The Three Things To Prioritize When Building or Buying Software For Your Business
Whenever a business is looking to build or buy a software, there are always three things that need to be considered and prioritized; Functionality, Time, and Money.
Everybody wants everything, now, for free. That’s almost never going to happen.
So the next best thing you can do for your business is prioritize which of these things are most important and which ones can slide.
Sometimes the decisions are made for you. If you have no money or very little of it, Money is your top factor. If you really NEED some functionality to either be competitive or keep your business running, then Functionality is the key decision maker. Finally, if you need something sooner rather then later or things will get really bad fast, Time is your top priority and let’s hope you have the money and resources to make it happen.
For example, my company is a bootstrapped startup so we don’t have the money to spend on things that aren’t absolutely necessary. Right now, money tends to be the highest decision factor. We use Mantis, an open source software written in PHP, for managing and tracking our coding defects. In this case it was a win on all fronts because the price was right, it has all of the functionality we want, and it only took us three hours to implement. Awesome. We also use the free version of 37 Signal’s Highrise product for managing our contacts and leads. We would love to use one of the paid plans with more functionality but we’ve made the decision to live without for now and save money.
In regards to Time and Functionality, I have many friends and colleagues at larger companies that go out of their way to buy software packages and are even trying to use hosted products as much as possible. Why? Because their IT organization is so large and disjointed or outsourced, that while it may cost more up front or an ongoing basis, they’re getting the functionality they want in the time they need it.
The key thing is to know what your business’ priorities and key decision factors are before you start looking. This will help you focus your time and energy in the right direction and allow you to find what you need faster.
