One of the key concerns for businesses and institutions in the 21st century is organisation.
Without the right approach to organisation, it becomes difficult for management teams and directors to set a course for success. Instead, businesses are left treading water with no forward progress — or, even worse, moving backwards.
But why is this such a problem? Because organisation underpins all aspects of business.
Walden University cites five main problems faced by modern business owners:
- lack of money;
- lack of time;
- staffing concerns;
- growth and quality trade-offs; and
- poor digital/online marketing.
Time management is, of course, directly linked to organisation.
If a business can improve the organisation of its operations, time management becomes more straightforward — but, in fact, it has an impact in all of these areas.
The Covid-19 pandemic has put the need for organisation in the spotlight once again.
In July 2020, as the worst of the pandemic bit down hard on the Australian economy, 47% of businesses reported revenue decreases, compared to only 16% of businesses reporting revenue growth.
While this disparity has eased somewhat over the last year, the pattern remains the same — more businesses are losing money in Australia, rather than making it.
With such fine margins, businesses need to make sure they are operating at maximum efficiency and effectiveness, which is why organisation is so key to ongoing resilience and agility in the market.
Businesses do not need to go it alone when it comes to getting organised and shoring up their operations for the future.
We live in a digital age, after all, and there are plenty of tools and pieces of technology that we can use to your advantage as we get our businesses in order.
While the manufacturing and entertainment industries have embraced automation, repetitive office tasks in other industries and businesses have been left behind, creating opportunities for businesses to create efficiencies in the race to not only reduce costs, but increase job satisfaction and reduce business risks.
So, should you look for an off-the-shelf piece of software, or is a custom developed software product the best option for you and your business strategy?
How does modern software help with organisation?
Before you start to think about whether to buy a pre-made solution or invest in a custom web application or software piece, you first need to think about what you are trying to achieve with your software-focused strategy. How does this software actually help with organisation?
Read on to uncover the 5 important aspects you need to consider.
End reliance on manual processes
When you are using traditional, manual processes for organisation, you and your business are at risk. Manual processes are slow and inefficient. What’s more, the human brain is well-suited to creative processes, but not to the discrete mathematical operations required for effective organisation. By putting software on the case, you are eliminating this reliance on manual operations and making organisation more effective as a result.
Meet data auditing and storage requirements
Getting organised is not just about making life easier for you and your personnel. Depending on your industry, and on which state or territory you operate in, it may be a regulatory or even legal requirement, too. This is because of data protection and other modern business responsibilities — business owners have to prove that they are protecting sensitive information in an effective manner, leaving an audit trail as and when required. Without proper organisation, this is very difficult to achieve, and you might find yourself falling foul of compliance requirements.
Adopt a data-driven approach to development
With software supporting you, you will find that you have a forward-thinking approach to business development and growth. This is because your software platform can actively gather data, growing your understanding of your business and your operations. While manual organisation requires guesswork and human calculation, software eliminates this, giving you a valuable resource of insight you can use as you plan your future strategies.
Foster a culture of organisation
One of the key advantages of organisation software is that these products make organisation much easier and more straightforward. In turn, this makes it easy for you to build organisation into your company culture and identity. With this achieved, you will have no problems getting organised, and staying organised, in the years to come.
Achieve easy onboarding for your personnel
You need solutions that are not personnel-specific. For example, if you have an employee or group of employees who are fantastic at manual organisation and project management, what happens when these employees leave your business? You would then have to train up a new set of employees, delivering them the skills they need to fulfil the same tasks and roles as the outgoing group — and this is certainly not easy! With software in place, this is not a concern, and you can quickly and easily train new personnel to utilise the software solution.
Custom developed software vs off the shelf
If you and your business can achieve so many advantages from off-the-shelf organisational software, why do you need to bother with custom web software? A custom solution is more expensive after all, so why increase your costs in this way?
It’s all about outcomes. With custom developed software, you stand to achieve much more from your organisational endeavours.
Here’s 4 reasons why:
Custom developed software matches the needs of your business perfectly
Your business has specific needs that may be unique to your industry, or maybe even unique to your company and your teams. When you choose a custom solution, you are benefiting from software that is designed specifically with these needs in mind.
You can tailor custom web software to evolve and scale alongside your company
With custom solutions, you are effectively aligning a solution to your needs, rather than the other way around. This should be an ongoing consideration. In other words, you should be working with a solution that meets your needs not only in the here and now, but that meets future needs when they arise as well. Custom software should be able to easily scale and evolve alongside your organisation.
Software that is developed for your business becomes more proprietary and inherent to your company
Your business needs a software toolkit — a set of solutions that are embedded into the very fabric and identity of your company. If you are simply buying a low-cost, off-the-shelf solution, this is not going to be the case. By investing the time, effort and capital in a custom piece of software, you are building the digital foundation of proprietary solutions that will stand the test of time.
Custom developed software is part of your modernisation and digital transformation strategy
As you look towards digital transformation for your business, you need to be thinking about how you will turn challenges into opportunities. Organisational challenges are great examples here. If your existing manual processes or software is not quite achieving what you want it to, transform it. Make a more efficient approach to organisation one of the key targets of your digital transformation strategy, and revolutionise the way you plan and strategise your business.
Invest in custom organisational solutions, and build a solid foundation for your business
A custom software product fits your business like a glove, and it is well worth the investment of time, capital and effort. What’s more, it should stand the test of time, growing and scaling right beside your business.
Reach out to our team today to discover more about custom software development and what it can mean for your business.
