Custom software is an underutilized solution when trying to modernize and automate business processes.
We often find ourselves talking with prospective partners and hearing things like:
- “We just waste so much time in Excel.”
- “There are SaaS products out there that sort of solve our problem, but can’t get us all the way there.”
- “I just wish we had real-time transparency on activities.”
Transforming difficult and/or time-consuming tasks into a real-world application can impact productivity and increase business efficiency. If you find yourself spending too much of your workday continuously doing any of the following three things, it might be time to consider converting your repeatable process into a digital product.
Digging through your email to review attachments
Are you and/or your team frequently digging through emails and sending questionnaires or forms for completion all the time? If so, it might be time to consider building a simple web application.
Within the app, staff could login to gain access to forms and assessments. The app could even automatically send notifications and reminders to staff without needing to take up any of your time.
Recently, we had a client transition their employee review process into a custom web app. The experience was tailed to their unique process, allowing them to forego email spreadsheets with complicated scoring formulas and long lists of questions. The app keeps all that important information self-contained and secure.
Manually comparing your data across spreadsheets
Do you have stacks of historical data sitting around with no meaningful way to visualize it all? A simple solution can be to create a web application that serves as a visual representation of your records. At a glance, you can track metrics that are tailored to your unique business needs. The app could even be configured to export data in a way that easily integrates with other productivity tools already in use.
Trying to track meaningful change and growth in your team is difficult when your data doesn’t cooperate. A partner recently decided they needed a better way to view historical employee review data to better help inform career growth plans. Taking the results out of spreadsheets and Google Docs and into a web application that had custom filters tailored to key metrics, allowed for insights previously un-utilized. The data was always there, it just needed to be in a presented in a useful way.
Answering detailed inventory questions
Servicing a unique or niche industry is always a tale of supply and demand. When your clients are looking for something specific, they need to know if it is available quickly. It can be a unique challenge to keep track of your exact inventory. Whether it’s digital or on paper, if your record entries aren’t tailored precisely to how you do business, it’s likely missing some key piece of information your customers might need.
A client recently found themselves on the phone so often — answering questions about their available inventory — it ended up consuming large parts of their day. They were constantly trying to communicate detailed information about inventory to prospective clients, so much so that they weren’t able to attend to other business needs.
We partnered together to create a custom web application showcasing all of their product information in real time — for both their own records and client requests. The app contained all detailed inventory information which resulted in far less frequent customer questions and phone calls.
Custom business automation solutions are centered around increasing productivity, reducing costs, eliminating outdated processes, and gaining visibility into workflows and reports. A simple application can provide consistent results for routine tasks and processes.
