Introduction
All companies can certainly benefit from well-thought-through software that is tailor-made for their unique needs. This is especially true for large companies with complex internal communications and increased risk siloed departments and inefficient processes. Such scenarios can be detrimental to the company’s operations and, eventually, on how it’s perceived externally. No business wishes to sacrifice their reputation, so any step to avoid these issues is worth serious consideration.
For many companies, the answer to streamlined operations and a strong reputation is custom software that supports internal and/or customer-facing processes by automating workflows, eliminating logjams, and improving the user experience. Let’s take a look at how building great tailor-made software can really help big companies dominate.
Avoid Ineffective Workflows
When they’re not transparent enough and/or fully automated, complex workflows can lead to a lot of delays, duplicated effort, dropped balls, and general confusion within an organization. The right software system, however, can simplify and digitize every critical workflow, from team member onboarding to billing to supply chain management. Rather than keeping track of multiple spreadsheets and constantly risking duplicate, missing, incorrect, our outdated data, businesses can automate those critical processes — no matter how nuanced they are — with bespoke custom software. Streamlining procedural workflows and approval processes within an organization frees up everybody’s time, allowing employees and leaders to concentrate on more important tasks at hand, like growing the business.
Cut Away the Red Tape
Effective software solutions also help with bureaucratic issues many companies have come across at some point in their lifecycle. When employees and teams have to wait for authorization from leadership to carry out task, that leads to both unnecessary delays and additional busywork for leaders. Similarly, when teams are required to create manual reports on their activities and progress, that leads to extra busywork, delayed progress, and an increased likelihood of incorrect or outdated information making its way up to the corner office. Software solutions custom-built for specific needs allow users to manage workflows and approvals without additional micromanaging from leaders and to generate and submit reports automatically, further freeing up time for the growth-driving activities that really matter to the organization.
Go Global
Companies that operate in various geographic regions have to put specific procedures in place for their customers in different parts of the world. This includes billing nuances such as currency, tax rates, and payment methods; multiple-language support; different regulatory and security policies for different countries; and even communication differences to account for cultural expectations in different regions. Managing this all manually is inefficient at best, and more likely, it’s impossible to do effectively. Here again, software solutions can help by automating region-specific campaign management, billing, and more with the aim of enabling furthering expansion and increasing profits.
Increase Transparency
Many large companies suffer from “silo syndrome,” meaning each department works independently, with little insight into what other teams are up to. This lack of transparency leads to any number of operational inefficiencies. Here, too, custom software systems can help, from unifying reporting so each team has insights into the others’ priorities and progress to making key data sets and documents accessible to everybody.
Enable Location-by-Location Support
Well-thought-through operational software can provide a clear overview of how every office or storefront is performing in every region where the company operates. This gives leadership the ability to tweak the course of action or provide additional support where necessary, without disrupting the work of well-performing locations.
Make Hiring More Efficient
Recruiting, hiring, and onboarding new employees is expensive, and often inefficient. Custom HR software can simplify all these processes, helping companies find the right new employees, bring them on board, and get them up to speed quickly.
Maintain Company Culture from Anywhere
As we all learned the hard way during COVID-19, it’s not always easy to maintain a unified team — or centralized communications — when employees are working from home or otherwise remotely. No matter where employees’ desks are located, unification and simplification of internal data and knowledge sharing and accessibility of information and process descriptions across all locations are important for corporate culture, employee productivity, and the overall success of an organization. With the right custom software systems in place — such as information hubs, process repositories, and communication channels — far-flung employees can continue working closely together.
These are just a few of the challenges large businesses can solve with custom software. The upfront costs of systems designed just for your organization may seem intimidating, but we’ve seen the results over and over again, and we know the return — in efficiency, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction, and profits — is well worth the investment.
