Like all things, mistakes get made, after all we’re all only human. When it comes to business software however, this is an area you don’t want to make a mistake in since a mistake in buying business software will probably affect the whole company. The problem however lies with the fact that most business men & women aren’t experts in software. Combined with the fact that they tend to have a lot on their plate already, they probably won’t have as much time to spend on deciding what kind of business software to go for. A recipe for disaster? Here are a few things to avoid…
Multiple management systems.
This is a very common issue and it comes about when different parts of a company all use their own management software. For example, sales might have their own management system, different to the people actually doing the work. Then factor in somebody having to then order in materials based on sales and management making decisions based on information from three different sources. It’s easy to see how problems can arise; a better solution to this is to have a single system which everybody uses; this cuts out mistakes due to multiple data sources updated to different levels and means people won’t miss a thing.
The wrong tool for the job
Even with same CRM software, robust systems can be very different after they have been customised to a business. For this reason it’s vitally important to get a system which works alongside your business. There’s several ways to make sure this happens; you could pick a very robust solution and customise it heavily until it works well with your business, this method can be very effective but can be time consuming and therefore costly. You could pick a standalone system designed for your business, this will probably be a cheaper option, but you may lose out on the robustness of other systems and have to cut corners such as having an inability to integrate with other systems. The third option is finding a supplier who deal specifically with your vertical such as
Fashion ERP, who will have a robust system already customised to your vertical, while small changes might still be needed this cuts a lot of the time and money out of starting from scratch. You’ll probably also find that such a company will have significant experience in your industry and have solutions to problems you might not even have thought of.
Mismatched and Irrelevant Data
It’s important to look at the same data when making comparisons, and especially important to keep timescales the same when comparing different parts of data; when one piece of data is a weekly report, and another is monthly, comparing these can cause much unnecessary confusion. This is another typical problem with having multiple systems and is best avoided in business.
So what you need to take away for looking at business software is to find a unified solution which works with your company (not just management, or sales) from a supplier who deals with your vertical where possible. There are many options, so spend as much time as you can afford before making your decision.
