Individual software solutions – When standard software

Why this topic is particularly relevant to companies

In today's increasingly digitized business world, companies face the challenge of efficiently, transparently and flexibly mapping their internal processes. Many organizations begin with standard software, as these solutions can be implemented quickly, appear cost-effective and offer a variety of basic functions for common business processes. Small and medium-sized companies benefit from this fast operational readiness and the variety of features that standard software solutions already bring from home. However, with the growth of a company, the limits of such standard solutions often arise. Processes become more complex, workflows more individual and requirements more specific. What was initially sufficient can quickly reach its functional and organizational limits with increasing company size, increasing number of employees or growing customer expectations. In these situations it becomes clear that standard software can no longer cover all requirements. Individual needs can often only be realized via relocations – for example by additional modules, complicated interface adaptations or manual work steps. This not only causes increased effort, but can also negatively influence the efficiency and employee satisfaction.

Limits of Standard Software

Standard software solutions are usually designed to operate a wide market and cover as many different applications as possible. This approach has the advantage of universal usability, but at the same time it involves limitations as soon as processes become very specific or complex. Typical challenges and problems that arise in practice are:

Inefficient workflows:

Standard software often forces the adaptation of the company processes to the specified structures of the software. This can cause work steps to become unnecessarily complicated or lengthy, which increases time and resource use.

Media breaks and data losses:

If individual software solutions do not communicate optimally or lack interfaces, media breaks occur. Data must be transferred manually, increasing sources of error and endangering the consistency of the information.

Increased training effort:

The more adjustments or additional solutions are required, the more complex the use of the software for the employees. Training will be more extensive, expensive and time-consuming.

Increased susceptibility to errors:

Due to inappropriate workarounds, manual interventions or insufficiently integrated additional modules, the probability of faulty data, process disturbances and delays increases.

These factors clearly show:

Standard software quickly reaches its limits when processes are over the base