Are your SME’s offerings off-the-shelf? Then go ahead and reach for off-the-shelf software with peace of mind. Do you offer innovative solutions that flexibly meet your customers’ needs? Then your business software should also match the individual requirements of your business case.
Standard business software products score well in many respects. They are packed with functionalities, have proven themselves in terms of usability, can be deployed quickly, and appear cost-efficient – at least at first. Young companies in particular benefit from manageable monthly license costs. The offering of such companies is often still manageable, and their workflows can be mapped well within the standard.
Case 1: Monotonous workflows
The situation is different in companies whose special products or services have to be administratively processed with standard software by a large number of employees. If 100 employees spend 30 minutes each working with spreadsheets on 250 working days a year, that adds up to 7,500 working hours per year. If you were to map the process in custom software so that the task could be completed in a third of the time, the company would save a full 5,000 working hours – in just one year. Mapping workflows with custom software is therefore already interesting for companies that have to record and process the same data over and over again.
Case 2: Your business case requires a digital adaptation
Companies that use standard software often experience that, triggered by a strategically important event – for example, the diversification of their offering or a new business cooperation – they have to expand the functionality of their software. For instance, a customer demands seamless exchange via a customer platform or needs a connection to your system. Quick action becomes necessary, and your software provider refers you to a software house to which it is contractually bound. It quickly becomes clear – by no means a partner of your choosing. The service provider’s order books are full, and so months pass until the extension is implemented and rolled out, which your business model suffers from, because a competitor is already on the scene and wants to poach your customer with an attractive rival offer. The extension also comes with high costs. From a purely business standpoint, the customer project has long since ceased to be attractive – it may even be a matter of damage control already. No company wants to find itself voluntarily in such a situation.
Custom software has a lasting effect – on many levels
If you add up – theoretically – the possible savings from the first case and the high costs from the second case described above, you can sense that the initially higher acquisition costs of custom software can quickly pay off for SMEs. Custom software can not only cover company- or industry-specific requirements up to 100%; it is also particularly well suited when numerous third-party systems are in use, since this circumstance can already be taken into account in the software architecture. Possible scaling of the systems when diversifying the business model into new markets is also simple and cost-efficient compared to standard software. In addition, custom software can decisively increase a company’s competitiveness when it enables the company to place offers faster and in a more customer-oriented way through digital connection with the market – for example, in the case of regular project tenders.
IoTECBUSY – the business software from IoTEC. A powerful module of a comprehensive digitalization platform.
Companies that want to benefit from all the described advantages of custom software but still want to build on a proven and established business software solution that can be adapted and integrated with low initial costs choose IoTECBUSY, the business software from IoTEC Data Platform & Services.
IoTECBUSY fundamentally contains the classic modules and features of an ERP solution. As part of an IoT platform, IoTECBUSY offers – alongside data management, customer management, billing systems, and much more – a sophisticated permission system that enables the mapping of complex and far-reaching processes. IoTECBUSY is currently in use in safety-critical processes or workflows where sensitive data, such as health data, is processed in compliance with the GDPR.
Large logistics companies organize the tenders and awards of international land and sea freight contracts via IoTECBUSY. Here, all the advantages of an individual software solution over the well-known standard software solutions become apparent: the industry-specific operational workflows are mapped exactly in the software, and the stakeholders involved in the value-creation processes are connected digitally according to their authorization. With minimal effort, all partners and suppliers always have all information and requirements available in real time. One deal follows the next – seamlessly and with maximum efficiency.
Of course, IoTECBUSY offers user-friendly interfaces and its own mobile app. Direct access to the KPIs from the dashboards is included. We are happy to integrate existing user interfaces or design them according to customer requirements “from scratch.” Used as middleware, the software can be connected to existing IT infrastructure or form the interface to customer systems.
IoTECBUSY also demonstrates its performance as an add-on to our IoTEC data platform IoTECPRO. If data is to be generated at machines, devices, or via sensors, there is subsequently the option of conveniently managing and further processing the data via IoTECBUSY. The combination with the service and maintenance software IoTECSERVICE is ideal as well, because IoTECBUSY offers CRM functionalities and reporting of the always up-to-date data “with one click.”