IT Matters Ep. 10: How to Advance Your IT Career, with Scott Finkhouse

[Music] welcome to the it matters podcast where we explore why it matters and matters pertaining to it here's your host Aaron Buck welcome welcome thanks for joining the it matters podcast again I'm your host Aaron Bach with my co-host Keith hockey Keith how you doing I'm fantastic Aaron I've been feeling great today because I've been looking forward to our podcast uh Scott for weeks yeah he's been he's had an impressive resume and in our short conversations leading up it's clear to me he has a lot to add to the I.T industry conversation that is right yeah Keith I'm very excited uh for this one today thank you all for listening if you haven't subscribed join us subscribe on Apple podcast Spotify Stitcher your favorite podcast platform Scott finkows welcome to the show how are you doing today Scott I'm doing good well thanks Keith thanks Aaron appreciate it I'm excited to be yeah yeah we're excited to have you so for those of you who do not know Scott check him out he's the CIO at NN Inc he's based in Grand Rapids Michigan uh Scott is uh he's gonna tell you a little bit more today about how he got where he's at and then we're going to have some some really just dialogue around you know how you advance in I.T some of the challenges along the way some popular conversations and then uh one of the big challenges of balancing budget and risk so Scott why don't you tell the listeners a little bit more about yourself your background personal professional Etc oh um so I guess I'll start personally uh I'm married I have a couple of uh kids a grown uh boys and uh I think that's kind of important because while I was going through my whole I guess getting to this position um was raising my family and and and doing that I think that's uh something that people are gonna go into it have to really think about because I.T is a very demanding um uh area arena uh because I always tell my guys no one has a problem you know in finance at midnight on a Friday that they've got to jump on and work all week all weekend and it does and so you've got to be prepared for that and so um I was fortunate to have a very supportive um wife that was allowed me to do the things I needed to do and go to the places I needed to while still raising my family so I think that's a that's a big thing personally just to understand any job you have to commit to but I do think it's got a lot of Crisis situations that come up in unfortunately that does get in the way sometimes and you have to be prepared for it so uh going back my career is probably 30 some years uh started and I think I'd have to say it to get to where I was where I am today it probably Started With My Father owning a small retail um business uh because I think it's really helped me in in My Philosophy as an I.T person and that is Service uh one thing my dad was very he harped on me and pushed very much educated me at a young age was your customers you have you everyone has a customer at ITE we have all kinds of customers we have internal and we have external customers and how you service those and how you deal with with the you know requests demands issues creating relationships I think relationships are are vital in it uh we we tend to like to think of I.T people as sitting in little room piling away on a keyboard programming something and all of a sudden it shows up on somebody's computer those days may have been when I first started well it kind of was that way right we we kind of just started on computers and you just did it you gave people a screen and they were extremely happy because they weren't having to type the same thing every day and we had a big printer inside that would you know um print out something right so you know that's really changed and again I'm going to go back to the service so when I started went to school got my degree in computer information systems and management wasn't sure what I wanted to do when I came out I went to work for a software company did some sales actually which was really good for me um knew the product how to sell it uh and then also I did a little coding uh move from there on to doing more coding and work for some smaller places that was actually really good for me because I was able to wear a lot of hats um I was able to learn unique things and then then grow on that not have to specialize in one thing uh when I was younger I I did and people probably don't want to like to hear me say this but I jumped a few jobs uh I gave myself two three years to learn a new uh skill set and then uh if where I was working they didn't have the ability for me to learn something new I looked for that and um I was very aggressive uh doing that but one of the things I found um at a young age was no matter what position I was in uh going in and learning and meeting with other departments and other groups finding out really what what were their needs and actually developing a relationship with them um I think is what really helped me figure out where I wanted to go I was good Technically when I was not a good programmer let me just put that out there no one would ever want to hire me to be a programmer again uh but as far as a networking person and and I took great pride in and I thought it was it was just it was a thrill to come in and you can I could connect someplace in another part of the world to where I was and then we could share data and move data uh to me that was that was amazing that was a thrill but you know in working with the other it where I was different again was the going out learning and actually developing relationships with with the other departments finance and and uh sales and operations I spent a lot of time walking our operations floor I still do today I would think most people at our work probably don't even know me as a CIO I I don't go around I don't have a tag on I don't act any differently I still walk the floor with my guys I think it's important if I ask them to in fact I I demand it that you know we don't get to just go work in a in a room and think that we know what's happening down there so um you know so throughout my career I think that's what's really happened and then I got into a a company I worked for them on and off over two different stents for over 20 years started off as just a basic networking guy and I worked all the way up to the global director VP of of the department um that was before I came here to NM and I would I would say the reason I I got that was because I I worked with all the different departments and I really I made a point to learn in in to to be with them find out what they needed so I think that's important and I don't know and I think that's great and so Scott you know we on a previous shows with some of our other guests who have been in it roles and Leadership it's very common for us to hear you know I I was working in a different part of I.T or in

finance or I was doing this and that and so it's it seems to be a theme and so on that topic I guess a question for you is you've held all kinds of different roles uh so two questions for you that I'd love for you to kind of answer and give advice on for our listeners one is you know you you said you went to get a CIS degree basically but you didn't really know what you wanted to do and now you're a CIO did you know that and and how did you find that figure out that you wanted to eventually do that and then the second thing is you know there's a big debate going on right now for kids that are going to college or coming out of high school do they go to college for a you know computer science degree or a data analytics degree or did they go get experience first and with you having all the experience I'm curious to hear your thoughts and and what you tell you know a High School junior who's looking at their options and how they evaluate that well that's a good question so you know I don't think I ever really I don't think I ever really knew I was going to be a CIO um I'm not even sure when I started that I I would have really thought of what that was uh I knew I wanted to fairly quickly I think I I knew I wanted to manage people I I enjoyed building teams um I was very um I was big in sports uh I I excelled in that um I was able to to bring people together and I think you know captain and stuff like that I think people I just thought of a I always thought of people working together towards a common goal you could get so much more done I was never afraid and I'm still not today of having people that are better than me around me um I I go by the old Reagan thing when when he wanted to be president and I'm not gonna get this exactly right I was pretty young but I remember somebody asked you know how how does a spaghetti western star you know B level spaghetti western star how does he think he could be president of the United States He said because I'd hire the smartest people around me and I'd let them do their jobs that always resonated I mean that that that made a lot of sense to me and I don't know if everyone is like that um I'm not threatened by that I think that that's how great teams happen and um so I think it it didn't take me too long to figure out that I I really like the technical side but I really enjoyed being in the the meetings with the management trying to figure out the challenges of where we were and where we needed to go and and what were we missing how did we get that I like I love being you know having a challenge set in front of me and trying to figure it out you know it's a puzzle how do we do it knowing our constraints and figuring out those constraints and there's different ways of doing it too so to me that's the excitement and then as I started going up through and in I think the hardest thing for all technical people and I heard this in a you know I don't know if this is exactly right but I heard in engineers and in it which are technical people in general that 80 of those people fail when they try to get into management and the biggest reason for that is is they can't get rid of they can't lose their the technical side I had that problem uh in fact one of the guys that's working for me now it's his second round with me he worked with me laugh got a better job and and came back when I hired them he uh I asked them to go develop you know create these servers get some stuff going and he went down and he was working in our server room and next thing you know I was next to him and I started working on it with him and he looked at me goes am I doing this or are you doing this and uh I was like Oh I thought you know and he was like well if if you're gonna do it all the time how am I gonna learn and I was like no but I can do it quicker and we had to have this little discussion and I was like okay light bulb you're right if if I'm always doing it you're never going to do it and how do I'm going to build your skill set and it was just I think it was my fear of of losing that technical side and um and you have to be prepared to do that you will not be that technical person I I can't get I don't have the time to now get into the the nuts and bolts and stay up with the the changes that happen so but I think once I got to that point yeah I knew I wanted to go as high as I could I didn't know if it was going to be CIO but I know I wanted to go science I could education I I kind of split on that I think it's a great question we we are very active and then with uh co-ops and we've actually over the last couple of years um since I've been the CIO uh have had three or four different High School co-ops and we we currently have one right now who will be over two years with us we got them before his junior year uh he just knew somebody in our company came in and wasn't sure what he wanted to do uh he liked uh technology like computers but yeah there's geez there's security cyber security there's networking there's programming there's you know uh bi you know business intelligence there's you know there's there's infrastructure in general servers server teams what do you choose uh that's pretty tough so we're real big in bringing people in like that letting them uh do a certain amount of time in one area and then exposing them to several and then finding out what they are gravitating to and and I think that's really important so hey I think education is important depending on what your goals might be if if if you want to get into management uh if you want to go up in that level there are there are the ceilings if you don't have degrees and you can be the the best technical person out there but they will limit your ability to move up I I don't I don't feel that way with the technical people though do you hear so I guess do you think you made a really interesting point and so if you're really Technical and you want to be technical it's going to be tough to to manage and make sure other people are doing like you've said I can't be the one configuring the server I can't be the one taking the call I need someone else to do that but for those that are super technical and there are folks that are very technical people and very skilled do they end up going the path of like a CTO or how does someone that is very technical who wants to stay very technical and keep that knowledge like how do they go into leadership or is there not really a is there not really a path well you know that's a great question yeah I would think uh you know I'm not a CTO um but I I think that would depend on the industry you're in too uh if you're obviously in a technology driven industry we're in manufacturing technology is extremely important to us but we're not we're driven by technology but in different ways I think a CTO maybe I wasn't I took my ciso course this summer and I was in with some people that were very technical at that level and and there was a couple of people that were going to go into ctOS and but they were in technology driven you know organizations or or Industries I could see that possibly because they they would have that but I still think that there would be my guess is there's going to be limitations when you start putting officers or you start talking executive management people they tend to want degrees most of the people I see that that really Excel if they're technically driven is they'll become level three like Cisco Engineers you know high level Windows Engineers those people I mean you can write your you can you can rate your paycheck out of those and and we're all we're all needing them right and they'll work for big service organizations and they'll have to be ready to work for big organizations because they're so gifted that companies my size when I don't have a need for a level three all the time I just I need them every now and then or in certain times but that that's but most of those people are that technical that's what they want to do and I've had a few of them that have come through and they are great but they really just as much as we try to like I said develop relationships and get in front of people you gotta do that they just didn't excel in that but boy put them on a router or put them in that area and low behold yeah now they're working for the you know big cloud-based companies so yeah there's there's great great opportunities there and I guess going back yeah and I I agree I mean I think and by the way I want to caveat we're not saying anything about if you want to be technical don't do that because you can't oh no later I think it's just an interesting phenomenon and we see it all the time you know here at Ocala because you have the the folks that are in the trenches and they're on the help desk and they're they're the the network admins and these guys know technically they're wizards they know they know everything but like you said and what I really appreciate what you said Scott about I really want my people to go walk you guys are manufacturing walk the floor Walk the Line go see Finance you want them to get the experience from The Biz business because that's the way they're going to learn cross-functional in the business what are we actually supporting who are our customers and so I think the ability is what what you're saying is the ability to kind of do that and think kind of above the technical and how we support our end users is the most important thing that you can do it is again because and if you don't understand their job if you can't walk a mile in their shoes again my dad I'm gonna go back to my dad uh I went a little tiny he's a commercial fisherman and um not technical at all there's no technology in that whatsoever uh but you know I thought being his son I was gifted to not have to do certain jobs and he quickly uh corrected me that I mean we had a we had a crew that worked for us and I just thought I didn't have to do certain other things that I thought was below me and and he forced me to do those and he said if you don't know how to do those you can't manage people and expect them to to follow you if you haven't done it before and you don't know what it is what it takes to do that and I and I think that has helped me tremendously through my career even raising my children that way right is understand what you're asking others to do and I think that's the same you can't be a programmer 30 years ago maybe you could be a programmer and get away with that I don't think you should or could do that anymore you have to know um the same even even just networking you have to understand what is it what's happening to the end user walk with them talk with them and the other thing create a relationship with them I can't stress that enough because when someone has a relationship with you if I know you Aaron is Aaron and you Keith is Keith it's a much harder for me not to work with you on a problem than if you're just a nobody to me and I'm angry because face it when most people call a help desk or contact us it's not because things are working great it's because something's not doing what it needs to do and they can't get their jobs done and that's what we have to remember too is that's when people I mean they're there to do a job and our app systems our applications help them when those don't work they're upset because they can't get their job done and if you have a relationship they're much better much more willing to work with you and and walk you through it and I think that it not only helps them it helps us too if that hopefully that makes sense yeah that makes a lot of sense I mean business at its core is relationships and and more and more of the I.T department just as you're looting is turning into much more of a business function than a simple cost center and a technology department you are solving the business problems and often you're making or breaking whether a company is possibly turning at profit or not at the end of the day based on their utilization so yeah we're relationships are becoming more and more important just as you said Switching gears you manage a large manufacturing organization uh from a CIO perspective and we all know manufacturing they don't get to enjoy some of the high profit margins of Business Services organization or a technology company or perhaps a social media company how do you go about managing risk versus investment in the I.T yeah what are some of your strategies I guess do you have a story around that that's that's fascinating to me yeah that's um yeah so I've been in manufacturing now uh for over 20 plus years of my 30 years um third plus years so uh is something I fell in love with because I love the a lot of it's been Automotive but manufacturing is kind of manufacturing and I love the speed and the intensity of it uh that's why I always tell people when they interview be careful because uh Automotive is is pretty pretty rapid Pace but you're absolutely right it's it's a low margin and it happens typically is we what we have to buy to run the machines that they have to use are multi-million dollar machines uh and their plan is to run those for 20 years technology how much how much has technology changed in 20 years a lot so what what I think has happened and when we we talk about a lot in our uh it meetings is the is is what I think is is starting to to come is this this ramming you know this this uh you know coming in two different worlds is where we have to become cyber security aware in operations just needs to run things for a long time because that's how they make money is you you run and utilize the machines for you know 20 years so what we constantly run into is is vendors in in of these big machines don't have they don't have a good path of how to keep things secure either they're making you know what these CNC machines and others will do now is amazing on on that side of it but on the back end on the on the embedded boards it's very old technology so how do we how do we keep that in our environment which we have to you know my meetings with my board isn't about the cool things it is doing right it's like hey well we developed a whole new program this is really cool it's about are we secure how are we doing what we need to because we're all seeing all the cyber security the ransomware issues out there so what are we doing to make ourselves better all right so here's the dichotomy right it is they want to run things forever and we got to be secure um So currently it's a situation we're having right now we have uh tons of machines on our floor and and these these all cost eighty thousand a hundred thousand million dollars half a million dollars a box and they run old operating systems that are unsupported or they're going off the end of life and you talk to the vendor there's no plans to move forward with those well again it goes back to you have to create a good relationship with operations because where do where they've got to make the money we don't we don't make money for the company but boy it sure can lose a lot of money I mean if things happen that go wrong it could be a huge expense so you know there's the old thing is you could take these These Old machines and you could VLAN them off separate them totally from your your you know half of your part of your network but the problem is today is these machines communicate and we get you know we get uh oee you know so the utilization of the machines that stuff's all going to come in well if you separate those so now you're working and I can you know access less control access list well things don't work things get blocked and and operations are spending more time having worked through the boundaries or the barriers you're putting up there because well they're just not secure enough so one of the things that we did is um you know I was put in front of our group is we found a a company that kind of lets us geofence all the machines so it's kind of like your your your your cell phones you can sit right next to somebody and text them which unfortunately a lot of people do right um well that cell phone doesn't just go five feet and talk to that one it goes to a tower and it comes back so everything centralizes in it and it it scrubs that that information so what we found was the ability to take all of our devices without having to put any information any application on or anything else I had it's just it's a straight it's a subnet change where we force it to communicate to with one device everything nothing can talk East and West it's going to talk North and South It ultimately can go east and west after it goes north and south and we scrub the packets so we feel through a very affordable I mean much more affordable solution than if we went back and told them that hey you got to replace 14 of these one devices that we have on our shop floor that range at least around eighty thousand dollars a piece which oh by the way they run Windows 10 Windows 10 is going to be unsupported in a year and a half there's absolutely no plan for those to be upgraded so all right can't afford that right that that's just one location that's millions of dollars well for just tens of thousands of dollars we found a way to geofax those and now we can keep those in our Network and we can only allow it to speak one way and if an engineer has to program it we can allow one device two and it's very graphical very easy for us it doesn't take a tremendous amount of I.T power so that's some of the things that we've we've done is you just have to find I think more inventive ways to be as secure as you can be right there's risk in everything we do there's risk in getting into our car to go to the grocery store there's risk that we will always carry no matter what we do we're just trying to minimize that spin so that's kind of what we're doing you you said what in technology has changed in 20 years well in 2002 I was on my way to go pick up the new Eminem CD that I was going to pop in my anti-skip 45 second CD player Walkman or whatever with my uh with my new over the year uh headphones my my health things have changed which just our personal technology and I I remember five discs uh uh that's where you can rotate it and that was great yeah you had a pool yeah that was side of the road to change a CD because the the Five CD changer was in your trunk yeah you can have it shuffle and you could give you know 80 different songs could play that was great well yeah so technology that was cutting edge uh back then bleeding edge technology and I and I love your story Scott about about how there there's a business problem and there's a security risk to your your in solution your point uh your infrastructure and you can't just go to the board and say oh we need to go spend another uh hundreds of thousands of dollars to to replace these and it's only marginally going to make us more secure yeah you know that's a great story of how you guys had to roll up your sleeves redesign the architecture to solve a business problem that leads me to my my next question and this is something that a lot of cios and and I.T leaders in general are having to do more and more traditionally I think leaders had to interface with the financial officers the CFOs the controllers to get budgets passed but more and more today it leaders are a part of the executive team they are they're they're underneath the CEO and they're having to sell or pitch their ideas of making it changes to an executive Council what are some of the strategies that that you would tell an up-and-coming I.T

leader when he or she is confronted with a board and what are some of the strategies strategies they can do to get their message across and speak the language of the you know the leaders of these different departments like what do they care about how what how do you finesse I'm sure there's a little bit of a science and a little bit of an art but just what are your thoughts around that ah well that's a great question um first off I I think that the that is a change that's happening over the last few years is the the IG the CIO has to have a seat at the big table so much is being asked of us technology is everywhere there's nothing that we do today that unfortunately I don't have some technology to it um so you know with that responsibility you have to have the ability to act and do the things so I think that's the key is is the demanding or the you know if you're going to take that make sure that you have the authority and the ability to enact and make change that needs to be done so what is how do you how do you discuss with a board I know how I did it um so when I had to talk to our board they really they really didn't know where we sat it uh we had a big we had a big changeover we had a CEO and some other people we had a big you know flip and then I became the CIO with that flip and um I was the first CIO in several years our company that actually spoke to the to the board directly so I speak to them every quarter I think the first thing what for me it was very important was to it and I said this to our cios when I first came in and before I became that is they said well what do you think I'm failing I said well I think the biggest fan you have is you're not understanding your customer and that would be the the EVP of operations your CEO what do they need what are they hearing go to the sites understand that so when I became the CIO and I reported to the CEO I'm lucky is is we have a very good relationship my uh I do with our CEO and I asked some point blank I mean what what do you want to hear from me what do you I know what I want to say but what do you what do they know what do they think and he said well first off you got to be you and I think that's the first thing is you've got to be you and we know what we know what's wrong the thing is is they didn't know it so first set a standard and when you meet with them the first time honesty is the key do not I don't sugarcoat a lot um I do think I made my board hyperventilate a little bit the first time I met with them um where we really were but I had to set expectations we you gotta set you've got to create a standard where are you today and then you know this is where we are and how are we going to get in where do we want to be we want to get to this level up here and then I it you know what I was able to do was to set that and then very part of my first meeting was this is what we're going to do next this is what we're going to do next and then I know I'm going to meet with you every quarter I'm gonna you know give you an update on that and tell you where we're gonna go from there so and I can tell you right now boards are scared to death while cyber security it's just that was my key I really focused on on the security of our company where we weren't and where we were going to be and how we were going to get there and what it was going to take and um I told him if you gave me this budget and we were able to do this um we would get here in the next few years and I think we're right on on track with that we've had our ups and downs uh and again but be honest about it um I will sit in two weeks with our board and I'm going to tell them that we missed on a couple of things we're off we're off by another quarter what we thought we're gonna get done this year we're not gonna get done by until the first quarter of next year because there were more things that we didn't know when we got into some application systems that we had to work through but maybe I'm lucky in that sense what my board is is we've gotten a good relationship they've got my number they can call me directly and ask me any question and I'll answer it to the best of my ability so I I think it's really a great point though to to be honest because if you don't it's not gonna help you it's only going to make your job harder I I remember I I used to have to audit you know Fortune 500 companies and I remember there was a great CIO that I I used to get to go to the steering committees and I remember there was this one steering committee pretty much every project they had was behind schedule and he knew it but we showed up and we were watching them each each kind of project owner present and they were using the green yellow red or whatever and everything was green but one project was yellow and it was like after they all got done 55 minutes of presenting he said we're gonna meet again tomorrow this time clear your calendars every single one of our projects is off Pace but you guys just presented everything as green so and and he knew like the only way to change that organization was to be honest about the progress so that they could figure out where do we focus because they he was he kind of came in and said we don't focus on anything we just focus on reporting good results so I think it's great um so I think it's definitely important for you to be honest upward but I think what you have to be able to do is she the the people that report to you you've got to allow them to to fail I mean unless no one gets no one achieves levels if they're reporting directly to me they've they've they've already achieved certain levels they've already done things no one's gotten there by failing their whole life I mean it just isn't right but we all fail at some point throughout the day I mean there's there's whatever right I might maybe I fail in getting enough steps in for the day but there's you've got to allow and you've you've got to you can't put a you can't have an environment where your people are so scared to fail because that is failure in itself and I know we talk about people have talked about that in the past I've heard that too but I I would think anybody that if you talk to anybody that works for me we have heart-to-hearts I mean I hope people accountable and I you know just because other people are held to this level doesn't mean that we're not I don't buy into that um I don't do that in life and I don't do that in work I mean there's a standard that we're going to do but sometimes things happen and you just in in with everything you can put into it you just can't get it done in a time frame or something happened and it was not what you expected but you have to allow that in in and learn from that my biggest thing is that's okay you know we don't work to fail but we better learn from it what I what I don't except for my my group is is failing on the same thing over and over and over if you don't learn that's a problem but you know sometimes in Failure there's a lot of growth and learning but again not that you try to fail but it does happen just be honest about it and learn from it but allow people to do what they're supposed to do and it will happen once in a while but that's okay and when you bringing the conversation all the way back to the beginning like earlier you said you know I if I do the if I do do the job versus lead the person who's supposed to do the job they're going to continue to fail by you helping them and not letting them succeed and so I think one of the challenges is you want people to fail and fail fast but my point is basically in short that like you have to let people fail and then it's like you said you have to coach and help them understand what did you do wrong so they don't get it wrong again and then you know to Keith's question and what you answered about you know showing where are we honestly at I imagine the other thing is is that not only it's saying where are we honestly at but here's the road map here's the plan for how we're going to get better and if you if you have that you can say this is how we're going to do it if you don't have the plan I think that's where people start to question right but you've got to have a strategy in a plan of where where are we going to be in 24 because we're at 22 right now we're already my group we're already playing in 24 and 25 where are we going to be and then the next round is going to be 27 when the next round of operating Windows operating systems become unsupported right so where are you going to be before that right don't you can't wait till 26-27 to do that you got to get ahead of it because when you have we have hundreds and hundreds of servers and I have like thousands of applications if you wait until that wall is right there in front of you they're you're already in trouble and and I think that's the big key yeah and and I would say well I I 100 agree so I guess uh going back Scott you know you mentioned I love men you said I love manufacturing because of the pace because of you know what you're what you're making something out of nothing and it's a really cool industry it isn't it is a competitive industry it's a sometimes low margin industry I'm curious to hear your thoughts on manufacturing as a whole and I know there's tons of different manufacturing what are some of the trends in it specifically for manufacturing that you think that we're going to be talking about in the next three five ten years that you're paying attention to well I think uh obviously foremost is is cyber security um because of of our industry um I mean if you if you're a colonial pipeline if you take a lot of these manufacturers one of these you're going to find to say they run old Erp systems because they have they run them for 25 years and they do exactly what they need I think we're going to see and this has been a big push in our company is to it it manufacturers love to repeat do the same thing over right they just do a better better well that's not I.T that's not technology technology reinvents itself all the time and one of the things that I had to work with people on the shop floor is updating old applications we we have a lot of internal so we've had to rewrite them and they're like but it's changed I don't like the change so change management is a huge thing especially for people that that's what they do they they they're wonderful they're just amazing at how they they run a machine and they only change so I just brought up my iPhone and I'm like guys you guys have these these change all the time and so it's it's creating that relationship explaining to them because you can you can always tell the executive team you guys tell management where you're going you really the thing that that even myself we still have to work on is that communication down to the actual end user and letting them know ahead of time what's coming and why we're doing it this is what we're doing this is where we're achieving and oh by the way we're going to make changes that next month may seem worse for you and because sometimes we're going to take a step back we have to we're taking a step back it'll seem like oh my gosh this is the dumbest thing in the world but then all of a sudden the next three steps will come real fast and you'll see it and um so I think that's a huge thing is to to get ahead and to try to figure out and work with your operations in your your different facilities Manufacturing in General on how can we become as secure as we can reduce our footprint and and be where we are and then I think the next is we love to gather data manufacturing manufacturing just love sticking around give me all this data and then we have this huge amount of sitting there and this person does this with it and this person does this with an Excel files run everywhere because everybody loves Excel I think the next thing and I think we're already in that Revolution but we're really getting into it is is the bi is actually you know getting you know etls out there that we can pick and pull data because we have so many different types of machines and and in storage how do we get that and and put it into one I'm a huge person into standardization I.T we're we're going back to a centralized I.T

environment we've we have 27 different manufacturing facilities globally and when I got here we had over 50 um and every one of them the goal before I was prior to me was every one of them would have their own little I.T you know server room all right shut that down and said no uh we're pulling it all back because I can't change 50 different locations and keep them where they should be I can change one and have those people come in so you know it's almost it's almost like what was old is coming back again is you know the the old Mainframe we're not running mainframes but the the old thought is one to many well I've kind of I I believe in that it works for us in our environment I'm not saying it does for everyone but if we can change so we have thousands of of satellite stations on the shop floor so they can do you know real-time ship production logs so they can you know tell them what we're producing scrap and everything else if we change if everyone had their own which they did when I first got here uh how old do you think yeah how old it is for everything and how how could you keep things updated so now we run it off one central line yes there's there's negatives to that but the positive is I can make an update and I can push it out to thousands of different you know end users globally in minutes and it doesn't take a staff of a hundred I can one person can do it and I think that it's it's you've got to do more with less is what I was told a long time ago by a guy is you know you gotta you gotta learn how to do more with less because just because we had another location doesn't mean I get to add three more it people it just doesn't work that way so how do you learn to do more with less that's that's I think we're I think that's where it is going or or Manufacturing in general with it that is yeah that's that's a great statement it's it's amazing to see that the cycles that the IT industry goes through it's it's always cyclical the Diversified uh now moving back into more of a a centralized environment that's serving you well and your organization Scott uh and we're working up on time here in closing we we love to ask a question to everyone that joins our uh podcast in closing here so I'm going to paint the the scenario for you Scott everywhere around the world everyone's device television set digital billboard everything goes black and then what appears is Scott think think houses space what message about technology would you say if you had the chance to everyone around the world oh about technology that's a great question and I'm not sure everybody's gonna like to see it in my face but uh you know it's funny because being in technology I think that we've got to be right now we have got to to figure some things out the the the youth right now talks about light you know work-life balance it's really important to them I think we need to get to a technology balance in our world and and I do technology right we all do it's it's amazing you you sit down and you everybody's on their phone I think that if we're not careful we're going to lose the ability to communicate the way we should and it goes back to where I make my people walk the floor you've got to talk to people that you know there's even covet we all learn how to work remotely I'm working remotely most of the time too but there's still nothing quite like being in a room with people seeing body language and and you can get a lot off from that so I think what we've got to be careful of today is it's very easy to buy everything online and shipped right to your door you open your door up you grab it you can go and get gas you never have to see anybody right you put your card in you get gas off well I do that too but at some point we're going to lose ourselves in that is is the small communities the small how do you you know to day if you buy a lawnmower online it ships to your house if that lawnmower doesn't work tomorrow how does that get fixed and and I think I think that we're you know technology is wonderful but we're gonna have to be careful that it's not so much of our Lives we don't know how to do the rest again coming back from my dad my father had a small little you know store and he did but you know if if you could just do that online he wouldn't have had that and the interactions that people would have had and to be able to do what we did and I just think that that's something we've got to be very careful of is just not losing the ability to to do the communication 101 face-to-face really understanding people because that's how you do it and then not losing just our our small businesses I think our small businesses are probably you know we're on a cusp right now or the small model pops will they survive or will everything just be digital and then if everything's digital where do you go if something's wrong with that so I I don't know if that answers your question but that's I I think we got to get a balance in the technology world I actually hope that uh Keith's scenario comes true in that you do pop up on everyone's screen all around the world because I think I think it's a great message I do think that technology was made to help us do our jobs better not do our jobs for us and not do life for us and I think you're right we are in a in a place where everyone is so dependent on Tech like do we know how to do things on our own so I I actually kind of hope this scenario happens I hope it doesn't happen often or I hope it doesn't happen yeah I hope it doesn't as the world ends but I hope it happens kind of but every morning we wake up to Scott pink house yeah I think that we would have to talk to a lot of psychological people on how there'd be some issues I think yeah probably so that's yeah we probably couldn't take over but yeah Scott thank you for joining the show I know that this is this has been a great show our listeners will get a lot out of this I guess in in closing what's the easiest way to get in touch with you if someone listening has a question for you well I'm always uh I'm on LinkedIn so if you ever want to connect I I love connecting and communicating with people and you know if you uh you know my email my email address is uh Scott thinkout scott.finkhouseink.com yeah I'd love to communicate with anybody I love mentoring younger people like I said building teams I've had uh I think a lot of success for people that have worked with me and moved on to to better positions and I'm very proud of that never fun to lose people but I didn't I didn't I always tell everybody I didn't start with NN at this position so I don't expect everybody else to do that and I wish them the best of luck so yeah well I thought you you had a lot of great advice and so we're excited uh we'll put some of this in the show notes um for those listeners out there thank you for always joining us and loyally listening to our show if you have any suggestions for us email us find us on LinkedIn or check us out online and subscribe on your uh your favorite podcast station thanks for joining have a great day and we'll talk to everyone soon thank you thanks for listening the it matters podcast is produced by akala an I.T advisory firm that helps businesses navigate the vast and complex it Marketplace learn more about abcala at opk-a-l-l-a.com [Music]

2023-05-12 09:31

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