Business System Consultation Center - Our Business System ColumnVol.177 2026.07.01 高橋実

Only Those Who Can Evaluate the Results Have the Right to Delegate Everything

Thank you for your interest and continued support.
This is Takahashi from the Marketing Plan Research Laboratory.

"I don't really understand systems, so I'll leave it all up to you."

Working in the IT industry, I occasionally hear these words from business owners. This is what's known as "marinage" — handing everything off entirely to someone else.

"Delegating everything" tends to come up in a negative context, but the practice itself isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, you go to an expert for expert work. However, there is one key rule: only those who can evaluate the outcome have the right to delegate everything. This is the secret to success — or more precisely, the secret to avoiding failure.

When someone with no knowledge of day-to-day operations places an order, the result is often a system that nobody uses. Workloads increase, yet the job doesn't actually get any better. Monthly running costs keep coming in regardless. And to make matters worse, nobody speaks up about any of this. The principle stated in the title of this column is what helps you avoid exactly these kinds of failures.

As a company grows and continues to operate over the years, it's natural for the owner to lose sight of the finer details on the ground. In fact, being able to run a company that way is a sign of management success.

The problem arises when owners try to apply that same "sign of success" directly to ordering IT systems. When it comes to deciding what to do with a system, there's simply no way to define requirements without understanding what actually happens on the ground. So while it's understandable that owners end up delegating everything, in that case they need to be prepared to accept a degree of risk when it comes to the results.

So what should an owner who isn't close to day-to-day operations actually do? There is one approach worth considering: change the *direction* of the delegation.

If an owner who doesn't know the operational details wants to delegate an IT development project entirely, rather than handing everything straight to an outside vendor, it's better to specifically assign a hands-on employee — someone who truly understands the day-to-day struggles — and entrust nearly all of the decision-making to them. Then tell that employee: "I'm putting you in charge. Feel free to delegate to the vendor, and I need you to evaluate the results."

Is the screen easy to use without causing mistakes? Is the volume of data entry realistic? Will those reports and summaries genuinely improve how things work on the ground? These are judgments that can only be made instinctively by the people doing the work — not by the owner.

Of course, there will be certain non-negotiable points from the owner's perspective. Share those upfront, and offer to review progress along the way. That's really all you need to communicate. Leave the remaining details to the people on the ground who are best placed to evaluate the outcome. For an owner who isn't close to operations, this is the form of full delegation that carries the least risk.

That said, this approach does have its drawbacks.

When you put an employee in charge of building a system, it can sometimes drag on without ever being completed. The team might decide they're "too busy to deal with it," conclude that "we don't need this yet," or determine that "we'll never be able to use a system like this properly." They may end up making only minor tweaks to existing workflows and calling it a day.

This may feel frustrating from the owner's perspective — but that's actually fine. The very fact that the project didn't get finished is itself evidence that "the team isn't ready for a system yet" or "this isn't the right time to implement one." Even if there are some costs involved, it's still better than purchasing a system that ends up sitting unused. Think of it as the cost of research.

I hope the above serves as a useful reference when ordering or selecting IT systems.

That's all, Thank you for reading.

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