Leisa Reichelt, on the unusability of internal systems:

“Internal systems are the tools we give our frontline staff, the people who are in charge of the customer experience for the face to face and telephone channels. If you pay attention to people using these systems (either out of general professional interest or because you’re fortunate enough to work with the on a project), you’ll find that notebooks like Joy’s are not uncommon. They’re everywhere.

They are everywhere because the people who bought or made the system didn’t even think about the experience for internal staff. The internal staff who are stuck using it are so far away from the people who bought that expensive crap that they’ll never know how awful it is (or their jobs are in peril so they don’t dare complain).”

I think anyone that has ever worked for a big company knows how bad internal systems can be. Unlike customer facing products (because yes, internal systems are a 'product' too), internal software is not exposed to market competition. Without that competitive pressure, the people high up in an organisation with the power to have these systems improved (incidentally, these 'high-ups' will usually never have to touch the internal systems) will never be interested enough to do just that, and so these crappy internal systems live on much (much, much) longer than they otherwise would.