In the past few years there has been a proliferation of specialized business applications for every kind of business. Lawyers, accountants, spa owners, music teachers, golf courses – all these businesses have a variety of niche software applications built just for them. Have a camel farm? I bet someone somewhere has built “camel farm technology in a box” just for you. This is a great development – if you are starting a new business there are specialized tools just for you and most of them are cloud-based and inexpensive. These days, if you can think of it, someone has built it. Just for you.
What is the downside? First, they try to be all things to your niche market. You may end up with functionality you don’t need and when you get stuff you don’t want, it can make using the rest difficult or confusing. Second, because you are using capabilities that everyone else in your business is using, you are just “keeping up”, not using technology to give you a competitive edge. Third, to some extent you are buying into a certain business model and it may not be what you had in mind.
And then there is the ugly – some things these applications do very very well but some are just awful. Areas where I see consistent poor functionality are CRM, websites, integration and reporting. For example, I belong to two clubs that use “club” software – applications are are expressly built to support membership clubs. They use different vendors but they both have the same problems:
- They both keep member databases but are rigid, clunky and don’t have features a lot of clubs would find in a simple CRM tool like tagging, keeping track of correspondence and notes or social integration.
- They both allow the clubs to create websites but they are confusing, hard to use and frankly, create really ugly websites.
- There is no integration or easy way to get your data out. For example, you can’t easily integrate your member list with something like MailChimp.
- The reporting is canned – as long as you want to ask the question they have a report for you are in good shape. If not…well, just don’t ask that question.
- Figure out what all your requirements are and map that to the capabilities the vendor provides. Be clear on requirements that aren’t met and how you will handle them. You may have to use another application and you will want to make sure that you can do that easily.
- Make sure you get good support. The good news is that many of these vendors are small and because they are concentrating on YOUR type of business, they are very responsive to your feedback.
- Understand any limitations and adjust your work flow and business processes accordingly. If you know you are going to bump your head on something a lot, try to avoid that spot.
Patti Bunker is the president and founder of Clearly Simple Solutions, a technology advisory firm located in Atlanta, GA. She is an executive with over 25 years of technology experience in corporate America, as a consultant and in commercial software development. She understands both business and technology. Her broad background and varied experience enables her to see easily see the big picture and apply technology creatively to support business goals. Because it is about the business, not the technology. Now she applies that experience to help smaller businesses to benefit from technology. The result is Clearly Simple Solutions.
