So you've survived the first few years in business, you're employing more staff, clients seem to keep coming back for more of your products, you're getting paid and the future looks pretty bright.
A software appraisal is an important look at your systems, more specifically the ‘good old contact database' that your brother-in-law knocked up, the Excel worksheet template that was initially just downloaded from the web to get a few invoices out of the door and the basic ledger system to do the ‘bean counting'. Do they give you what you want in terms of information and integration? Probably not.
If you add into the mix the fact that your management reports may still be manually entered into Excel and that all other areas of the business are a mixture of spreadsheets and various databases, all of a sudden things don't look quite so joined up.
Now take a deep breath and think if this is using your time as efficiently as possible. The answer I guarantee you will be a resounding no. In the same way you review your insurance premiums to check for value for money and scrutinise your utility bills, now is a good time to consider looking into more significant savings and investments and trying to win back some of the most valuable commodity you have: your time.
Having the right IT infrastructure in place has always been important but one of the key areas that is all too often overlooked is establishing whether the software is working as a tool to your business or acting as bottleneck, by making you duplicate data or even re-key information between one programme and another.
Having spent the last 12 years in the accounting and business software sector, I am often still surprised by the lack of time that is actually spent considering the impact of software in a business and the scenario at the start of this article is more typical than unusual. This is by no means a criticism because every business has to start somewhere and very few businesses have the luxury of cash at the outset. The key thing is recognising the need to move onwards and upwards as and when the business requires it.
A few years ago there was only one group of businesses that had any form of integration and this was the large organisations with their in-house IT and project teams. These days, with the advancements of most mainstream software (driven primarily by the advances of Microsoft technologies) it should be, and generally is, possible to fully integrate all areas of your business without too much costly development.
There are always going to be specific business sectors that require specific software but most of the core requirements should be covered out of the box. Things like CRM (customer relationship management), finance, stock/inventory and ordering (both sales and purchase) should all be provided and available within a standard off-the-shelf system without too much extra setup. Likewise there are software options that enable you to run through a performance appraisal, assisting you with your business strategies, both affordable and accessible to the small to medium enterprise.
In addition to the standard software packages becoming more functional and more closely integrated, the majority of most modern SME and mid-range systems also benefit from utilising a server-residing database (also referred to as client/server computing), by far the most popular of these being Microsoft SQL Server.
The benefits of utilising a database like Microsoft SQL Server is that it provides even more capability to communicate between differing software products, with most leading vendors deeming this to be what is as close as possible within the IT sector as ‘industry standard'. In recent months and years the majority of the leading software vendors have identified that a single database approach is the way to go, although it is still worth investigating quite how much pedigree and maturity certain providers are able to demonstrate within such technologies.
I always advise any client to begin with the absolute basics and write down a shopping list of features and functions that you feel you need. Remember to be specific and not just saying ‘I need a good sales ledger', for example. Always make sure that you list all of the ‘pain points' within the current structure; after all this is your business and it's your pain that needs easing.
The next most important selection to make once you've identified your physical requirements is the partner who is going to deliver the system because the actual software is only a single part of the solution. Indeed many of our customers' view, and one I happen to agree strongly with, is that the people you deal with are as important, if not more important, than the actual product that you select and that software is not all about features. It's a people business.
