You’re probably blissfully unaware of the impact software has on your day-to-day life. That’s the beauty of well-engineered software – it’s seamless and silently working in the background, making things go more smoothly.
The fact is though, your day today will almost certainly be made better (or worse) by good (or bad) software. We’re driven by software. From your smartphone to your bank, you’re working with software that was created to make your operations easy and faster, as well as more profitable for the business who owns it.
Your business could no doubt do with an increase in profits, stability, or improved functionality. Software can do all these and more. It’s really not a case of if you need software but when!
But how do you know when you need software?
How do you know when it’s time to invest in some off-the-shelf solutions to some very real and suffocating problems or perhaps even your own bespoke business software?
Here are Tom’s three signs that tell you when you need software in your business…
You’re in Excel hell!
Excel has its place, and for many businesses Excel can be a good thing. It can be great for sorting data and reviewing numbers. There’s nothing quite like a good spreadsheet at times.
But…
If you’re running your entire business on a complicated network of spreadsheets then you need to stop!
Spreadsheets are all fun and games until you need to integrate them into other areas of your business or with new systems, people, or software.
When we start working with a business to help them with software integration in their business it’s almost certainly because they’re tried to create a system or a process in Excel. And then, as they’ve grown and developed that system, so did the web of complicated spreadsheets, and then the headaches and problems turned up.
Spreadsheets have a limit. If you’re trying to run the business with them these days, you’ll soon reach those limits.
A piece of software will help you join up all your information and put it into a process that multiple users can use it easily.
Got Excel issues? Replace it with the right software.
You have high debtor days!
Getting paid quickly and automatically will increase your cashflow and improve your business dramatically. Late payments (or forgotten invoices) cost your business and stunt your growth by restricting its ability to buy and invest.
No cash, no improvement, no investment - no progression!
What should happen when you start or complete work is your invoices are raised automatically. Your business systems should automatically raise and chase invoices when they’re due. The whole process should be built into your work, job, or projects. Invoices should be triggered, not given any headspace in anyone’s mind!
When you onboard a client, sell a product, or take on a project, your invoice system and processes behind that system should kick into action without a second thought from your team.
It’s almost a by-product of the work. You start (or finish) and the invoice goes out and gets chased when overdue, giving you a better cashflow and more automated invoice and payment systems.
A piece of software can raise job completion information and invoices seconds after the job’s completed on-site. This reduces the amount of time it takes your business to get paid and boosts your growth ability. You’ll get more cash in the bank and reduce or eradicate forgotten invoicing.
Finding those key business metrics or KPI's is difficult!
How’s business? You’re probably asked that quite a lot. Do you really know?
If you needed those key growth metrics or the predicted sales and targets for the next year, could you get them quickly and effortlessly?
• What about your cost of acquisition?
• What is the average retention of customers per sector?
• What’s the most profitable area of your business?
• Where are the big profits in the future?
• What’s worth investing in and what isn’t?
Have you got easy access to that data?
If you don’t then it’s a big sign that you need some software.
The right software can give you all that data. It can help you to make the right decisions to stay profitable, spot problems, help you assign people and investment to the right places. You’ll have a reliable source to look at when you want to know how to push the business forward.
No ‘gut feelings’ and no ‘finger-in-the-air’ ideas - just solid, correct, live and actionable data!
A piece of software can provide the key business metrics you need for those business development meetings or for your investors, bank manager, or partners and it can do it quickly and effortlessly.
Do you need software in your business?
The answer is most likely “yes”. Or at least you can see that you can make improvements to the current software that you’re using.
Bespoke software that gives you exactly what you want will transform your business. It’s business-changing!
No more guessing, no more lengthy tasks to find the right information, no more late payments, and no more bloated spreadsheets that most of your team don’t even look at.
Will software help your business? When?
We build business-changing software for companies that need to growth and make their processes and systems more reliable and profitable.
Let’s have a chat about how software could change your business for the better. Contact us now.
