Adviser to the CEO, management team and IT manager
With my long-standing clients, my contact is almost always the CEO and owner. Our conversations are about more than the FileMaker system. The three clients I have had for 26 years are all owner-managed companies, two of them now in the second family generation.
What I contribute
- Business analysis and process mapping
- Decision support for investments and choice of systems
- Competitor analysis and research
- Change management when new ways of working need to take root
- Assessing what actually gains from being automated
- A sounding board when you need to think out loud with someone outside the company
Why breadth beats industry focus
I have built systems for staffing agencies, chimney sweeps, government agencies, publishers, clinics, recycling, events, manufacturing, transport and recruitment. That lets me see patterns quickly.
An example: the structure behind the system of Peter Sotare, a chimney-sweeping company, is the same one I built for KRUS, a Swedish government agency. Where the agency manages a course, the chimney sweep manages a property. Two industries that never meet, with the same underlying structure. A consultant who had only worked in your industry would never have seen that connection.
Why ask a systems developer about business?
Because I see things a board member does not. When I build a system, I have to understand exactly how the work is done: who does what, in what order, with what information, and where it gets stuck. That mapping shows where the money actually disappears.
I have also run companies since I was 18, had employees and come through two crises. When we talk about finances and risk, I know how it feels from your side of the table.
How does it work?
Some clients book a couple of hours when a decision needs to be made. Others use me as a regular sounding board a few times a month.
We always start with a conversation about what you are facing. We decide the format after that.
Peter Watz, FileMaker and business developer since 1989. More than 200 business systems built, three of them in daily use for 26 years.
