FOAK - Business Advice?
R C Nesbit
asking for help or advice on a business issue. -
particularly those here with their own business or in
business management positions. Cane? Nige?
Over the past 6 years I have been developing a
database-driven integrated business automation system, a
sort of ERP/CRM system specifically aimed at small/medium
business.
Originally developed for one client, 2 years ago we entered
into a joint venture to promote the systems to a wider
market. Last month this partnership effectively collapsed,
as the partners main business started to feel the pinch and
started a major cost-cutting exercise.
Their input and financial support has been 'OK' - financing
a creative agency to develop a corporate brand and web
site, Google Adwords, and effectively paying me a living
wage while I tried to concentrate on re-hashing the systems
for various clients and to make it more attractive to a
wider market. Unfortunately I was also their acting IT and
Marketing manager, and they put a lot of demands on my time
for their own business purposes, so time to work on the
joint-venture was limited. The business made enough profit
in it's first year to pay back the initial investment.
So the separation is a double-edged sword. I now have time
to devote to developing the business and the product, and
a couple of new business partners (a Polac techie and a
freelance salesman) but very sparse financial resources, so
it's going to be a long-haul.
So my main question/plea for help is in asking what 'pushes
the right buttons' in the mind of Mr SME? The people who
rely on Excel and Word for most of their business process?
The system is a core business process of quotations,
orders, job-cards/delivery notes, and customer invoicing &
credit control, as well as purchase ordering, stock
control, an electronic white board job planning/scheduling
facility, HR functions, Plant/Vehicle asset and maintenance
scheduling, extensive management reporting, integration
with back-end accounts (Sage, QuickBooks etc)
It follows the principles of single-entry-multiple-use of
data. Put the quote in once, press a button and it becomes
an order, press another and it becomes an invoice.
The original client benefited massively, doubling their
turnover from �2m to �4m in 2 years with no extra staff.
One of the directors told me "without this system we would
have to employ at least another 5 or 6 people to cope with
the paperwork."
Another customer, a small owner-operated steel fabrications
business with 6 blokes in his workshop bought a cut-down
version of the system, and within a month had a grin like a
Cheshire cat and said it had given him 2 days a week back!
So what message gets home to small & medium businesses?
ERP works with some, but sound expensive! CRM is another
common buzz-word, but is usually yet another stand-alone
system.
--
Rob_P
UKRM(at)indqualtec.co.uk
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Looks like Rab C Nesbit.
Jeremy
>
> So what message gets home to small & medium businesses?
> ERP works with some, but sound expensive! CRM is another
> common buzz-word, but is usually yet another stand-alone
> system.
Perhaps you already considered all these:
#1 priority is cost saving. But they also don't want to be lumbered with
a system that is too rigid supplied by an organisation that will ignore
their enhancement requests. They don't want to have to upgrade their PCs
to run it. On the flip side they don't want a bespoke system which
becomes hard to upgrade. So I would say:
- focus on cost savings
- flexibility/upgradeability (keep it is a single-source package for
all customers)
- consider offering it on a hosted basis if the integration aspects are
optional (i.e. as simple as via the remote desktop-type implementations)
which gives a "rental" model, no software installations, try-before-you-
buy opportunities
HTH
--
jeremy
K1200S
ginge
>So what message gets home to small & medium businesses?
>ERP works with some, but sound expensive! CRM is another
>common buzz-word, but is usually yet another stand-alone
>system.
0 - Companies don't buy acronyms. *ever*
1 - You might be disregarding the most valuable source of info you
have.. Ignore the product entirely for a moment and go ask the
salesman about the wants and needs of his existing customer base.
They're a semi-captive audience, can you do things he knows they
already want.. if so tell him about those things, and wait for him to
do what salesmen do best..
2 - Avoid using any acronyms, even if they're acronyms that everybody
should know. Use plain non techie english to describe absolutely
everything, all the time.
3 - Clearly identify and articulate the areas your product saves cost
and time, that's ultimately what you have to sell as an offering. To
do that you need to say exactly what it the product does in the
context of a business funtion, how it does it, and to a lesser extewnt
what it does differently to other products, how much effort it saves,
and why per � spent on your product the return will be at least X%
more..
4 - Business that do things other than make technology generally don't
give a flying fuck about the technology, so on that basis alone don't
sell it as a technical product, sell it as a _business_ product.
5 - Find a lot better way to say "It follows the principles of
single-entry-multiple-use of data. Put the quote in once, press a
button and it becomes an order, press another and it becomes an
invoice." Maybe expand on how you can manage repeat orders, perhaps
what it can do to identify late payers, early payers, regular repeat
orders.. regular repeat orders that grow, shrink, stop entirely...
Flag up piss taking customers, etc.
6 - Don't ever ever categorise small business owners as "Mr SME", in
doing so you're sort of saying they're all the same, and their egos
will resent you for it.
OK bored now, but hope that gave you a few ideas.
R C Nesbit
> > So what message gets home to small & medium businesses?
> > ERP works with some, but sound expensive! CRM is another
> > common buzz-word, but is usually yet another stand-alone
> > system.
>
> Perhaps you already considered all these:
>
> #1 priority is cost saving. But they also don't want to be lumbered with
> a system that is too rigid supplied by an organisation that will ignore
> their enhancement requests. They don't want to have to upgrade their PCs
> to run it. On the flip side they don't want a bespoke system which
> becomes hard to upgrade. So I would say:
Part of our USP is that even a basic entry-level system shares the same
database back-end, so it is a case of switching on options, and we expect
and rely on the customer, once he is acclimatised to the system, to request
enhancements and site-specific functionality.
> - focus on cost savings
Correct - but how?
> - flexibility/upgradeability (keep it is a single-source package for
> all customers)
See above.
> - consider offering it on a hosted basis if the integration aspects are
> optional (i.e. as simple as via the remote desktop-type implementations)
> which gives a "rental" model, no software installations, try-before-you-
> buy opportunities
Yes, this is something we have proven, and is a definite option, but we
have the technology more or less taped, it is the core message - what grabs
their attention!
R C Nesbit
> OK bored now, but hope that gave you a few ideas.
Thanks - all of these things buzz around in my head.
The 'Talking non-techie' bit especially.
One of the strengths of the product it that it is designed
from the outset to be used by complete gorillas! lots of
"No, sorry, you have to fill this bit in first"
validations.
It's striking the balance between talking up the product in
techie terms and talking down to the user which is a big
problem.
Adrian
saying:
>> - focus on cost savings
> Correct - but how?
Case studies.
Surely your salesbod can answer this sort of question...?
Wicked Uncle Nigel
<sp...@ukrm.net> typed
>Jeremy spoke:
>> > So what message gets home to small & medium businesses?
>> > ERP works with some, but sound expensive! CRM is another
>> > common buzz-word, but is usually yet another stand-alone
>> > system.
>>
>> Perhaps you already considered all these:
>>
>> #1 priority is cost saving. But they also don't want to be lumbered with
>> a system that is too rigid supplied by an organisation that will ignore
>> their enhancement requests. They don't want to have to upgrade their PCs
>> to run it. On the flip side they don't want a bespoke system which
>> becomes hard to upgrade. So I would say:
>
>Part of our USP is that even a basic entry-level system shares the same
>database back-end, so it is a case of switching on options, and we expect
>and rely on the customer, once he is acclimatised to the system, to request
>enhancements and site-specific functionality.
This is not at all U, and is therefore not an SP.
HTH.
--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - "He's hopeless, but he's honest"
I have already made the greatest contribution to the fight against climate
change that I can make: I have decided not to breed. Now quit bugging me and
go and talk to the Catholics.
ginge
>It's striking the balance between talking up the product in
>techie terms and talking down to the user which is a big
>problem.
Answer - do neither.
The aim has to be to sell a more efficient version of the customer's
business to them, which as a byproduct involves you implementing some
"computer stuff" nobody is really interested in the detail of... and
that's what the salesman will be able to do for you if he's any good.
Let's use a different example. Imagine somebody is 400 miles from
home and their car isn't running as well as it needs to, would they...
A) be interested in getting it serviced, by someone that understands
what to do, so it then runs well.
or
B) the specification and location of the faulty bearing that needs
replacing to make it run better...
vulgarandmischevious
>So what message gets home to small & medium businesses?
software that endures beyond the one-man-band who developed it has
fucked off.
Doesnotcompute
> So what message gets home to small & medium businesses?
Money. In every aspect.
--
Dnc
Dan L
My co are in the process of having a bespoke system of this nature
built.
We have tried other one-size-fits-all type systems, unfortunately none
of those tried really fits our business requirements, hence the
decision to do our own thing.
The overriding things of importance are:
ease of use
greater efficiency
greater accountability
better access to management info
ability to plan jobs and adapt on-the-fly
all aspects of the business in one package
and above all
efficiency resulting in cost saving, and a better end user service.
--
Dan L
Too much time to think, too little to do.
dan.y...@gmail.com
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Doki
> So my main question/plea for help is in asking what 'pushes
> the right buttons' in the mind of Mr SME? The people who
> rely on Excel and Word for most of their business process?
<I don't own an SME. I know people who do, and have worked in lots of them>
The a lot of SME owners a) don't give a toss, or know, about technology and
b) are tight / risk averse in the extreme. I've worked in SMEs where there
was kit avaiable for a couple of K which would massively improve
productivity, but there was nobody really selling the idea to the owners.
IMO you need to hammer home that this will give them major cost savings -
work out the payback period in conjunction with your current customers. If
the product can pay for itself within a few months, they'll be biting your
hand off.
The other thing is you need to ensure it and the pitch is free enough of IT
jargon for them to use and understand. There are people doing astonishingly
unproductive things for lack of a little know how - using Excel as a
database, manually looking through lists of job numbers in Word or Excel
rather than pressing Ctrl-F. A lot of business process are literally paper
processes taken straight onto the computer - form letters being altered by
hand each time rather than using mail merge. I'm sure you already know most
of this.
Doki
Exactly. As all the books say, benefits, not features, sell a product. You
will reduce order processing time by at least x%, other customers have been
able to do XYZ with our product (ie, expand without more staff) etc. etc.
Simon Wilson
>
> My co are in the process of having a bespoke system of this nature
> built.
> We have tried other one-size-fits-all type systems, unfortunately none
> of those tried really fits our business requirements, hence the
> decision to do our own thing.
>
This, IME, is quite common.
Technology roadmap for startup/growing companies often looks like:
Pen and paper -> Word/Excel -> Maybe a little something in Access or
equvalent -> Home made system -> SAP/Oracle whatever or a 'real' ERP/CRM.
The interesting thing is that if you get a couple of people that really
know what they are doing with the right tools, it's quite possible to
produce a fairly robust and reasonably functional system for
notta-lotta-money. The jump to the big boy systems is often very large
and therefore businesses often make do with their own systems for quite
a long time. As someone else mentioned, it can be a huge problem when
'Joe' buggers off to his next job or retires.
So in order to convince someone that your solution^^H^H^H^H^H^H answer
is better than anybody elses you really do have to focus on the benefits
as much as possible - with proven payback etc. It really helps if you
can get great references from your customers (actually that's pretty
much essential IMHO). You also have to think about how you convince
someone that you are in it for the long term.
You might even seriously want to consider open-sourcing it whilst you
supply valuable know how etc. in getting the best out of it. I recognise
this would be a huge step to take but if you can get it right it can
work out well for everyone. Google freemium business model.
Getting yourself a good sales guy can really help (if you don't have one
already), but beware the ones asking for huge commission upfront - they
need to be hungry.
> The overriding things of importance are:
> ease of use
> greater efficiency
> greater accountability
> better access to management info
> ability to plan jobs and adapt on-the-fly
> all aspects of the business in one package
>
> and above all
>
> efficiency resulting in cost saving, and a better end user service.
>
All great goals but frequently hard to measure. IME one of the toughest
things is defining the requirements for 'access to management info'.
Once you have that nailed (no easy task) then the rest of it should
easily fall into place.
--
/Simon
Macie
>So what message gets home to small & medium businesses?
1. Cost savings. Whether through reducing fixed costs of system
maintenance or through driving better efficiencies, but ideally both.
2. Making it easier. Whatever 'it' is, you need to make it less
painful for them. Whether it is order processing, producing
management reports, consolidated invoicing, incident management or
even producing some KPIs for customers, your system means they need
less Nurofen.
3. Scaleability. Push the 'modular' aspect and the benefits a lot.
Pretty much anything else is superflous. The MD / whoever won't
usually care much about the techy side or the jargon.
--
Macie
MZ Baghira
wessie
news:i73o45de06785rl3i...@4ax.com:
an important point
When a permie, I was tasked with sorting out some proprietary electronics
test software after the author, a contractor, croaked. Minimal
documentation, no source code. A barrel of laughs.
As someone else has suggested, at least have a contingency whereby the
source code is available should your business stop trading. If the software
is very effective then consider franchising it on a regional basis. This
would give *your* customers a fallback if you win the lottery or get
elected pope.
--
wessie at tesco dot net
BMW R1150GS
Catman
Enter the Trust Group.
Mr. Rope to the white courtesy code repository, Mr Rope.
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www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk
Dan L
Our system is being put together by a northern based software developer
to our spec. In addition to all of the back office functions it will
also be rolled out to our field engineers via PDA's.
So far it looks really good, and there has been some interest from
other companies in the same field
R C Nesbit
> wessie wrote:
> > vulgarandmischevious <vulgarandm...@gmail.com> wrote in
> > news:i73o45de06785rl3i...@4ax.com:
> >
> >> R C Nesbit <sp...@ukrm.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>> So what message gets home to small & medium businesses?
> >> software that endures beyond the one-man-band who developed it has
> >> fucked off.
> >
> > an important point
> >
> > When a permie, I was tasked with sorting out some proprietary electronics
> > test software after the author, a contractor, croaked. Minimal
> > documentation, no source code. A barrel of laughs.
> >
> > As someone else has suggested, at least have a contingency whereby the
> > source code is available should your business stop trading. If the software
> > is very effective then consider franchising it on a regional basis. This
> > would give *your* customers a fallback if you win the lottery or get
> > elected pope.
> >
>
> Enter the Trust Group.
>
> Mr. Rope to the white courtesy code repository, Mr Rope.
Indeed, which was formed with this very reason as one of the principles.
Catman
> Catman spoke:
>> wessie wrote:
>>> vulgarandmischevious <vulgarandm...@gmail.com> wrote in
>>> news:i73o45de06785rl3i...@4ax.com:
>>>
>>>> R C Nesbit <sp...@ukrm.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> So what message gets home to small & medium businesses?
>>>> software that endures beyond the one-man-band who developed it has
>>>> fucked off.
>>> an important point
>>>
>>> When a permie, I was tasked with sorting out some proprietary electronics
>>> test software after the author, a contractor, croaked. Minimal
>>> documentation, no source code. A barrel of laughs.
>>>
>>> As someone else has suggested, at least have a contingency whereby the
>>> source code is available should your business stop trading. If the software
>>> is very effective then consider franchising it on a regional basis. This
>>> would give *your* customers a fallback if you win the lottery or get
>>> elected pope.
>>>
>> Enter the Trust Group.
>>
>> Mr. Rope to the white courtesy code repository, Mr Rope.
>
> Indeed, which was formed with this very reason as one of the principles.
>
I know. What's my commission?
Cane
[snip acronyms]
> So what message gets home to small & medium businesses?
Getting to the point helps. What's in it for me and my business?
R C Nesbit
> > So what message gets home to small & medium businesses? �
>
> Getting to the point helps. What's in it for me and my business?
Everything in one place.
How long does it take to generate a quote?
How easy is it to track & chase outstanding quotes?
If you win the order, do you then have to re-input everything? or
just press a button?
Do you use whiteboards for planning? Holidays/sick days?
Just press this button.
Want to know how much business a particular salesman has brought
in?
Press this button.
Want to know which add campaign is working best?
Press this button.
Want to know how much business your have today, this week, this
month?
Press this button.
Want to know the loading on a process line?
Press this button
Want to know if any jobs have been completed but not invoiced yet?
Press this button.
Want to know what value of overdue invoices over 90 days?
Press this button.
Want to know the quoter to order conversion rate?
Press this button...........
Catman
> Catman spoke:
>> wessie wrote:
>>> vulgarandmischevious <vulgarandm...@gmail.com> wrote in
>>> news:i73o45de06785rl3i...@4ax.com:
>>>
>>>> R C Nesbit <sp...@ukrm.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> So what message gets home to small & medium businesses?
>>>> software that endures beyond the one-man-band who developed it has
>>>> fucked off.
>>> an important point
>>>
>>> When a permie, I was tasked with sorting out some proprietary electronics
>>> test software after the author, a contractor, croaked. Minimal
>>> documentation, no source code. A barrel of laughs.
>>>
>>> As someone else has suggested, at least have a contingency whereby the
>>> source code is available should your business stop trading. If the software
>>> is very effective then consider franchising it on a regional basis. This
>>> would give *your* customers a fallback if you win the lottery or get
>>> elected pope.
>>>
>> Enter the Trust Group.
>>
>> Mr. Rope to the white courtesy code repository, Mr Rope.
>
> Indeed, which was formed with this very reason as one of the principles.
>
I are a fuckwit, are I not?
dog
> Over the past 6 years I have been developing a
> database-driven integrated business automation system, a
> sort of ERP/CRM system specifically aimed at small/medium
> business.
made out of lego? sorry, i mean excel?
--
dog
rsv1000rf two#5 pwcram#3
Cane
R C Nesbit
> > Over the past 6 years I have been developing a
> > database-driven integrated business automation system, a
> > sort of ERP/CRM system specifically aimed at small/medium
> > business.
>
> made out of lego? sorry, i mean excel?
How can I put this......?
No, what part of 'Database-Driven' is confusing you?
& FRO, OK?
geoff
<d...@dev.null> writes
>R C Nesbit wrote:
>> Over the past 6 years I have been developing a
>> database-driven integrated business automation system, a
>> sort of ERP/CRM system specifically aimed at small/medium
>> business.
>
>made out of lego? sorry, i mean excel?
Customers also want a degree of confidence that you will be there to
support them in the future
How can you give them that assurance ?
--
geoff
R C Nesbit
> Customers also want a degree of confidence that you will be there to
> support them in the future
>
> How can you give them that assurance ?
Aside from the fact that I have been doing this for nigh on 20 years,
as Catman mentioned above, I formed The Trust Group in 1994 with this
factor as one of the founding principles.
Cane
> > Want to know the quoter to order conversion rate?
> > Press this button...........
>
> I use this:
>
> http://www.make247.co.uk/
but I'd rather use these:
R C Nesbit
> > > Want to know the quoter to order conversion rate?
> > > Press this button...........
> >
> > I use this:
> >
> > http://www.make247.co.uk/
>
> but I'd rather use these:
>
> http://www.ryman.co.uk/Duplicate-Books-20.asp
Heh!
Andy Bonwick
>Geoff spoke:
>> Customers also want a degree of confidence that you will be there to
>> support them in the future
>>
>> How can you give them that assurance ?
>
>Aside from the fact that I have been doing this for nigh on 20 years,
>as Catman mentioned above, I formed The Trust Group in 1994 with this
>factor as one of the founding principles.
20 years is a long time to be hooking up printers and still being at a
point where a perceived 'credit crunch' is losing you your job.
R C Nesbit
> 20 years is a long time to be hooking up printers and still being at a
> point where a perceived 'credit crunch' is losing you your job.
Who's lost their job?
R C Nesbit
As a post-script to this, I recall a conversation some time ago at Nissan in
Washington, when it was said that the idea of prefering large substantial
suppliers over small local ones is a flawed Western concept.
The Japanese take the view (rightly, IMO) that in dealing with small
businesses, the owners see the business as their livelihood, and will fight
tooth and nail to survive and keep going, whereas a large corporation is at
the mercy of the whims of the financial markets and shareholders, and is
actually more likely to collapse in hard times than a small business.
In the past 6 months we have been approached by 2 companies who have software
supplied by 'substantial companies' which have gone bust, leaving the users
un-supported.
Timo Geusch
> As a post-script to this, I recall a conversation some time ago at Nissan in
> Washington, when it was said that the idea of prefering large substantial
> suppliers over small local ones is a flawed Western concept.
>
> The Japanese take the view (rightly, IMO) that in dealing with small
> businesses, the owners see the business as their livelihood, and will fight
> tooth and nail to survive and keep going, whereas a large corporation is at
> the mercy of the whims of the financial markets and shareholders, and is
> actually more likely to collapse in hard times than a small business.
To a certain extent that does make sense but you have to keep in mind
that Japanese companies tend to favour long-term business
relationships. If you're a valued supplier then you're unlikely to get
ditched because Joe Bloggs down the road promises to supply the same
widget 0.5p cheaper (they might haggle you down by those .5p very
politely though). A lot of the Western business is either "cheapest
wins" or "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".
--
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Grimly Curmudgeon
drugs began to take hold. I remember R C Nesbit <sp...@ukrm.net> saying
something like:
>As a post-script to this, I recall a conversation some time ago at Nissan in
>Washington, when it was said that the idea of prefering large substantial
>suppliers over small local ones is a flawed Western concept.
>
>The Japanese take the view (rightly, IMO) that in dealing with small
>businesses, the owners see the business as their livelihood, and will fight
>tooth and nail to survive and keep going,
Japanese industry (with the exception of the big ones like steel and
cars) was and is founded on a wide spread of small businesses, some very
small indeed. The Japanese optical industry during the 50s 60s and well
into the 70s was a good example of this, with many Ma and Pa workshops
contributing their bit to a larger whole. An incredible tangle,
actually, with nobody really knowing nowadays who made what for who,
such was the complexity of it all.
During WW2 the dispersed nature of Japanese industry made a very
difficult target for bombers, which doubtless had a bearing on the
bombing strategy of the American Army Air Force - if there's no big
works to attack, flatten the whole city and take out as many small ones
as possible.
Albert Speer also knew this, and his disperal strategy worked incredibly
well - people even had lathes, milling machines and ball-bearing
grinders in their cellars, to such effect that during the height of the
bombing campaign, German armament production actually improved.