The Purpose of Custom Software
The primary purpose of the introduction of custom software is:
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- to reduce user costs,
- create a single application that consolidates, and integrates, disparate but related, software applications,
- to provide a better consolidation of the capture of data by incorporating data that is kept in spreadsheets, on paper and everywhere except within any data system,
- to redesign databases that permit a better way to analyze data in disparate data tables.
The Risks of Introducing New Software
User costs are an on-going cost and, if new software (off-the-shelf, remastered base or custom) is introduced, your firm could be impacted by:
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- morale being negatively-impacted,
- losing your existing user base due to resistance to change,
- the complexity of a new application could cause resignations forcing your firm to hire a more-expensive user base,
- Off-the-shelf and remastered base software will definitely:
- change the way that you capture and report data
- cause your firm to have additional, unneeded features
- cause your firm to settle for less than you need as a compromise for not selecting a custom solution.
- adversely affecting downstream department(s’) productivity and other data consumers.
It is a given that replacing users is very expensive in the short-term because new employees temporarily impact productivity, since they are slower while being trained, and your trainers are less-productive while they are training the replacement staff.
Our Solution
We focus on minimizing disruption by:
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- spending significant time on the design/redesign of data tables and databases so that the legacy system will run using the data structures of the new system;
- keeping the user interface and workflow in the familiar appearance, content and methods (the extra effort in programming is definitely worth the additional one-time cost),
- assuring that the workflows of downstream departments are not affected,
- the reports used by the consumers of the data remain in a familiar format.