Note 016Business Systems1 min read
Custom software or off the shelf? How to decide
When a ready-made product is the right answer, when a system built around your company pays back, and the questions that tell them apart.
Before building anything, the honest question is whether you need to. For many needs a ready-made product is the right answer: it is cheaper to start, and someone else maintains it. For others, bending the business around a product costs more every month than building the right system once.
When off the shelf is right
- The process is standard and works the same in every company
- The product does what you need without workarounds
- Your team is happy to change how they work to fit it
- You need it running this week
When a custom system pays back
- Your process is what makes the business different
- You pay for several products that do not talk to each other
- Staff keep a spreadsheet next to the product to fill its gaps
- You need to own your data and decide how it is used
- The price grows with every user you add
The middle way
It does not have to be all or nothing. A custom system can connect to the products you already use and handle only the part of the work they cannot. Often that is the fastest route to something that fits.
Questions to ask first
- What does the process look like today, step by step?
- Where do mistakes and delays happen?
- Who needs to see what, and who needs to approve what?
- What would it be worth to get that time back?
If most of the answers point to a system of your own, the next step is a description of the process, as our note on outgrowing spreadsheets suggests, and a quote for what it would take.
Follow the studio
The work in these notes, as it is made: pieces off the printers, systems going live.
