Choosing The Right Software For Your Company: Our Top Tips

Technology is finding its way into every business, no matter how big or small and whether online or on the high street. The software that powers businesses have an incredible amount of influence over the success or failure of a company.

Choosing the right software for your business, and how you implement its rollout throughout your company, can make or break your fiscal year. Here are some top tips to help you pick the right program and avoid any rollout disasters.

Identify Software That Will Make The Biggest Positive Impact

Making huge, wholesale changes to the various pieces of software your company uses can do more harm than good. You should start off making a single software change and choosing one that will have a huge positive impact on your business processes.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, can be used in many areas of a business. This lets you slowly roll it out across your company one department at a time, letting the efficiencies gently snowball. This also prevents any early teething problems from spreading to multiple departments. Getting help and support with Microsoft Business Central software from IT professionals is a smart way to make sure any bumps in the road can be dealt with quickly.

The team at Sci-Net have decades of experience in helping businesses implement software changes successfully and supporting them as they grow and expand. They are a Tier 1-Level Microsoft Partner, so you can be sure you are getting the most up-to-date software and expert support for a variety of business software solutions, including ERP software such as Microsoft Dynamics Business Central.

Create A Software Management Team To Manage The Project

There will be important stages between choosing the right software package and its implementation and adoption across your company. Many decisions will need to be made, and without clearly establishing responsibilities and lines of communication between management and staff the process can stagnate.

Create a small team within your management structure to oversee the project from the beginning, with the authority to make decisions. They will be responsible for identifying the right kind of software for your company and which service to use. Time is money in any business, and by streamlining the process of choosing, implementing, and monitoring the change to a new software package you reduce the overall cost of the project.

With responsibility comes accountability. Having a team that is responsible for the software change means you know who to turn to when problems or software issues arise. Your project management team have the knowledge needed, and the responsibility, to solve any issues. If you are a business owner or manager you should not have to spend your time micro-managing a software roll-out, create a team to take care of it for you and tackle any problems.

Communicate And Consult With The End-Users In Your Business

The view from the top of a company can be very different from the view entry-level positions have of processes and workflow. The end-users of business management and enterprise resource software are often administrative staff and office managers.

Their input is incredibly valuable. Business software can be tailored and tweaked to suit your company’s specific needs. The people who will use your company’s software every day can help you get a bigger positive impact from a software change and can help your team make the right choice. Their experience is a resource that can be utilised to get customise software and make many common business processes more efficient.

Your project management team should act as a conduit of information between your software supplier and end-users to get the best value for money from your software change. Many businesses are not using useful tools or customisations built into the expensive software that they have paid for.

Look For Training Options When Searching For Software

Whatever type of software you need, staff throughout your business will need to be trained to use the suite of programs and learn how they can help them. This can be both time-consuming and expensive. You should look at your training options when choosing your software.

There may be cheap software options out there, but when you factor in the costs of training, they can quickly become the more expensive options. Your team should assess training time and costs when looking at the different software available and it must influence their decision. Choosing software that comes with expensive training costs can undermine the positive impacts on your business that changing or upgrading software can have.

Support for your software is also a factor that should be considered. Though you may have an in-house IT specialist or team, you will need product support and updates throughout the time you use your new software. Choose software from established names in the industry that will still be there when you need them in the years to come.

Following these top tips should help you identify the right software for your company, and ensure it is smoothly implemented across your business.

By Michael Kilgour | 26/07/2022