Before spending 25 years in technology leadership, I worked demolition, ran production operations, and built things with my hands. I came to technology the same way most of you built your businesses: by figuring it out.
That background matters because I'm not going to tell you what sounds sophisticated. I'm going to tell you what's true.
I've watched ERP implementations fail because nobody asked the right questions before signing. I've seen companies pay for cybersecurity theater while the real risks went unaddressed.
One manufacturer was being pitched an AI solution to automate a core business process. The vendor was credible, the pitch was compelling, and the owner was ready to sign. I asked three questions about their data quality and process consistency. The answers made it clear that AI wasn't the right tool. Not because AI is wrong in general, but because you cannot layer intelligence on top of broken process and expect it to work. What they actually needed was straightforward automation, no machine learning required.
We implemented an RPA solution instead. It came in at $15K, was operational ahead of schedule, and ran under budget. More importantly, it was owned and managed internally, no ongoing vendor dependency, no licensing treadmill. The AI path would have cost significantly more, relied on external support indefinitely, and produced inconsistent output from the start because the underlying data was never clean enough to feed it.
That's not a story about avoiding a bad vendor. It's a story about asking the right questions before the wrong decision gets made.
I've also helped businesses capture real value from technology when the conditions were right, and I've told plenty of them that they weren't ready yet.
This assessment is built on all of it.
