Clear signs you need to engage expert custom software developers

Custom software developers for SME.

You know your business is running on outdated technology and needs to change to remain competitive and satisfy customers. Perhaps your employee productivity is being compromised by tedious manual tasks and lack of collaboration. Here we highlight some of the ways custom software developers can help your business transform and thrive?

If you’re a small to medium business owner, the speed at which technology is advancing and changing can make it hard to compete with the bigger players, or stay ahead of new competitors in your niche who offer the latest tech. The level of demand from customers to support new touch-points, features and personalised service makes it extremely hard for SME’s to keep up when time, resources and budget are already at capacity.

Perhaps you need a way to bring a fresh idea into play or your time and focus is better spent on what you do best.  Bringing in the experts can be a safer, more cost-effective approach to taking your business to the next level. Professional custom software developers bring technical knowledge and skills to analyse, plan and implement valuable, high-impact changes to your business operations much faster.

Many businesses manage to get by for some time putting out small fires by increasing workloads, employing additional staff or by making changes in operations. Reactive responses to operational issues tend to suffice for the short term but only make minimal impact to specific areas rather than across the business as a whole. This putting-out-fires approach to managing business operations can be costly, stressful and unrewarding. As time quickly goes by, it gets to a point where signs of stress and clear inefficiencies begin to show on a regular basis and can no longer be ignored. These inefficiencies can have a negative impact on the company’s reputation both internally and externally. Employees, customers and management become frustrated and dissatisfied.

So what are some of the tell-tale signs to look out for? Indicators that your business could benefit from engaging expert custom software developers.

Signal #1

You can’t keep up

Technology is leaving you behind. Despite all your hard work and additional pressure placed on existing resources, your current software is still slowing you down. You’re using multiple systems and databases daily. You’re looking for a way to make data management more efficient and less vulnerable to security risks and errors.

Costly off-the-shelf software your business invested in is not delivering what it said it would, or doesn’t provide the flexibility to deliver features your business specifically needs. If your current business processes need streamlining and you’re not sure how to resolve issues with existing software, it may be time to investigate a custom solution.

Signal #2

Endless manual processes robbing time

You’re tired of spreadsheets. Data entry is becoming too time-consuming and costly to your bottom-line.

Your business is overwhelmed by a lot of outdated, manual processes, some of which still require cumbersome, environmentally unfriendly paperwork. Systems are not unified, are inefficient and could benefit from a centralised digital platform. Consider the gains to your business if your time could be better spent on customer service, planning and growth, and less on operations.

How often and how quickly can you access accurate business insights to track performance, plan ahead and avoid pitfalls? Consider the value of better tracking and reporting options to your business growth. Would you benefit from data insights delivered in real-time rather than collecting, monitoring, analyzing, and reporting data manually every time? Custom software development can cut manual labour costs, save processing time and provide greater control by automating tedious, menial tasks.

Signal #3

Regular reoccurring issues

A critical issue regularly disrupts your business causing ‘all-hands-on-deck’ or ‘drop-everything-else moments’ to resolve the immediate problem. You are constantly applying band-aid solutions to just get through with resources available to you. Is disorganisation causing leadership and staff to feel as though they are losing control and not able to perform at their best?  Engaging custom software developers gives you control to build unique offerings while still maintaining ownership of your investment.

Do you store, process or transmit card data and need to be PCI DSS compliant? Looking to confidently protect personal data and financial information? To avoid any doubts, experienced custom software developers can provide solutions to your critical security needs faster. Experienced developers with intimate knowledge of security compliance procedures can analyse your compliance level then make sure essential security information and accurate reporting is submitted for successful and appropriate certification. Outsourcing custom software development can help alleviate your stress and save you time, while you focus on your core business.

Signal #4

Not reaching your customers

Are you finding it’s getting harder to keep up with customers and manage their expectations?  Endless email enquiries stacking up in your inbox – causing stress to you and dissatisfaction to your customers?

Customers are spending more time on their smartphones, expect more ways to engage, and faster responses. Consider how automated email responses, SMS notifications or a mobile app offering added value and useful self-serve features might impact and delight your customers. An expert custom software developer can help identify, plan, architect and implement technology and user experiences to address deteriorating customer satisfaction.

Offer your team new digital tools to manage customer information and collaborate in real-time. Integrate systems to offer greater transparency enabling you to provide better customer support and social engagement. Custom software developers can create a  simple, frictionless and scalable solution to manage, connect and improve customer relations.

Proactive, open and responsive communications help strengthen brand satisfaction and drive loyalty. A digital experience also gives you the power to store and analyse user data. Valuable customer data can be tracked and reports analysed to further improve business procedures or deliver targeted, unique offerings that drive growth and savings for your business.

Signal #5

Your business is changing

It’s time to go digital and paperless! Manual data-entry, paper receipts and reports are a burden and environmentally unfriendly.  Your business has a new product or strategy that cannot be supported by your existing software. Perhaps you would like to disrupt your industry or challenge competitors with an innovative new feature.

Custom software development addresses and solves unique business requirements that off-the-shelf software can’t.  Experienced custom software developers have the skills to cost effectively tailor a scaleable software platform. They will help you plan for the future by making sure your technology investment supports your business vision to expand or move in a different direction. Bypass time and money spent on lengthy internal procedures and approvals to get individual features developed.  Outsourcing can make it faster to depoly the most valuable features for immediate impact to your business.

The benefits of outsourcing software development.

• Reduce fixed costs
• Speed up / scale your development team’s capabilities fast
• You’re not a development or technology company, outsourcing allows you to focus on your core business while highly skilled software developers take care of the technical stuff
• Gain a clear understanding of technical objectives and limitations. Your software development partner can translate technical specifications into language you can relate to.
• Get features and solutions tailored to your specific business requirements
• Avoid the cost of ongoing licenses
• Security reassurance – minimise the risk of payment fraud and protect your important data from hackers.

Use Cases:

Automate invoice processing. Importing invoices into a database provides better, faster reporting and greater business insights.

Send automatic emails based on customer / user behaviour. Automation saves time and offers a personalised, more satisfying experience.

Simplify complicated workflows. Speed-up time-consuming processes. Streamlined processes increase productivity, reduce cost and improve ROI.

Automate inventory management. Get real–time visibility and increase accuracy. See your business working, as it happens.

Robust integration with other systems. A platform approach to software enables better engagement, recording and reporting to help make better business decisions.

Conclusion

Technology is constantly changing fast and it is changing the way businesses operate to meet customer expectations. More and more customers are demanding more accessible, personalised and faster service. To stay competitive your business needs reliable, flexible software that can scale and adapt as well as integrate with other systems. Custom software development helps optimise your business performance as the industry and your particular business requirements change. Outsourcing custom software development can save your business time and money. Custom software developers provide the expert technical development and innovative ideas needed at a lower cost and with less stress than putting more demand on your own resources. Consider engaging custom software developer to streamline workflows, automate mundane task and set your business up to win and grow.

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Are you facing any of these challenges? If you’re keen to learn how you can overcome them, get in touch with ECJ’s team and they’ll walk you through the best solutions to suit your business needs. Schedule a free 20 minute consultation with ECJ Technology today. Get your digital transformation journey started with a trusted software development company.