WFM Unfiltered

WFM Vendor Marketing: The Truth Behind the Fluff | Kim Sektnan

• Kim Sektnan • Season 1 • Episode 20

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In this week’s episode of WFM Unfiltered, Irina hosts Kim Sektnan, a seasoned professional in workforce management and tech solutions, to discuss the real truths and challenges behind WFM tools and vendor promises. This episode peels back the glossy layers of marketing fluff that often shroud workforce management technology, and dives into what WFM professionals should really know. From managing small teams with limited resources to navigating vendors that overpromise and underdeliver, Kim brings her invaluable insights to the table, revealing the harsh realities many WFM teams face in their day-to-day work.

Listeners will learn about the 'shrinkage dilemma' that WFM teams struggle to balance daily, as well as the critical issues surrounding outdated technology and Erlang’s limitations. Kim doesn’t shy away from calling out the industry’s overhyped focus on AI as a solution for every issue and explains why more advanced solutions may not always align with what WFM teams truly need. She also discusses why the endless "budget battles" can prevent effective WFM strategy execution and what she believes could make a lasting impact.

Kim goes beyond just discussing tools to share her perspective on the 'Admin vs. Strategy' debate within workforce management. She discusses what WFM professionals can do to make their voices heard in this space, especially when they’re overshadowed by administrators and the limitations of budget. Wrapping up, Kim and Irina examine what WFM professionals should look for when choosing the right tools—and what red flags to avoid.

Whether you're deep into WFM or just starting out, this episode offers a fresh, transparent perspective on the critical role of WFM in modern business, minus the marketing fluff. Tune in and see why workforce management isn’t just about numbers but about making a real impact within an organisation.

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Irina:

Hi everyone welcome to WFM Unfiltered, and I'm your host, Irina, and we're traveling to Milton Keynes, UK. And the guest might be a familiar face for you guys we have done a previous recording. And it was fantastic. I really enjoyed it, but I want to introduce you very quickly to Kim. Kim. Hey, how are you doing?

Kim Sektnan:

I'm doing alright, I'm flustered, got a bit of a migraine, so this is a perfect setting to grump a bit.

Irina:

I love it already. Okay. We are going to be ranting because you chose a topic that's kind of sensitive for me and I can't wait to be honest, but before that we have to do the basics, please introduce yourself.

Kim Sektnan:

Alright is Kevin Seckmann, I was born and raised in Norway, been working in Norway, Sweden, UK, England, sorry, Germany and France. Been working in WFM for, or equivalent to WFM, or WFO if I should be accurate,

Irina:

Hey,

Kim Sektnan:

For the better,

Irina:

I don't know.

Kim Sektnan:

for the better part of 17 years, roughly. Been working with some big brand names. I guess everybody's heard about Teleperformance. I used to be the the person that looked after the real time and worked with, with Collabria back then it was called Teleopti to introduce how real time should work. So been working in the industry for a minute, played with some big players and had a bit of fun. And yeah, nowadays I work in a small water company after I moved to the UK called Affinity Water. I look after a contact center of about 250 to 300 people. I'm the product owner of our all our contact center technology systems. I'm also responsible for their resource and planning or supply and demand, like I like to call it, also the insight and analysis that we do nowadays. So I also have a couple of data analysts that sit underneath me. I've grown a bit since we last spoke, Irina. I got a bit busy.

Irina:

uh, I can, I can absolutely see that, but actually I'm going to park our topic for just a second to say one thing that usually really annoys me and you managed to already annoy me, by the way, and I'm just going to throw it out there.

Kim Sektnan:

good.

Irina:

Because you're underselling the size of your contact center, people usually tend to think that the things are very simple in smaller organizations. And I'm always coming from the perspective, you know what, in a smaller organization, let's say size wise, we tend to do the same processes, the same amount of work. Like you can't not do forecasting. You cannot not do scheduling real time. And typically this is done by the same people, people. Which you have entire teams for in a bigger organization.

Kim Sektnan:

Less resources, more to do.

Irina:

Yes, exactly. So this is also the reason why you're usually the WFM manager, the business analyst manager, the tell me what kind of work there is to be done in the contact center manager. So don't undersell the work that needs to be done in smaller organizations.

Kim Sektnan:

Okay, I'll be nice. I won't. But the fun part about working in what I consider a smaller organization, because we have 1. 4 million customers, we Roughly see about 11, 000 calls a week, there and there abouts. And apart, we have to keep some parts of our industry have to be open 24 hours and they get about 150 to 250 calls a day. So you try and balance that with 21 people. That's always fun.

Irina:

So I would have preferred that you have phrased it like that, to be honest.

Kim Sektnan:

Yeah, fair enough.

Irina:

now that we sorted this one out, we have the topic, the unpleasant for some people topic about WFM vendors. And both you and I have a lot of experience with a lot of different tools from a lot of different capacities in our previous roles. And I would say this one thing off the bat. The Sheer amount of marketing bullshit and fluff that needs going everywhere to promote shitty, unworkable things sometimes is ridiculous and it annoys the heck out of me. And this is also the reason why companies are selling the wrong software to their clients, just because all of the budget is going to, to marketing. And this is the flashy shiny thing that the customers are seeing. So we are here to absolutely make the life of vendors difficult. I'm sorry. I'm always saying this, I'm a WFM or a user before everything else. So I have to be honest, we're not going to be mentioning names, but what we're going to be mentioning is some of the bullshit that's happening with some of the tools, how about that?

Kim Sektnan:

a hundred percent, I have. So just for context, for anybody listening, I've gone through a couple of tendering processes at the minute. And I'm in a very good mood regarding this. It's hasn't been a fun journey to be honest.

Irina:

I feel you again, we need to set the record straight. We do not mention names.

Kim Sektnan:

I won't.

Irina:

That's not the point, but we mentioned real stories and what we have seen from our user experience in the hopes of we can give a little bit of our background and maybe it can be helpful for users and companies that are currently going through the same process or are about to start that journey. So tell me about it. How is it going? Oh my

Kim Sektnan:

a journey. So we to set the scene our current product doesn't we are missing a lot of things. The biggest one being which I think a lot of people struggle with. It's just pure, simple integration and reporting. we are unable to get any data out of our system that is in a readable, functionable, for anybody that's worked inside any data presentation tool, know that you have to use some simple NXI table, or, you want to do a bit of SQL, so let's open up Visual Studio, or in our world, we use we use a data presentation tool called Click. Can integrate to everything, great tool, no issues. But for some reason, I can't get the data out the way I wanted to from our WFM system. So I'm stuck. So I thought, okay, let me go to market. And that's how this journey started. When I won in a half year in, I've been sitting on eight demos. So far I've gone through with two of them to discover, discuss a bit more and to put it mildly, the amount of confusion there is between WFM systems and not only that, but between what is Contact Center and what is Project been Amazing. So I've gotten project WFM tools. I've gotten field WFM tools. I've gotten people reaching out that has like a data analytics tool that all want to sell me a functioning WFM tool. That's, so that's how, that's where I started just to put it in perspective. So I've gone through the journey. So I attend and I'm going to be a cheeky here for anybody in the UK. If you want to go to the call and contact center expo, free go. You can meet vendors. That's the, that's where I started the following year to go, just because I wanted to get a feel for what's out there. And I've now found out that there is roughly. One system I could use that would do the reporting thing that I need to do.

Irina:

God.

Kim Sektnan:

But out of that, but the whole total problem is that they are able to do the one thing I need to replace. But I will then lose a whole other bit of functions. So for example, forecasting would not come as a part of this tool.

Irina:

What?

Kim Sektnan:

Yeah. That's a thing. So apparently they have, they were like they could do default forecasting. And for anybody that does a bit of forecasting methodologies know that you typically just say, do a simple trending forecast like the, I can't remember what it's called now. I should know because I do it on a weekly basis. The word escaped me. I'll remember it in a minute, but anyhow, when you do, they can do like a simple forecast, but any advanced scenario building or anything, nope, doesn't exist.

Irina:

Okay. I'm gonna tell you what I'm hearing, that you're saying. In all of those eight demos that you have attended and a million other messages that you have received from companies trying to sell you WFM2 is Hold on. Hey Kim, we know that finding the right WFM solution can be very difficult and the systems are extremely complicated. This is why we have created these systems, which is the leader software in the market and it's going to provide with every single possible functionality and feature that you would require. Even though we haven't even spoken and we haven't understood your requirements, but we can solve your challenges for the fraction of cost that you would be paying to sum up.

Kim Sektnan:

Best part, I will now contact you every two months moving forward. You forgot that part.

Irina:

Oh my god! Okay, I'll stand corrected. We're joking, but it's actually not funny.

Kim Sektnan:

No, it is the truth. These marketing people will put you on a calling list because they have now got created a lead, like we all know, and because they now know they're talking to the person that has the power to make a change. They will continuously contact you regarding the system, whether you want to hear from them or not.

Irina:

You know what? That isn't even my biggest irritation. My biggest irritation is that And I'm sorry, I don't want to throw shade to, to CSM, sorry, to Account Executive, because they're doing the best that they can under the circumstances in their company. But the reality is that majority of them don't have a WFM background. And the worst part for them, and I actually feel sorry for them, is when they stand up in front of person like you and me, that are also a little bit more savage in the way that we're communicating. And they try to accept that. Explain me how their solution is the best fit, and they cannot answer a single question about them.

Kim Sektnan:

Yeah, you're not wrong. So I asked what type of integration do you have with external tools, cause we have a data analytics tool, we Blackboard. Which is the core bit I want to try and get some of the basics out of, too. But we have a bunch of other integrations as well. Like, how do you communicate with a telephony platform? How do you communicate with any of external software? Or, for example, gamification, or QA tools, etc. How, and it's oh yeah, we have this tool over here we can sell you. Oh, so there's, there's no consideration as to, okay, how do I plug everything in? So I've had a bit of an issue with this. the frustration for me is that when you finally get around to selecting a WFM system, you've gotten around all of these marketing people and I'm sorry, guys, you do a great job, but. Yeah.

Irina:

can't do it. I'm so happy with, and even though I have a marketing degree, I think I absolutely suck. But the language, the, I'm actually envious of how articulate these people are.

Kim Sektnan:

Oh yeah.

Irina:

Snowshade. Good job, guys. But it's the extent of it. When you need to know how something actually is working and tweaking, that's where the conversation gets difficult.

Kim Sektnan:

And every organization is different. We are a water company. Water is I'm not going to talk too much about water because I have a whole rant about water industries, but generally, speaking, they're a bit underfunded. They've always had a bit been in the state of, we have to fix this, then we have to prioritize costs, right? So you don't have a lot of money to play with. So you have to find the best you can get, so you have to be a bit savvy in terms of how to make things work.

Irina:

Mm hmm

Kim Sektnan:

So you kind of have to play with a bit of systems and how to make everything talk to each other, etc. You have to be a bit like, under the hood, figure out how things work. And the supporting documents that come with these things, because you can't rely on the marketing guys to ask you. So you ask, can I get a bit of some sort of documentation? So now you're sitting down with 150 page documentation for the 10th system in a row, trying to figure out, okay, what kind of API connector do you have and what does it look like and how, where does it go? What fields are you looking for? How does this actually communicate with each other? What simple ask from my data team was, what kind of frequency can we get the data out? That, that took me three and a half hours to figure out.

Irina:

Let me translate that. I'm starting to blush. Honestly, I love that conversation because it is a reality. And the thing that usually happens in conversations with vendors is Please tell me the frequency of the data. Sure, you can find it here in our Help Center, and this is the full technical documentation where you need to scroll, as you said, 150 pages in order to understand the single sentence. Because Nobody thinks about it, nobody knows it, it's somewhere lost in translation, but it is the truth that either before or post implementation, the resources are limited, especially if you don't have a support package that you're paying. It's difficult to get any answer that doesn't require you to spend tens of hours looking for it yourself.

Kim Sektnan:

So that's been my reality for the last to eight months is to read documentation, to understand if they, what kind of value they can generate. And, and don't get me wrong, I haven't even got to pre to propose to sale yet. I've gone out to tender to get some ideas. Not even that we can replace a system yet, because it's coming up in next year, so I have a bit of time, so I want to be ahead of the game. So now we come to the whole, okay, you finally have a WFM system, what does it come with? And You raised, has been on my mind for a number of months, but you said something very interesting in a post, I think about six, seven months ago, where you said, is WFM function a admin or a strategic function? And I raised the question in my building actually, cause I was curious what people would say. And got a very, depending on who the audience was. You got a very varied answer. So if I'm talking to the operations manager, the person in charge of my contact center, I'm, I'm absolutely strategic. If I'm talking to the team leaders, I'm admin. I'm talking to the agents, I'm admin. If I'm talking to my boss, I'm admin. If I'm talking to I'm talking to the director, I'm strategic. Nobody can seem to make up their mind, by the way. And that was interesting to me. Cause I said, I need a new system that helps me build a strategy. of them actually believed I was doing strategy. The reason this is relevant for what I was about to say is that I was looking for a tool that could help me do scenario building as a Happens. It's a common fact. We pipe bursts, we get no water for a bunch of people and we need to support them. And it's absolutely serious in the moment and you do need to actually ensure that these people have access to water, some are in a critical situation, etc. In order to make that work, you want to try and build a bit of a scenario to figure out how many people do I need to ensure that all of these customers are, one, communicated to, that there is an incident, two, understand what's going on, where we are, how we can help them and support them, etc. Bit of an outbound campaign to make sure we reach out to the customers. I have done this in Excel for so long now that I'm about to puke and I can't find a single tool that does it for me. Zero.

Irina:

We did a very strategic mistake with picking up the topic. Let me just give a little bit of background to, to the listeners. We picked that topic literally a minute before the recording. And we were on the call and I was trying to figure out how to phrase the topic and we didn't even sync. We didn't discuss what Kim was about to say. And now my concern is that at the second I hit publish on the podcast, you will see what the spam truly looks like because you will be hearing from a lot of vendors that you're not in touch with that will be solving your issue.

Kim Sektnan:

Yeah, probably. But you would imagine that, okay, let's do scenario building, let's move on to shrinkage then. I've asked, I've asked how many people actually understands what shrinkage is, first of all, in my, in my organization. so when I started, there was about four people that answered me. Nowadays it's about 50 cause I've been campaigning. And the fun part about shrinkage is that want to differentiate what shrinkage is so you can budget correctly for it. That's at least a part of my role. I need to make sure that we stay on top of our budget, make sure that we stay in line. We all know this. If you don't do it today, they will, they will definitely ask you at some point when they figure out what you do normally in our world anyhow.

Irina:

Yep. Yep hmm.

Kim Sektnan:

so interestingly, I was trying to set up a shrinkage for the year and for any WFM person knows that, oh, it's between 25 and 45 percent depending on where you are in the world. That's typically where you land. Now I'm closer to 50, but we're going to talk about, not talking about my area. the, the interesting part about this is that I tried to figure out, okay, so what part of my training. It's actually induction on what part of my training is upscaling. It's called the same in my in my telephony system. It's called training. They put themselves in training. Okay, so I can't differentiate on the telephony system. So I need to differentiate in WFM. So then I need to make sure that the adherence is tracking. Correctly versus the training being utilized and then have a shrinkage that pulls that back correctly to me.

Irina:

I

Kim Sektnan:

Two WFM systems did that.

Irina:

am curious now. And I know that we said we're not going to mention names, but I'll definitely circle back up because

Kim Sektnan:

Fine.

Irina:

ears are breaking right now. I think for me, the problem with, because you have what people would say, rather complicated shrinkage scenario, for me, the problem with shrinkage is with a lot of vendors. Some of the vendor consultants don't understand what shrinkage is, so I have been present to a lot of conversations. When I hear the description of shrinkage, I am starting to choke, and get very uncomfortable. And this is how, for me, the issue starts because if you're being trained from someone and let, let's be honest, we're paying vendors shitload of money, especially for training. And for some WFMers, this is the first time they are being introduced to a tool. For some of them, it's the first. Part time that they are in a row, so they don't have much experience. So they're seeing those people, they're paid shitload of money that are telling them shrinkage is your, only your sickness. So that's what, what you insert. And then they are convinced shrinkage is only our sickness. And this is how their process gets. absolutely brutalized, disappears, their numbers are wrong, but at some point you can't even redo the knowledge and it's much better to erase and trade them from, from start because

Kim Sektnan:

Rip it off.

Irina:

Here

Kim Sektnan:

I agree. A hundred percent. And it's a, for anybody that worked inside a system where we know that it does a part of Erlang, so anybody that. If anyone has heard about Erlang will probably go to some sort of contact center helper or some sort of website to dig out an Erlang calculator and use that. people like myself that like to pick things apart, I'd rather look at the math underneath it than the calculator itself as well. We, we all know the weaknesses and the problems with Erlang. I'm not going to go too deep in that one. But the, the problem is that our systems are reliant on the same level of and thinking that is a kind of a difficult model to utilize when you look at scale. you, if you're doing it on day, it's not really a problem, but at scale it fails. So typically I find that most WFMs are also in day. And not really looking at scale. But if you're, but I have to go back to the director and tell them at scale, this is what is happening.

Irina:

I to, to add to this one, and I've been speaking to, to some of my connections recently about it is my issue with a lot of WFM systems is that the only thing that kind of got developed with the tool itself is their marketing strategy. And even they are still saying, okay we are on the market. from 25 years, from 30 years, from 15 years. That's amazing. But if your technology, if the way that you're doing things is like from 25 years ago and nothing has been changed that's not really a benefit for me as a user, because things are for me. Of course, some of the fundamentals are the same, but other than that, a lot has changed.

Kim Sektnan:

I want to put this in perspective because I have a good one for this. So I'm at the moment, I'm sitting inside an advanced AI tool, building up a hundred percent core quality assurance that I'm training in AI to tell me what's going wrong in the contact center. But I can't have a tool that tells me if my shift is right or wrong. What I'm trying to say is that we have not integrated any of the technologies that we put everywhere else into the analytical world. a WFM world. It doesn't feel like we're using AI,

Irina:

Mm

Kim Sektnan:

but we're not using anything that the AI capability can. Can you tell me what is the best time to put training in for the next two months?

Irina:

I can, I have an answer for this one. First of all, depending on which vendor do you ask, because I can guarantee you that of the bat, they are going to tell you, yes, we can, and it's going to suggest you the coverage. Some do, some don't. But, oh my God, don't, don't get me started with the ai, because for me, when we're talking about ai, the way that I'm gonna see AI being very productive is support for my WFM function. So there is something like an assistant popping up and telling me, oh, you know what we believe that here is gonna, you are gonna have issues because historically this is what's been happening. So you might wanna reconsider whatever you're doing. Other than that, AI has just seen us. Our forecasting is gonna get better. Seriously, shut the F up! You have

Kim Sektnan:

forecasting, yeah.

Irina:

You've been selling your tool for the past, I don't know, 30 years, saying how your forecast is the most accurate thing ever, and now you're selling me your tool, saying that AI will make your forecast even better. What the fuck have you been selling?

Kim Sektnan:

And the best part about it is that they've been saying the same thing for 10 years.

Irina:

Yes.

Kim Sektnan:

The marketing hasn't changed, it's actually the same. The only, in my opinion, the only thing that I'm hearing that's different from these vendors is AI, but the AI that they're all talking about cannot do simple marketing. thinking. It cannot do what we want it to do. The areas I really would like in AI to work is based planning, think tank units, back to me information that I'm seeing and hearing. Give me that I need to do my job. Don't tell me how to do my job.

Irina:

You know what? I recently read an article in I don't, I'm not going to mention the resource, but it was from a lot of vendors speaking about next generation WFM tools. And it's the first time, usually I'm trying not to react and I'm letting it slide because I have worked on the background. I'm familiar how this thing works, but next generation WFM tools and seeing how we're going to optimize our schedules we're going to make our forecast more accurate. We're going to provide our agents more flexibility. This stupid message have been consistently the same and what we are expecting from WFM tools to do. So it's not even anything more creative in terms of phrasing it. And I think actually you are exactly the type of person that you're a blessing and a curse. For every WFM vendor, because you can rip them apart. But if you like a tool, you're going to become such an ambassador and you,

Kim Sektnan:

course.

Irina:

you can make a difference for them. And that's really, I don't know. It's really fucking rubbing me the wrong way when, when it starts. Yes, we're going to improve the coverage.

Kim Sektnan:

Watt coverage. Yeah. And, and then it's I, there is some vendors out there that I've, I've worked with a few of them over the years. And some of the vendors really have a passion for this stuff as well, but they have a, what really buggers me is that they have a passion for the code behind it. They have a passion for, Oh, this tool works so seamlessly with the other systems that they can tell me these things. But it still doesn't solve the basic issues that my senior planner that has to sit there and work out training sessions, they have to manually figure out when to do team huddles, when to do one to ones, all of this stuff, because There is nothing that she can use in her current world or not a lot of the tools that are out there would give her the benefit to make sure that she doesn't go above x percent shrinkage of the day or if she doesn't increase the time. Suddenly can give me a red mark to say oh you're at 35. 2 shrinkage today you should not plan anything else in. that's fine. What is my shrinkage? I might have to push more in. a rules based system. So it's either a do or a don't. You don't even get to override it in some of these systems because that has to be done on admin setting. So when I get marketed to, when a lot of them reach out to me, these are the things they're telling me that they can do. And then you go in and you actually spend the time and you read about them. not a lot of them that can do it.

Irina:

But that goes along with credibility and that's exactly my issue when what I have with those marketing messages that we can do everything, especially when I hear this is the right solution for you without even checking your, what do you, what, what do you need for your people, for your business, for your customers? That's when I'm getting the ick. And I literally want to punch my laptop out of my desk. It makes no sense. I think that a lot of companies are talking down on professionals doing the job as if we are stupid, quite frankly, as if we have never done the job. And thank God you have been sent my way to explain to me what shrinkage is. Cheers. Cheers.

Kim Sektnan:

But it's fun though, cause it, what, what, what this reminds me, the reason I use the word fun is because there's no other way to look at it. You can cry, you can feel a bit hopeless, but there's no alternative. I can go to the market, I can find, I don't know actually how many has reached out to me. I don't have a final number, which I did. It is in the 70, 80, 90 somewhere. But, but I have about 8 that I went to final selection with, and 2 that might fit the basic purpose that I'm looking for, and I'm not even looking for advanced stuff. But the, the alternatives here is that there is nothing on the market that I can get that gives me what I need. So they have gotten into a very comfortable place where there is still competition. all doing the same thing. They're all saying the same thing. They're all using the same terminology and all of it does the same thing with a slight twist. have seen no innovation, literally none in this space in, to put it in perspective, something that I was a part, I was working with a vendor a number of years ago, and I'm not going to mention names. But they were implementing a real time property, like real time function. And they were looking at the UI interface of it. So they came to our company because we were literally across doors from them. And they were, we were a vendor. They asked us, what do you think of this? So we helped them look after how it looks. And they are now selling that as a feature, that this is the most advanced thing ever about how it looks and feels. We're now 12 years later or something like that. 13, actually. So they, just to put it in perspective, That's the market, and I don't have anything, I don't have a way to get to tell these guys that I need something better. At this point, I'm better off in Excel.

Irina:

I feel like I need a glass of rosé right now, but I started, because you're right, we better laugh, but the reality is, again, if you are rather junior, or you just don't know what to expect from WFM system, but you've been given plenty of time, Finally, the budget for something can you have been sold that kind of a dream that we're going to make your life easier. And then you understand what kind of a bullshit you have actually paid for. And then you have to go to your contact center manager, operations manager, and say, whoops, I made a mistake, but that's not easy to do.

Kim Sektnan:

No, and then you're wondering why our function is then being called admin instead of strategic. And that's why I went back to this question, it, it, it does state so much the purpose and the view that people have of our team. And if you look at the market, we're both on. people look for contact center technologies. They look for a telephony platform first. And what would we all know? The AI conversations around telephony. I'm not gonna go into that, are a Bolton to that. they like wherever they go, this is the first thing they look at. And then they go, oh, do you have WFO or WFM? Yeah, we do Okay

Irina:

Yes.

Kim Sektnan:

not a WFM first. We can do all of this stuff with your resource. Yet when it comes to the bottom line. My finance team is all over me like there's nobody's business. I am not allowed to go an inch over budget. I have to profile my recruitment down to a tee. I have to stay on top of all of these movers and levers, which we all know is a pain, to make sure that you stay on top of everything. And I'm in a small world. Can you imagine how the big world runs? then, then, if I don't get it right, I literally am in trouble with my finance. By what tool do I have?

Irina:

Yeah, I think overall, if we start going into the root cause of all of it is that the reality is developing something new requires a lot of time, requires a lot of expenses and money and cost, and it's much better to be directed towards that. Big budget to marketing to sell you what you currently have rather than, Oh, you know what, let's actually work on our product. And the fun stuff is that actually, if you go to most of the vendors, they do claim that they're doing so many new things and it is just completely new next generation and so on. And then you open the door and you're like, Is that paint? That's

Kim Sektnan:

I've had that experience. Oh the, the, the new patch was released. This was a patch for my current product. It was patch, I can't remember the number, but it's pretty high up there. And they had a new innovation. They changed the colors and all their schemes. I'm not even joking. That was actually the newest patch. yeah, there, there you go. So I think, I think the bottom line is, at least for me, is that. I, I am starting to learn pretty much the hard way for a second time in probably five years I've been doing this where I've gone to tender, where I'm the lead that actually has to bring these people in, that there isn't anything, there is nothing I can use, so I will go with the best of the worst and that's kind of where I'm at.

Irina:

Okay I'm gonna quote you on this one. I love it. Okay, then let's, let's offer some glimmer of hope for people out there. What can they do in case they need something?

Kim Sektnan:

The truth is, is that there isn't any system that will revolutionize the world. But you can't live without one. So find something that you, that works for you, that you can think of, think of the basics. What is going to take the most amount of time and take that off your table? We all know scheduling takes forever. Get a decent scheduling tool. We all know that forecasting can be a bit of a pain if you have to do it manually. Just get a decent forecaster. If you have those two, least you probably take in hours off your table so you can focus on the other bits that nobody can do it now.

Irina:

Thank you so much for this conversation, Kim. Not only I enjoyed it, but I think it's about time that we start speaking a little bit more openly and honestly, because yeah, there, there are a lot of tools that are very helpful for the circumstances of the client that are right now. My problem is when they're being oversold as the unique thing that sells Everyone's problem and that there, there's no way that you would ever need something else. That's when I'm getting angry, but thank you so much for joining me for this very, very honest conversation about vendors and current reality.

Kim Sektnan:

Thank you.

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Irina Hollatz (Mateeva)

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