What Software Does My Business Need?

Introduction

In the year 2024, the use of software in any business of any size is an inevitability. Every business needs to send email, process transactions, market online, create content, nurture relationships, and the list goes on. Virtually all of these activities exist now in the digital space, with the use of cash and checks on the decline as tap and payment service methods become more ubiquitous and easy to access.

This means that no business is exempt from needing a strategy for deploying software tools that support their business processes.

There are several challenges to doing this, especially for smaller businesses:

• When you’re small, you need to stay lean and don’t often have the time or energy to put towards thinking through an intentional strategy, so you’ll reach for the tools that come most easily.
• Technology changes fast and there’s a need to continually adopt those changes to avoid “technical debt”, a way of describing systems that are harder to maintain and that provide less value as they age.
• Many of the tools you start with won’t be able to make the transition to a large business size as you scale, so some transition or transformation process is inevitable.
• The more people you add to your team, the more varied the playing field of skill and confidence will be.

There is a methodical way to tackle this challenge, and that’s the topic of this post. We’ll talk about the number one impediment to change initiatives, how to map your business visually to get a high level view of your needs, how to pick the best software tools for the job, and how to keep your expenses down in the process.

Onward!

The Law of Change Resistance

Before we talk about the “how” of identifying your business’ software needs, we wanted to address the biggest reason why change initiatives fail in organizations of all sides. This is important to consider because it affects how you approach this process, when you approach it, and how it evolves as your organization grows.

We call this impediment, “the law of change resistance”.

It states:

“The more you try to change any existing process or tool in an organization, the more resistance you can expect from the people who use them.”

There’s a lot of great psychology about why this is the case, but the most important thing to note first is that it is not a reflection of your employees character or quality. It’s just human nature.

When a change is forced on us, we resist it because it threatens our sense of identity and causes unconscious defenses to come forward. It can seem like our abilities, character, and other attributes are being questioned. If those are being questioned, that may mean that our ability to do the job is being questioned. If that is being questioned, then our ability to survive is at stake. This always draws out the most animalistic instincts within.

It’s not necessary to fully understand the interpersonal dynamics at play to engage in a successful digital transformation initiative. If you simply remember that change will be resisted, and that the resistance comes with good intentions, then you’re going to be able to navigate that change with more empathy.

Mapping Your Business

Have you ever gone on a hike or traveled to a new country?

When you embarked on your adventure, the first thing you probably reached for was a map.

Maps are not the territory, but they help us navigate it. Without a map in a new country, you would probably feel lost. If a trail you were hiking on wasn’t well marked, a map could even save your life. It will, at a minimum, save you time and resources that you could have wasted going in the wrong direction.

We know maps are important in these scenarios, but we often overlook how useful they are when it comes to understanding how our business operates.

In fact, most businesses operate without any kind of documentation or representation of how the business runs. Especially in the small business world, it “just works”. Oftentimes, key information on how things are done, from pricing a job to scheduling resources, lives inside the heads of individuals. This places an enormous burden on them and creates a significant liability for the business if something happens to them.

Options for Business Operation Mapping

The first step we recommend taking when identifying your software needs is to make a map of how your business operates.

There are many approaches to this, but we can recommend two approaches:

1. Value Stream Mapping, a Lean manufacturing technique for mapping the flow of value in a process, and
2. Value Engine Mapping, a method of visualizing only the critical systems and components of those systems for your business. This was pioneered by Ryan Deiss, a well known founder and operator of multiple well-scaled businesses.

We won’t detail each of these approaches here, but stay tuned for another blog post doing just that!

The key takeaway?

Once you have this MAP in place, identifying your software needs becomes much simpler, and communicating about those needs becomes easier as well. When everyone is following the same map, communication flows and wasted time is automatically eliminated.

Identifying Software Needs

Okay! You’ve got your map. You know the law of change resistance.

Now it’s time to start identifying the actual software tools you will need.

Most businesses need some way to do the following:

• Send and receive email communications
• Manage events and meetings
• Bookkeeping
• Transactions
• Managing and tracking sales/leads
• Managing and tracking fulfillment activities (the value the business provides)

This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it covers the bases of most activities.

Now, you might be fooled into thinking that you need actual individual pieces of software for each of these. But that may not be the case.

For example, you can use the same spreadsheet software (like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel) to track your expenses, track customer relationships, and even manage projects. When we refer to software, we literally mean any software tool that COULD do the job.

Your actual needs may vary. But all you need to do here is list out all of the software you currently use for these activities, and identify any gaps.

So, if you do use a spreadsheet software to track your clients and feel that you are missing features that would help you do a better job of managing those relationships, you may list the spreadsheet software but highlight or mark it to indicate that it could be improved or replaced with another tool.

Here’s an example:

• Send and receive email communications - Gmail
• Manage events and meetings - Google Calendar
• Bookkeeping - QuickBooks
• Transactions - Stripe
• Managing and tracking sales/leads - Google Sheets**
• Managing and tracking fulfillment activities (the value the business provides) - Google Sheets
• Project Management - Google Sheets**

From the above example, we can see that we are happy with most of the tools we’re using, but the team is getting tired of using Google Sheets for managing/tracking sales and leads, as well as project management. They are hoping for more robust tools with features that meet needs that have emerged as they have worked and your business continues to grow.

Factoring In Employee Skills

One thing to always keep in mind as you map your needs and opportunities is where your employees’ skill lies in relation to each tool. Will you need to invest in training them on something new? Do they feel confident in what you already use?

The antidote to change resistance is education. While training can sometimes feel like an inconvenient distraction from the “real” work of the business, this kind of investment pays dividends: not just in employee skills, but also in their morale and the culture of your company.

Training your people is a way to show that you care about their development and success. When they feel cared for, they will return that investment in more ways than you can imagine.

Weighing Pros & Cons

Now that you’ve mapped out your business and gotten a clear picture of what your current software ecosystem looks like, you can begin to weigh the pros and cons of different approaches to meeting your needs.

Packaged Versus Custom

There are two main approaches to integrating software into your business.

The first approach is using out of the box, packaged software.

Packaged software is pre-made, proprietary software that was developed to meet a specific kind of need, like a customer relationship management tool that can be used by many companies.

These are usually offered as a monthly subscription per user, but can also be licensed for a one time or yearly fee.

Custom software, on the other hand, is software that you hire a software development shop to create for you from scratch.

This type of software is designed to meet the needs of your business, with the intention of not having any features that won’t be used in your operations.

Custom software is usually a larger upfront project cost, with a potential retainer for maintenance, updates, and support.

Each one has their pros and cons. We go into more detail in this article on our blog!

Leveraging Ecosystems

One approach that is often not talked about for small businesses is leveraging an existing software ecosystem to its fullest potential.

For example, Google is a well known technology company that built Google Workspace, a “suite” of software tools that all integrate well together.

Google Workspace includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and many other industry standard tools that will cover all of your software needs with a single subscription cost.

Businesses will often create a Gmail account out of necessity and don’t realize how many other tools they could use, for free, that are associated with that account and will solve many of their problems with no additional software.

A great strategy can be to start with an ecosystem like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, then fill in any gaps with standalone tools that solve specific use cases. Let’s take a look at an example.

Example: Project Management

The previously mentioned Google Workspace has many incredible applications, but does not have a dedicated project management tool that allows teams to manage projects with common workflow aids like Kanban boards.

In this case, you may want to do research into standalone options.

Two excellent options would be the following:

1. Kanbanchi - Deep integration with Google Workspace, fairly mature, inexpensive for a basic plan ($5.99 per user per month on the basic plan)
2. Kanban Zone - Great integration with Google Drive, very intuitive, built in flow metrics for project managers familiar with the Kanban strategy.

Tools like these typically have a free trial so you can experiment with tools in your workflow and support teams/coaches that can help you analyze your business needs and integrate the tools in the least disruptive way possible.

You may look at all of these options and determine that they don’t meet your needs. If that’s the case, you may do some exploration with a custom software firm to see if a piece of custom software that can integrate with your existing tools and provide the features you need would be worth the investment.

Rules of Thumb & Takeaways

And with that, we’re home free!

Here are some key takeaways and rules of thumb as you consider what’s best for your business:

• Start while you’re small and plan for future expansion
• Start with free tools and expand to paid as the needs arise
• Look ahead, but not too far. Predicting future expansion can be a challenge and an impediment to taking more immediate action.
• Balance current needs with future upkeep and migration potential. You’ll almost always reach a point when a digital transformation initiative is needed, but good upfront planning can limit how expensive that will be.
• Keep employee skill levels and the law of change resistance in mind. Digital transformation is not just a matter of adding or updating tools. It’s also a change process for all people involved.
• Consider starting with a comprehensive ecosystem or suite of tools, and plug in standalone software, whether custom or packaged, as needed.

If you’re looking for a partner in this process, we’ve got you covered. Equanimity Solutions offers process mapping, custom software development, and technical skills training services with expertise in both the Google and Microsoft ecosystems of tools. We’re your one-stop digital transformation partner that balances the people and the process elements in a way that makes the whole initiative feel joyful and painless.