The business world is continually changing, and companies need to keep up with technological advancements to remain competitive. The logistics behind any business, big and small, can be complicated. Hence, you need the right tool for each job to run operations effectively. Most companies are working on or have an already established digital strategy in place to boost efficiency. Fortunately, companies have a chance to utilize a business application suite to manage various organizational tasks.
These are two or more software joined together to automate activities and provide integrated functionality. You can even customize the software to meet your business’s unique needs. Here are nine reasons why you need integrated business software.
To Enhance Security
On average, a business falls victim to malware each 11 seconds. The traditional software experiences delay in upgrades, which creates a massive security threat. Yet, when you consider a custom program, it highly reduces the chances of external hacking.
Using unique software in your company makes your data inaccessible to any other business. Custom business software guarantees higher security since the programs have hidden codes that may take time to hack. Hence, there are low chances of any unauthorized personal knowing the INS and out of your system.
Additionally, using smart tools like Zoho for business, you can track all user activities in your systems. It will help you determine who accessed what data to spot any fraudulent activities in all departments.
For Easier Customer Management
The key to business growth is customer acquisition and retention. With the increased competition, companies should focus on providing exceptional experiences to stay afloat. If you fail to provide services or products as expected, customers are more likely to buy them from competitors.
The integrated software will help you quickly manage orders and sales. It also allows quick coordination between the production and the distribution departments. Further, it promotes effective communications between a company, customers, or suppliers. Hence, your business can promptly meet all your customers’ needs.
Additionally, an integrated system enables businesses to avail of real-time information like the order status to customers. Your employees are also in a position to resolve any issues promptly. As a result, it helps boost customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
To Allow Scalability
At one point, business needs will change, and you may have to increase or reduce the number of users, distribution channels, or suppliers. A custom made software supports business growth and can conveniently scale to meet your requirements. It will help you quickly adapt to changing or growing consumer needs.
You are in a better position to evolving business processes in the future. Since you can implement process changes promptly, you can tailor applications in ways that boost performance.
Its Tailor Made
You can actively participate in custom software development for your business to fully control the functionality. Since every business is unique, the developers customize all the programs and applications to suit your specific needs. As a result, it gives all companies high growth possibilities.
By developing custom made software, you have all rights to the entire system and the codes it supports, giving you better control. Still, you will always have access to a support team from the developers that participated in the process. You will have all issues solved promptly, which makes the procedures more comfortable and boost performance.
To Boost Efficiency
For companies at the growth phase, employees need to work at optimum productivity to meet profit targets. If they face disruption from disjointed processes, it creates more errors that slow productivity.
Remember that there are numerous organizational operations daily ranging from invoicing, data entry, order processing, and expense approvals, to name a few. When done manually, employees will have to spend a lot of time on such tasks, and in case of order cancelation, they need to reconcile the information. Such time-consuming tasks can affect your business growth and profitability.
Yet, with a business application suite, you can automate business processes. As a result, it speeds up decision-making, and a company can complete operations faster for improved growth.
Additionally, it organizes most business operations in an accessible space to save on time. Also, a collaboration between several software solutions will make it easier to collect, manage and control information from a central place. The software also helps minimize human errors in business operations.
It Cuts Costs Through Automation
When you have numerous systems, your IT team will spend too much time and money trying to manage and update them. You will often need to purchase more software, and you will have to integrate them into all your computers. Besides skyrocketing IT costs, you spend more productive time on system management. Using custom software will help you reap massive financial benefits in the long run.
With integrated software, your IT team won’t have to spend too much time procuring or installing new systems, reducing operating costs. They can focus more on other strategic initiatives to build value-added solutions that streamline processes and increase investment returns. It also eliminates the need to hire a large workforce, so you will save on payroll.
Additionally, storing all data on coordinated systems will reduce the need to buy external file storage, fax machines, typewriters, and other office equipment. Besides, the software allows your staff to perform a task that you previously had to outsource to professionals, making your company more self-sufficient.
When you save business resources, you are more likely to avail of much more affordable services and products to your customers. With the custom option, you only pay for the exact operational technology in your organization, so you won’t have to send on unnecessary functionalities.
Again, while using numerous software, you will need to pay for maintenance services from several providers. With the custom made option, you will pay a maintenance cost for a more extended period, with fewer risks involved. For instance, if your provider goes bankrupt for off-shelf software, you will have to look for another vendor and change the entire process. Nonetheless, your business is safe throughout the period as long as you are still using the custom software.
It Supports Flexible Application
Every department plays different roles in an organization, but it’s essential to integrate all sections’ operations. For instance, the human resource office needs to work with the finance department for a more comfortable salary and compensation payment. A custom business application suite software directly integrates with your existing systems to push and pull data when required.
Again these custom applications offer maximum flexibility, and you can program them to work the way you want. They enable businesses to create workflow plans, production processes, or other applications to support business operations. It can meet various application designs to suit multiple functions.
Companies can also choose to build web-based management systems, which gives you full control of what to present online about your brand. You can make such tools available to your staff, partners, or even customers for easier collaboration. Using Zoho project management software, you can easily assign tasks, manage projects, and track work efficiently.
To Improve Visibility
For businesses with unintegrated software systems, chances are you have overlapping databases. As a result, you can’t access real-time business performance across the finance, sales, service or, marketing departments. Some companies choose to avoid gathering such information due to the amount of time spent analyzing and compiling data. On the other hand, those that try to end up having inaccurate information and spending too much time that they should have otherwise used on more productive activities.
When you integrate your business’s information systems and data streams, it dramatically improves real-time visibility. You can access real-time data about your business from almost anywhere, be it on a desktop, mobile phone, or laptop. Hence, employees can also make faster and accurate decisions.
Additionally, managers and business owners can keep up with any updates irrespective of where they are at any particular time. Also, you won’t have to spend too much time trying to extract data from various sources.
For Accelerated Growth
Integrated business application suites helps make your business operations more efficient so you can stay ahead of your competitors. While using the traditional tools, you are most likely to have similar functions as other businesses in your industry.
However, with custom-built software, you can differentiate your products or services to move up in the market share. It helps you enhance your business processes to offer high-quality products or efficient services. Additionally, with better accounting management processes and unified orders, you can expand your sales and distribution to multiple locations. You will even sell more to your existing customers.
Conclusion
Today, most companies use sophisticated business application suite software to boost growth. Those struggling with outdated and disconnected systems will continually lag in terms of productivity. The integrated business software suite provides solutions for each department by reducing operating costs, boosting efficiency, and increase revenue generation. It has generally changed how businesses run by consolidating operations into one technology platform that avails real-time information when required to enable growth. Do you want to introduce integrated software to your company? Consider Zoho for business for better solutions and if you have questions we’d be happy to help.
