As a business have you fallen into systems, processes, and habits that ‘just work’? It’s completely normal for a company to “always do what they’ve always done”.
But over time those systems won’t serve you as well as they did at first. As your business grows, your systems should grow with you and enable that growth rather than slow it down. In many instances we see that the latter is all too common.
Is your legacy software holding you back?
We’re all about changing your business for the better, through software. Are you a business struggling to grow due to an underperforming system or piece of legacy software that’s always been there?
The simple fact is: the world has changed. And it continues to change rapidly. Google changed the web, Facebook changed communication, and Apple (and others) brought them both into our lives 24/7.
Over the last few years we’ve been introduced to the cloud which has revolutionised the way businesses work. Tools like Outlook, G-suite and file sharing on One Drive and Dropbox has enabled businesses to work and collaborate in real-time.
Are your current systems doing this, too? Even if you’ve added these systems to your business, it’s only as fast as the weakest link. If you have a legacy system that simply doesn’t keep up, talk to the other systems, or fails to integrate without a human working on it, then perhaps we should talk about upgrades and/or bespoke software.
It’s normal to be in this situation, it’s just not OK to do nothing about it if you really want to progress.
Put it this way: There’s nothing stopping your closest competitor getting the edge if you don’t.
Old software doesn’t talk to new software
It’s a big problem this one. Years ago, this wasn’t as big an issue as it is now, mainly because there was either just one system or a lack of choice on other systems with the lack of cloud integration.
But now? Now we have so much more choice and more tools and platforms to choose from. Most of these new systems can talk to each other, but where does that leave your legacy system?
In the dark.
Your old system might need double data entry, spreadsheet uploads, data uploads, or more manual input. That leads to mistakes, more cost, a slower process and a fewer competitive advantages.
Some of the companies we’ve worked with have had two or three legacy systems upgraded or linked together and it’s literally changed their business. It’s changed their systems for the better and it’s improved productivity hugely. By enabling them to do business faster and more efficiently profitability can soar.
Getting your systems talking to each other is powerful. Enter the data once and let your software manage the rest and give you the results or actions based on programming, which is based on your processes.
It’s driven by you, but only by decisions made once and by data entered once.
You can’t keep adding sticky tape to it and hoping for the best
Of course you can keep fixing it. Yes, you could add a patch here and a patch there. Yes, it’s cheaper to do this on the face of it. But in the long run this will cost you more.
You can’t keep bolting bits on and expecting your legacy software to keep up.
One of the biggest restraints you’ll find with legacy software and applications have is their inability to talk to your other systems and share data with other applications.
In today’s fast-paced world your data needs to be able to freely exchange across a business so that you and your team can be quick to respond and change.
The result is faster and better informed decisions, onboarding of new clients, data on customers, and a team all working on the same project in real time and without mistakes from double data entry
How do you know when it’s time to migrate?
You probably know by now if you’ve got to this point, but here are a few pointers:
- You’re looking to employ someone to do a job some software could do.
- You enter data into your system twice.
- You’re working from multiple spreadsheets.
- You have a few systems that don’t ‘talk’ to each other.
- Your business takes too long to manage transactions, processes, and everyday actions that you know could be done more quickly.
- Your system doesn’t link with your CRM or email.
- You can’t do something you know you should be able to do.
- You can’t grow without employing more people.
- You have a high rate of errors.
- You don’t have access right now to the right business data to make decisions
Who owns this new software when it’s created?
One thing we get asked a lot when we start talking about creating new software is who owns it. The simple answer is “You do!”.
When the software is completed, the intellectual property rights are transferred to you. There are no ongoing licence fees to use the software
Every project is started from scratch to your bespoke requirements. It’s for you. We don’t use proprietary third party plugins or technology. This means that your software can be maintained by any competent Microsoft trained developer.
We build it to do what you want. You own it.
Your business needs speed, accuracy, and growth to succeed – build it!
It’s a great time to be running and building a business. Just look back 20 years and see how hard it would have been to create and build a business compared to the way business can be done now.
With live and interactive systems, real-time documents, cloud accounting, and computing and cloud-based systems that enable a global company to work on multiple projects and also have bespoke systems running in the background automatically, it’s a wonderful time to be in business.
If you’re working with a legacy system, you’ll be falling behind. No matter how hard you try, you can’t compete with another company who have their systems linked, communicating and working in unison.
Time to upgrade your legacy? Talk to us – we build business-changing software, and we can help change your business for the better.
