Transitioning into new technologies is always both a challenging and rewarding period in any organization. From migrating and integrating legacy systems and data, discovering software bugs and hiccups, and training people to get familiarized with new workflows, adopting new ways of working can be a great period of growing pains.
One thing is for sure: the reward once everything is done and settled is worth that short-term struggle.
The Seafair team is well aware of how important it is to keep operations running despite the transition struggles when taking on new work processes, ERPs, and technologies, and here are some tips we can give to help make the change easier and effortless:
Consolidate and streamline all of your data
Just like moving houses, it’s important to pack everything up and consolidate all data when making a big transition as you adopt new technologies. It makes it easier to take into account all the important and necessary information that will be migrated or integrated, ensuring minimal data loss and risk when transferring or copying files.
Making sure everything is filed accordingly and accounted for before the big move will allow you to know where everything is when you put it in its new place. It’s also highly advisable to make a duplicate copy of your files and keep it as a backup when doing major changes like these.
Get your existing platforms ready for integration or migration
If you’re already using existing software, it’s important to get the platform ready for the move as well. Inform the service provider and involve your technical team to ensure that APIs and other necessary connections can be established to secure the transfer. More importantly, understanding how your old platform works will help ensure that the passing of the baton will be smooth as possible.
Start mirroring the automated workflow even before the change
Big changes like these don’t happen overnight, so it’s a great idea to start implementing workflow changes that mimic your future programs and platforms even before the transition happens. What does this look like? It can be in ways such as making sure that all fields and inputs are in the same or a similar format as the next generation, adopting similar workflows to train people in using the same process, or going on a trial period to start identifying similarities and differences between the current and future states.
Don’t let the short-lived growing pains be your hindrance from taking on new platforms and services. Getting through them can mean huge wins for the company - whether it be streamlined operational expenses and fewer errors, better workflows for your team, or future-proofing the company for growth and expansion.
That’s why Seafair makes sure that transitioning into our crew management software and using our manning services is as effortless as possible for our partners. We collaborate with every stakeholder to make the transition as seamless as possible.
If you want to know more about how we can help transition your old crewing platform into Seafair’s own, send us a demo request and we’ll get in touch with you!