Let's do it by hand

How to simply save a man-month.

Objective: create Google map with all branches

As part of a much bigger web project, a company wanted to create a Google Map with the locations of its two hundred branches.

The locations were stored in a Microsoft system, separated from the web server.

Chosen solution: build a data feed

The technical team decided to build a data feed to the web server which would update every day. This is of course an ideal solution, but ideal solutions are not optimal solutions.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Similarly, when you are an IT professional, you tend to think everything needs to be automated.

Result: a man-month of work

This is a typical example of doing something by automation rather than by hand. It took about a month to implement.

Alternative solution: do it manually

As you know, stores don't change location very often, they don't have legs. And unless you're Starbucks or Burger King, new stores are not added on a daily basis.

It would have been much better to just download the data once and create the map. Could have been done in a day's work.

By choosing to build an automated datafeed the company spend 30.000 euro and lost valuable time.