Software is for all. They are built in a manner so as to fit in the process of most of the businesses. When you want to use any software to automate the processes of your businesses, many presumptions are made, which, when not achieved, only software gets all the blames. But problem is not always with software, there are many other reasons for the failure like more of expectations, choice of wrong software, implemented complex software while the purpose was small enough which can be handled by simpler version of the software and many more other such things.
Let’s discuss the problem and then their solution.
Your business is experiencing certain challenges and situations which compels you
to go for single or multiple software implementations. We are mentioning few such
situations:
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Expanded business size : Large organizations have large number
of departments and even larger resources to manage. Manual work is of course appreciated
but there are certain limitations of this, like redundancy of work in different
departments, unmanaged flow of responsibility and authority, confusions while performing
functions, etc. So in such a case, manual work is supported by software to inline
the business processes and this tries to make process narrower, not in terms of
growth but in terms of functions.
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When tasks are complex and skillful resources are less: There may
happen that there is scarcity of resources that can perform the complex tasks of
your business. For example, to manage multiple warehouses, an expert person is required
for doing the analysis work and to extract maximum efficiency in inventory management.
If you are unable to find such efficient workforce, software that is developed by
keeping all possible cases in mind, gives you support.
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When business is new and needs learning: While building business,
there are n-number of challenges and you need advices, suggestions and dummy-working
models from where you can learn. Apart from people, software tool can also make
you learn in your novice days of business. For example, software that can provide
you ready-to-print templates in business letters will help you understand the formal
language. Like for another example, tools like google analytics helps you analyze
your online business with more ifs and buts.
There are many more business specific needs, like education needs software for practical
learning of students. But the major issue of discussion is to see that once software
is chosen or implemented, what one should expect from it, so that it should not
be only seen as culprit for failure of process.
Now software is implemented at your business site, what observations are to be made
before or while using it.
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After all, it is human’s creation: Software is designed and
developed by humans only. Those humans are well qualified to write them in some
technical language that is computer understandable and works on computer. Apart
from the technical know-how, it is expected that the functional logic of the software
should be absolutely correct, which is to some extent not possible. There is clear
reason for this. Software developers perfectly know the technical creative stuff,
but they are not aware of the real time scenarios and situations of business for
which they are creating that software. We are not saying that the developers know
nothing about it, but what we are saying is that since they are not part of your
specific business process, they cannot go in-depth while providing functionality
in their software. So, you need to understand that I am using the software for my
business as a helping tool to myself but it cannot completely replace me in handling
all the tasks. Look for important functionalities that can be solved and be happy
in doing the rest which requires your level of precision and skills.
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Do not compare your software needs with others: Your and your neighbor’s
business might fall in same domain. But it is not necessarily true that software
which is fulfilling his business requirements will do the same for your business.
There are reasons for this, it may be that his company has more people who accept
a complete ERP system for their business but when you decide to implement the same
for your business, you face more of retaliation than acceptance. Best way is, consider
your business a separate entity and decide accordingly.
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If it is not giving full functionality, it is not worth using:
A single software, like complete ERP system can provide all the functions
of business on single platform. But the question is do you need all of them? And
even if you need all of the features, next question is, do you need them at same
point of time? If your answer is no, then you cannot reject a software which is
not giving you a feature that is not important for you or that you do not use very
often.
Next time, if you are analyzing worth of specific software, try to analyze it with
above mentioned points. You may get the answer and if all answers are negative,
then change is the only option.
Read our article "How to select small business software" which gives you easy options to
making choice of the software which is most suited to your business.