Comparisons and boundaries
Can spreadsheets and WhatsApp run a plant's sales operation?
They can, up to a point, and most plants prove it for years. They break when more than a handful of people need the same current version, because a spreadsheet cannot enforce a rule or tell you what somebody forgot.
In short
They can, up to a point, and most plants prove it for years. They break when more than a handful of people need the same current version, because a spreadsheet cannot enforce a rule or tell you what somebody forgot.
Spreadsheets are excellent at calculation and terrible at governance. They cannot require an approval, cannot flag an enquiry nobody called back, and cannot stop two people working from different copies.
The cost is invisible because it never appears as a line item. It shows up as the order that went elsewhere and the batch that was re-run.
If your plant has one salesperson and fifty orders a year, stay with sheets. Past that, the arithmetic changes.
Related questions
System of Marketing & Sales
Put enquiry to dispatch on one governed line.
Tell us how your plant sells today. We'll show you where the line breaks and what it takes to close it.