If you’re wondering if market-specific software solutions can help grow your business, the short answer is yes, they can. In fact, in today’s world of automation, businesses should consider this step a necessity. To gain a competitive edge, you need a software solution, built for your industry, that allows you to clearly assess risk and make informed decisions.
Unfortunately, there are still a good number of decision makers and sales professionals out there who choose to forge ahead without the help of a specific business intelligence solution, instead relying upon more “traditional” tactics, such their instinct or data without the necessary context or scope.
While those may be the tactics you’re used to, they are outmoded and could significantly prevent you from capturing the opportunities you want down the road. Still unconvinced? Here are the top five benefits of embracing a market-specific software solution.
1. Supports Your Processes
Even though there seems to be an app for everything these days, canned, “one size fits all” solutions will not be equipped to meet the process needs specific to your business. Yes, those options can certainly make day-to-day operations more efficient and help boost your bottom line, but you still won’t get the best possible return on your investment. That’s because unless the software solution is built for your specific business process, starndard CRM software will struggle without costly modifications to its functionality.
On the other hand, an automated solution designed with your organizational needs will be better equipped to manage your business processes.
2. Addresses Industry-Specific Pain Points
If a specific solution is built for a specific industry, the logical conclusion is that it’s capable of handling the unique issues of that industry. This is why industry-focused software solutions have been growing at a rate of over 20 percent per year. For instance, mobile apps that help meet the unique needs of on-the-go workers, such as nurses, construction crews and technicians, increase productivity. Really, it’s that simple.
So with specific market software, you ensure that your solution has the built-in features and technological abilities to satisfy the day-to-day intricacies of your organization, as well as your industry-specific pain points.
3. Meets Your Needs
If you’re struggling to find an out of the box software option that can meet management needs, understand users and grasp the way your business works, this should be a clear signal to you that you need to keep looking for a full solution. Most ready-to-go solutions are designed to be versatile and to meet the needs of as many businesses – and industries – as possible. So again, while this kind of option may be able to meet some of your needs, for many it will often still fall short of the desired mark.
By investing a specific solution based on your objectives and requirements, in addition to your users’ needs, it will be a software that empowers productivity, sustainability and growth.
4. Integration Opportunities That Create Efficiency
A shocking 38 percent of businesses cite a lack of integration between tools as a major challenge in their company. Non-Industry specific software solutions, which come with more than a handful of inflexible rules and limitations, may be a cause of this.
For instance, you may use one application to complete a single task in a process, such as developing a proposal, and then another to complete a secondary or final step. If these two pieces of software do not communicate well with each other, or at all, you will spend more time than necessary on this task.
If you were to have a specific-build solution at your fingertips, however, it will be designed to support integrations that can automate and streamline once fractured processes and tasks – a big win for efficiency.
5. Expands as the Specific Industry Changes
Non Industry solutions may come with updates to keep up with the times in their other industry, but they aren’t designed to grow with your company. Industry specific software solutions will be able to adapt to the constantly changing needs and demands of your field. Despite a high initial investment for specific software, you do get a system that is built to last and will continually fuel growth. After all, specific software models itself around your business processes, and thus, is prepared to evolve with you.
Final Thought
General software solutions can be tempting. They can provide up-front cost savings, are modern in appearance and often boast agility as a perk. But ultimately they are designed to meet the needs of the masses. So the ROI you’ll realize from an industry specific software platform built from the ground up with your industry, as well as your unique organizational needs, objectives and users in mind, will more than offset the initial cost.
