Optimal growth supported by individual software

What awaits you

1. How custom software helped us
2. Factor 1: Price
3. Factor 2: Centralization
4. Factor 3: Special cases
5. Disadvantages of individual software
6. Conclusion

HOW INDIVIDUAL SOFTWARE HELPED US

In our last blog post, we already introduced you to the basics of custom software. This time, we'd like to go into more detail about how our custom CRM-ERP-time-tracking-sales-project management solution (!) has helped us grow our business. At EXWE, we are passionate digitalizers and almost obsessed with automating and optimizing processes. That's why we developed software to build our internal agency processes as lean as possible. Since our company was founded in 2016, EXWE has grown and the requirements for our enterprise software have also changed over the years. We want to help you optimize your business processes with custom software - feel free to contact us for a consultation. Our software has grown step by step with us, has been extended and optimized. Features of our individual software are e.g.:

Time tracking CRM Project budgeting Project management & controlling Resource planning Offer planning and creation Vacation planning Sales pipeline G+V statistics Internal CMS Online store management

When we see a process that steals our time, we usually first look around for standard software and evaluate if it makes sense for us. For example, we use Asana for task-based project management - go here for our blogpost on the topic.Very often, however, we come to the point that the benefits of standard software can't keep up with the benefits of custom programming. Why exactly this is the case, we want to bring you closer on the basis of the different factors price, centralization and special cases. FACTOR 1: PRICE Standard software can do a lot and is often relatively inexpensive in the entry-level tariff (example Hubspot Starter: 36.80 € / month).If you want to map everything a company needs, you'll need a lot - Hubspot as a CRM tool, Asana for project management and TrackingTime for employee time tracking.

• Time tracking
• CRM
• Project budgeting
• Project management
• Resource planning
• Quotation planning and preparation
• Vacation planning
• Sales Pipeline
• Internal CMS
• Online Shop Management
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When we see a process that steals our time, we usually first look around for standard software and evaluate if it makes sense for us. For example, we use Asana for task-based project management - go here for our blogpost on the topic of project management.Very often, however, we come to the point that the benefits of standard software can't keep up with the benefits of custom programming. Why exactly this is the case, we want to bring you closer on the basis of the different factors price, centralization and special cases.

FACTOR 1: PRICE

Standard software can do a lot and is often relatively inexpensive in the entry-level tariff (example Hubspot Starter: 36.80 € / month).If you want to map everything a company needs, you'll need a lot - Hubspot as a CRM tool, Asana for project management and TrackingTime for employee time tracking.

Calculated over the course of a year, without including the costs for setting up the individual services, expenses of €17,232.00 are incurred. However, the financial burden grows linearly with the growth of a company - with more employees, the costs of a company's SaaS collection naturally increase as well.

FACTOR 2: CENTRALIZATION

Integration between the individual systems is possible, but again requires another platform (e.g. Zapier). Your employees thus have to navigate through different web applications to get all the information together.

FACTOR 3: SPECIAL CASES

Some organizational problems are so individual that there is no standard solution on the market that can reasonably cover the problem. As an example we can mention resource planning - in many small support projects, as well as small to large software projects. As an example we can mention resource planning - in our case we have not found a solution with which we can reasonably map and plan or forecast our capacities in the mix of many small support projects, as well as small to large software projects.

Alternatively, there are still all-in-one solutions such as Salesforce / SAP. However, here the expenses can quickly get out of hand. Initial customization costs between €10,000 and €100,000 according to Google. Added to this are the running costs - the Sales and Service Cloud alone cost a total of €300 per month in the Enterprise Edition, and that's per user! This solution would therefore only pay off for medium-sized companies. For smaller companies or startups, all-in-one solutions are out of the question in terms of costs.

DISADVANTAGES OF INDIVIDUAL SOFTWARE

Of course, there are also disadvantages to custom software. Customized solutions generate other costs - due to initial development, agile further development and bug fixes. In addition, processes have to be worked out by yourself and start from scratch during development. With standard software, on the other hand, you can follow prefabricated processes. If custom software is developed unprofessionally or is poorly documented, there is a dependency on the service provider - every time there is a problem, the service provider must be consulted and errors must be corrected. In the worst case, this results in renewed costs.

CONCLUSION

For us, our custom solution is currently perfect for our growth phase. It saves working time and ongoing costs that can be invested in other innovations.New processes or changes in processes can be implemented in the shortest possible time in order to remain flexible and always be able to react to changes in the business. Especially when your business is growing, it makes sense to think about the use and development of custom software.Optimal growth of a business can be supported by custom software. Calculate the costs that will come up in the future and look for a service provider who will support you in the development and advise you sufficiently. If you need more information about custom software and software development, we will be happy to help you and find the right software for you.