Avoid reinventing the wheel: When to go bespoke and when not.
- Screen Insights
- 6 hours ago
- 2 min read
When deciding on a software solution, it can be tempting to build something that replicates your existing process exactly, even if the current process is a manual one.
Some of the first banking systems were built to mirror the existing manual processes and provide a cautionary tale for anyone embarking on a new software initiative today.
Over time this approach became a significant issue, as those processes were designed with geography and old ways of working in mind, for example; when smaller branches walking money to larger branches to be counted, or branch staff needing to seek authorisation from their parent branch before they could carry out certain transactions. this inhibited the banks and became costly and complex to solve.
This is an example of a common missed opportunity. Whether analogue or digital, when you implement a new system you should ensure you review your processes and seek out opportunities to make things simpler or faster.
We often talk about digitisation vs. transformation, with digitisation being the approach of taking an analogue or manual process and recreating it as digital one. However, there is something between these two approached. Optimisation is where you improve a process rather than transform it into something potentially very different.
How SaaS changed the dynamic.
With the advent of cloud computing and the flurry of SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions, covering everything from CRM to Accountancy, a new world of opportunity for small and medium sized businesses has opened up.
Whereas before SaaS solutions existed, a company would have to either buy and implement or build a solution, today they can access enteprise grade software in seconds via the internet.
When you went to the effort of buying or building a solution, it made some sense to customise it for your specific needs, but often mean people fell into the missed opportunity trap we mentioned earlier.
Because SaaS is so well developed, affordable and accessible, people are willing to forego much of the customisation. We argue that this has forced people to think more about their processes, often the SaaS providers have developed much cleaner solutions to common problems and so by using the standard processes they offer you might find you are working more efficiently.
So does bespoke still have a place?
There are times when you might need to be more bespoke. Perhaps a client has certain demands or there are needs because of an uncommon organisation structure or requirement that cannot easily be worked around.
Another consideration is that at some point you may find it beneficial to integrate a number of these solutions to make your business more efficient or to support it to sale. This is when a partner such as Screen Engineering can help you get the best of both worlds, developing a bespoke integration layer that brings together your different solutions, be thoes existing bespoke solutions with SaaS or connecting the data from one system with the data of another to enhance your insight.
Your approach needs careful consideration and we always recommend getting in an independent view to help you look past your current ways of working and constraints.
If you want to learn more about how to leverage online software development for your business, feel free to reach out.
