How To Successfully Implement Bespoke Software In Your Business

Involve The Relevant People

When you decide to implement bespoke business software into your business, you must involve the relevant people. By relevant people, I mean your staff. They do not need to know about IT or software. They do need to know about how your business really works. The little steps only they know about to get certain tasks done. It is the job of the software engineer to know about the computer side of things. He should be able to listen to your staff describe how things work and convert this into a software model for your business.

Start From The Beginning

Draw out a process map of how your business operates at the moment. This is equivalent to the procedures that your staff follow to run your business. This is your starting point. From this overview you can identify where changes and improvements can be made. You then draw out the revised process map of where you want to be. It is then the job of the software engineer to turn this into software. This new software will incorporate your process map. It will guide your staff down the correct decision-making pathways. This increases efficiency and helps to reduce errors.

Get Into The Detail

The ease and success of a software change in a business is mostly down to planning. In order to ensure your best chance for a successful and comfortable transition, you have to plan to a fair degree of detail. This is why involving your staff is very helpful. They will know the little tricks and methods that are required to get the job done. You want to get all this information codified and into your procedures and software. This means that if that person should leave, you do not lose the knowledge. This could be crucial knowledge upon which some of your main accounts depend.

Test and Review

The best way to find out if your new software will work in a real-world situation is to test it in real-world situations. Again, this is where involving your staff comes in. Get them to test it. Most people are keen to do a better job, particularly if it will make their lives easier at the same time. This is the payoff you get by implementing bespoke software. It is designed exactly around your business and how you want it to operate. When your staff are testing the software, listen closely to their feedback. Do you need to revise the software, or the process? Usually, new possibilities will arise as you get nearer and nearer to the completed version.

I hope this short summary has been of use to you in preparing for your bespoke software implementation. To sum it all up, the more effort you put in before you switchover to the new system, the better it will all work.

Franc Sutherland is the founder of Working Data. Founded in 2005, Working Data assists businesses to move away from manual processes using spreadsheets and paper, and on to fit-for-purpose bespoke software.

Find out how bespoke business software has transformed our clients' working lives.

If you would like an informal, no-obligations chat about your business' software requirements, please contact us at info@workingdata.co.uk

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