Knowing what you want is a function of what you know.
If your vision is not broad enough, you can only ask for things and solve problems that you are aware of.
This also means that inexperienced companies are not qualified to lead their own digital transformation journey and need a third party to help them.
The following proverb fits this:
They have heard the bell ring, but do not know where the clapper hangs.
(i.e. he has heard something of the matter, yet the straight, the fine he does not know)
When you start working on your smart factory, you often don’t know enough about the possibilities of digital transformation.
You may have a direction in mind, or know what you especially don’t want, but struggle to grasp the possibilities. As a result, the goal is often vague, or worse: the bar is set too low.
What does “smart industry” or “cloud software” really mean? What systems do you need? How do you recognize a good solution?
The good news is that the learning curve is very steep. And when you get started, you soon get smarter. Very quickly, in fact.
What you want changes at the same rate as your knowledge increases. This is because you now better understand what suits you.
Just because you want something today does not mean you will want it six months from now.
Maybe it will be redundant a year from now, it could be cheaper, or you should have chosen a more comprehensive approach, etc.
To deal with this, you first want to gain a better understanding: build knowledge about the possibilities. Understanding what a digital factory is all about. What are the real best practices, etc.?
Then you can make a realistic plan for short-term and long-term goals and evaluate them. The trick is to document the decisions made so that you can also learn from them.
There is only one way to accelerate the learning process: working with an expert by experience. He can help you avoid pitfalls, remove doubts and give you insight to gain wisdom.
