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If you are a business owner, then sooner or later you will definitely face one major challenge. One day you may simply realize that you don’t know how to handle all processes and pay enough attention to each of them, how to optimize routine tasks of your employees and at the same time keep the company getting better and bigger. It can be very hard to attract new clients and improve the quality of provided goods or services if you try to concentrate on dozens of minor tasks at the same time.
Even nowadays many companies keep using either Excel spreadsheets or some basic online solutions for tracking all tasks. This is a huge mistake, as multitasking always creates chaos. As a wise business owner, you should benefit from total digitalization and implement more reliable, time-saving, and smart solutions. It is better to invest in the development of new, more complex tools than to keep wasting your time and budget. It can be said without a doubt, that there is no better way to put business processes in order than to use some holistic system able to easily manage them all.
To improve a business, it is necessary to automate some routine tasks of your employees and pay more attention to the creative side. And that is exactly what business management tools allow to do. With their help you can achieve a high level of workflow efficiency, control time, finance and human resources.
Choose the right software for your business
If you are still not aware of all benefits of business management tools, then let’s take a closer look at them together and find out how to successfully implement software helper into your business environment.
In general, business management software is a separate program or a set of various programs (tools) aimed at supporting, automating and improving all essential business processes. It can perform different activities, f.e. collect data, generate reports, find and fix errors, complete certain routine tasks, check and update necessary information, etc.
When it comes to your business, you can either find and use ready-made solutions or consider developing your own tool aimed to meet your particular business needs. However, before utilizing any tool, it is important to estimate the size of your business and identify what segments and processes of it are in need of thorough management. All business management tools can be divided into several large groups depending on business size and the main purpose they serve.
Most useful business management tools
When starting your business or extending an existing one you probably have thought more about your unique idea and counted all possible financial risks. However, the most important part of any business is the organization of all inside processes. To deliver good results, everything should be well-coordinated and function so precisely like clockwork. And that is exactly why you need business management tools. If you are a business owner, then you can make good use of the following programs:
It is obvious that digital presence is crucial for businesses these days. Apart from websites and mobile applications, you can build very productive tools like Enterprise portal and Web portal for your company. Check out their advantages and cost in our blog posts.
What’s better for business – ready-made or custom solutions?
Now that you understand the importance of business optimization solutions, you may be wondering if you should use prepackaged software or develop your own one. Both types have their pros and cons, so let’s take a quick look at them and help you make a choice.
Ready-made solutions
They offer a certain set of options that can be used by you. You cannot customize such software but it is possible to tune some settings within it. Although prepackaged apps offer the best options checked on practice by numerous users, they can be unsuitable for your particular needs. Your business may require some other special features that you cannot implement in these apps or you may need to remove some unnecessary options, which is also impossible. From a financial point of view, you should remember that ready-made solutions usually require a subscription with monthly payment. Some upgrades or software maintenance may cost you extra money.
Speaking about ready-made apps, it is necessary to mention SAAS (software as a service) which is very popular because it runs on the Internet and is quite affordable. Although it offers many resources, it is cost-effective, and its launch cycle is faster, there are some drawbacks you should consider. SAAS may require more than one cloud; re-development is always expensive; if some features are changed, your business may be influenced.
Custom software
It offers highly personalized approach and unique set of options that you can choose according to your business needs. Such solutions will not be overloaded with unnecessary features or settings, they can be seamlessly installed and used on your machine and what is more important their functionality can be improved and expanded if your company gets bigger. And what is more important – you receive lifelong support with your developed software. Although the price of custom software development may seem high, you should understand that you pay for your solution once and then it pays off quite fast. So it is reasonable to invest your money and time in creating your own business management tool.
Custom software will be fully adapted for your business processes and ready-made one will make you and your employees adapt. On top of that, custom development is able to add value to your business and form your competitive advantage. Whatever tool you need, a developers team can advise you how to make it advanced and 100% productive. For example, here at Altamira we even offer pre-development stage on which we discover all your business needs, explore your competitors and shape your app idea. This lets us deliver solutions that are a prfect fit for a particular business of our client.
Our expertise in businesses digitalization
For more than 9 years in business Altamira performed digital transformation of companies from different business niches starting with construction and ending with entertainment companies. Thanks to the extensive experience, we know what features to add to the custom software, how to make them intuitive so that the client will not spend much time on teaching his staff to use new software. Let our real cases examples speak for us.
ERP for aircraft brokerage company
When we began working with this company, we thought that we are going to update their website and make its redesign. But in fact the company was so satisfied that asked us to build a complex ERP system for them. That company was Soljets and you can take a look at the project we’ve made for them in our portfolio. And now we’ll gladly share some features that the software got:
- search for aircraft model by filters (it has never been easier to find a necessary jet by its price, manufacturer, or size);
- advanced range mapping that lets potential customers check the aircraft power compared to the other models;
- option to discover the approximate price of the airplane in a couple of clicks;
- full catalogue of jets with all specifications that is very user-friendly + it provides info regarding jet weights, operating costs, cabin interior, performance.
The work of Soljets team became more productive than it used to be before ERP integration and website redesign. Now it takes less time to parse a price of jet, consult a potential customer and make an order. Order management became a pleasant experience too thanks to the advanced options of the ERP.
Management system for construction company
The project called LEO is our newly released solution that we developed for the great construction company – Nelson Precast. This company produces cast stones, makes custom elements for architecture reconstruction, and even offers their installation. The number of tasks they accomplish on a daily basis is enormous. And of course it was very hard to keep everything under control without a reliable software. So the team contacted us in attempt to build custom management system and improve productivity.
The managers of Nelson Precast have been dealing with repetitive data entry, loads of paperwork and it often led to poor productivity. It was crucial to do something about it and automate many things. So we have developed a complex business tool for them. That tool lets employees prioritize tasks, track crucial processes, manage the data, deal with orders and many more.
LEO system that we developed helped Nelson Precast to accomplish the following tasks productively:
- Track the progression of every project;
- Calculate and track the delivery of materials;
- Reduce workload and boost managers efficiency;
- Create schedules and prioritize tasks correctly;
- Reduce time spent on documentation management;
- Create check-lists for main tasks.
At the moment we can say that our client is totally satisfied with the solution and the job we’ve done. What makes us think so? Well, just take a look at the incredibly positive client review about our company on GoodFirms.
Benefits of custom business software
Probably the main and most important advantage of all business management tools is that they help to optimize all processes within the company and prevent chaos of any kind from appearing. But if we dig a little bit deeper, we can name the following reasons why you should definitely consider using management tools or developing your own ones:
How tools resolve business problems
As a business owner you probably had to cope with many issues in the working process, so it will be easier for us to exemplify how management software can help you get rid of many problems.
Streamline sales work
F.e. you have a company that actively sales services or goods. Every day your employees have to insert and process huge number of leads’ queries. If you do not have complex CRM, then you cannot collect exact information about your leads number, data about them and their requests, you cannot group your leads or estimate possible financial benefits of a future deal. If you implement CRM, then all information can be gathered, sorted and conveniently displayed in a form of charts, graphs or reports with numbers. This simplifies work of your sales managers and saves them some time that can be spent on searching for new leads.
Perform easy accounting
Accounting software can be a real time saver if you need to manage your finance but do not want to lose time doing repetitive things. F.e. you needed to enter transactions data manually each time you paid taxes or salary to your employees. Why keep doing it this way? The finance management software can analyze your previous transactions, categorize them and then insert new data automatically. In case of a mistake, you correct it manually and spend less effort and time on this whole activity.
Improve performance
If you are running a company that is responsible for handling large projects and providing services to numerous clients, then PM tools are a necessity for you. They allow to connect all team members and let them be aware of all processes, track working hours, check out on what stage the project is. In this way you can estimate the work of your company in general and improve some important aspects to get more clients and increase your profit. PM tools remove working hassle and allow your employees to concentrate on the tasks they have that leads to higher performance.
FAQ
Final thoughts
Utilizing business management tools is the best way to keep all processes within your company under control. Why waste time on monitoring the data stored in numerous different tools, if you can have one program for all your specific needs? It is always better to have efficient approach to business and integrate smart solutions to optimize and improve it.
The size of business does not really matter when it comes to software optimization, since with business management tools it is possible not only to improve your company productivity but also make it grow. Such solutions like CRM, ERP, various management tools and systems are a must have for modern companies. They help to keep everything under control, make data driven decisions, improve customer service and performance of each separate employee. It is definitely worth it to invest in custom software development, since it improves business and pays itself off very quickly.
