Looking for software can be a hassle, especially considering how large the market has grown over the last decade. There are hundreds of options and even if you have a niche business, there are still a dozen or more choices at your disposal. How are you supposed to figure out which ones are the right ones for you and if they will last long enough for you to get a return on investment. Here are a few points to look for when you are choosing software for your company:
Software Price Versus Value
The price of software should be a major point of determination for anything you do in a business and software is no exception. It shouldn’t be the sole factor behind your choice but it should certainly have a large effect on it. Correlating price to value may be a bit of a stretch though. Spending more to get a longer list of cool functions is great if you benefit from all of those extras, but they could bog down your overall performance in the long run. You want functional software that you and your employees can adopt easily and quickly, but it needs to be a step up from your current software. Look for affordable, efficient, and adoptable software wherever possible.
Assisted Implementation
If a certain type of software has a monthly agreement, you need to be aware of options you can take to end the contract and whether these options have penalties involved. If you become unhappy with a service and want to switch, it would be terrible to find out that the monthly agreement only allows you to back out after a certain amount of time or at a certain point in the month. You are paying a specific price for the product so you should be well aware of the stipulations involved with the software. If they don’t seem confident in their own product through their satisfaction guarantee, look elsewhere for affordable software.
Bug Fixes
Nothing is perfect out of the gate, especially when it comes to software. There will always inherently be problems that need to be worked out, depending on how new it is. The process that a company needs to go through to put these patches through should be something to consider. Make sure that they will help deal with unique cases and not just general issues that every user may run into. Also look into potentially how often they look to put out bug fixes and patches. Some companies use a system with specific times of the month that they roll out a patch.
Customization
Is the system customizable? With the advancements of technology, there are new and improved systems being rolled out all the time. You may need something very niche though, and a rigid software system can be very hard to adopt in a short amount of time. Make sure that the software is flexible to the users needs and able to be customized to the company needs as well. You should find a balance between the two. A highly customizable system means it may be harder to get a handle on while a rigid system will be easy but have much less breathing room when it comes to working around issues or using certain features.