How We Wrote Our Own Sales App
Obsah
The reason? No application on the market suited us.
I don’t like finding and deploying new software. That’s probably one of the few things that we see exactly the same – both us managers and our IT guys. It takes time and repeated searching and time and it never actually does exactly what we want.
Which is really strange, because the SaaS market is the largest in the field of cloud services and is also the fastest growing. There are a lot of applications on the market and this situation will increase even more, also thanks to artificial intelligence, which has opened the door to programming even to people who may have never seen code with their own eyes.
So although SaaS rules the world, its limits are obvious – it is a prefabricated product that cannot be customized to the maximum. And with these AI creations, it is not exactly the same in the field of security.
Data rules the world and tools that can work well with it will become increasingly crucial for staying in business. But… How to find a tool that fully adapts to a specific company? In our case, it was not possible.
📈 Processes bring demands on software
Processes used to be the domains of large companies and corporations. Such a large number of people cannot be managed in a non-process-based manner. But with the influx of big data even into small companies, process management has become a lifeline for operations.
Perhaps more like a sword of Damocles. Processes help keep a company on the right course, but in order for their implementation to be effective, in many cases it is necessary to connect them to specific activities and tools so that they can function automatically.
But just as processes are precisely set to the functioning of a company, software should also fit the needs of processes exactly. And none of the ready-made applications on the market met our needs.
📱 Reasons for developing your own sales app
Business and sales are areas that have suffered from legislative restrictions in recent years. The processes had to be redesigned and data protection requirements incorporated. That would not have been such a problem.
The problem was the amount of data that needed to be monitored. The requirements for the business process therefore took on dimensions that every app on the market was short of. And on top of that, the following areas were added:
- Process development
- Transparency
- Substitution and agenda handover
- KPI
- Split costs
1️⃣ Process development
The business process in a company is like a living organism – it is constantly changing and evolving. Every salesperson is different, so they bring a different perspective to the company. And these differences and changes need to be reflected in how the sales department approaches potential customers and how it works with the tools that help them do so.
2️⃣ Transparency
As I said, big data has overwhelmed marketers in all companies. They need help in the form of a clear environment where they can easily access information about potential customers from companies and individuals, as well as the contacts associated with these entities.
But that’s not all. Then there are details about communication, needs, negotiations, meetings, offers, trials launched, technical assistance – the list of items grows very quickly over time. And a marketer needs to have all this under their thumb in a second.
3️⃣ Substitution and agenda handover
The previous point is also related to the possibility of handing over a potential customer to another salesperson. The reason may be illness, but also leaving the company. Regardless of the reason, the company must have the option to hand over the information to another salesperson as a nicely wrapped package.
4️⃣ KPI
When you type KPIs for your business into Google, how many come up – dozens, hundreds? And how many of them fit your business? KPIs are not some miraculous universal measuring devices, but indicators that each company, or rather its manager, must choose for themselves.
This is not a problem up to this stage, but once you want to take KPIs into account in a business application, you will not always encounter the customization you need.
5️⃣ Spread costs
Which of today’s companies has the ability to charge large sums for programs and applications on command? Often, even the large ones do not have this comfort, let alone small ones. However, developing our own application allowed us to spread the costs over time and only spend what was required for a module at that time.
Each iteration was a small milestone compared to the costs we would have had to spend to purchase a comprehensive solution right from the start. And that too with the hope that it would meet all our needs.
What is my conclusion?
Of course, I’m not saying that every company has to develop applications for internal needs themselves – that’s not even possible. Rather, these ideas are for you to consider whether you should have some tools custom-developed. You might then find that a custom application is more worthwhile than an unadaptable prefab.
