation and priorities.

In our experience, two trade-offs are especially worth paying close attention to…

#1. Best of Breed or All-In-One?

Many of the systems we use have overlapping functions. And while there may not be a single vendor that provides everything we need in one place, we could likely reduce the number of products involved by taking greater advantage of this overlap.

For example, we could keep client passwords in ConnectWise instead of IT Glue, reducing our principal systems to just four. But there would be a cost: IT Glue has a very strong auditing system, allowing us to check, by individual, which passwords were viewed, copied, or edited. That’s important from a compliance perspective.

The fact is, different products are inherently stronger in different areas. A best of breed approach gives you the best of all worlds in terms of functionality and/or security.

The downside of best of breed is a reduction in convenience. When you work with five platforms, it takes longer to find things. I’ve been here from the very beginning, and while I know where most things live, I’m not the only one inputting information. Sometimes I need to ask someone else for help finding something.

It also means that when someone new comes onboard, it takes them much longer to get up to speed and use the various systems efficiently. (Hint: the more well-documented your data locations are, the easier this process will be for a new person.)

Sometimes, of course, different platforms are equally capable of storing a given type of data. In that case, I highly recommend agreeing — companywide — on which platform will be used for which purpose. For example, while several of our platforms could house the checklists we keep for clients regarding many of their internal processes, we have agreed to keep them all in IT Glue to avoid any confusion.

#2. Stay the Course or Make a Change?

For most companies (ours among them), as they grow, things change: more staff, more clients, more services. Systems and processes that were once perfectly capable of getting the job done may no longer be up to the task. Plus, new vendors and services come online all the time, offering new capabilities.

But these changes don’t come easily. For many smaller businesses,the bandwidth just isn’t there to place a lot of focus on knowledge management streamlining. There is an understandable bias towards letting things continue as they have until processes either become too inefficient or some type of crisis precipitates a significant change.

Here again, it’s a tradeoff decision between resources spent by working in a less than perfect environment and resources required to implement a change.

Note that if you do decide to clean up and consolidate systems, it’s essential that nothing gets lost in the process. When we converted (many years ago) from spreadsheets to IT Glue for password management, we held onto the spreadsheets for a long time, just in case the migration was incorrect or incomplete.

No Perfect Answer

As with many business challenges, when it comes to data storage and retrieval, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.There are always trade-offs to be considered based on your particular set of circumstances. Further, what makes perfect sense today may no longer apply in the future.