All business owners, CEOs, and top executives want to use the best software tools for their company. Whether you’re a retail store or a web designer, the right tools make work more efficient and, at times, more fun. A question often gets asked at FocustApps: when you know your chosen business tools aren’t the complete solution, what alternatives are there?
An example we like to use is while a hammer may fit some needs, it can’t do what a screwdriver can do. If you need a real hammer, it’s pretty easy to find a nice one, but software tools are more subjective because the best tool for someone else’s business may not be the best for yours. The bottom line with feature-heavy software tool purchases is you can’t solve every problem with just a box of hammers. Plus, when you purchase and use “off-the-shelf” tools, your business uses the same tools and features as your competitors, which reduces your opportunity to gain a competitive advantage.
Customizing your software tools to precisely fit your needs is an option that most companies should consider. When deciding to build or buy software, key factors can be summarized as how much is the cost versus the capabilities. An example would be the status updates for a customer portal needing integrations. You can maybe find a product available on the market that can fulfill some of those needs. But if you can’t find what you need, should you develop your software or customize your current software? When making a decision, it’s critical to account for not only the total expenditure of resources of building, updating, or buying new software, but how efficient is the software without your total needs being met?
The pros of customizing your own software outweigh the investment. In the end, you own the code, which means that you can even market and sell it for profit. You can also build it to work seamlessly with all the other software in your stack. And, if you find that it lacks features your business needs, you can prioritize adding those features.
When buying software, your business doesn’t need to become utterly dependent on the vendor that developed it. If it doesn’t integrate well with your critical tools or lacks the features you need, we can work with you to get you efficient results. Contact Blake Patterson at 502.907.6593 to learn more.
