Borrowd
When off-the-shelf software stops fitting: buy, build or connect?
We'll say something unusual for a software consultancy: most of the time, you should buy software, not build it. The skill is in noticing when you're in the other time.
Off-the-shelf software is cheaper, tested by thousands of other customers and maintained by someone else. If a £20-a-month tool solves your problem, we’ll tell you to use it, even though it means less work for us.
But businesses outgrow tools, and the signs are often easy to miss because they build up slowly.
Seven signs you’ve outgrown what you’re using
- A spreadsheet sits beside the system. If the real information lives in a spreadsheet and the software is just where you record it afterwards, the software isn’t doing its job.
- You’ve bent the process to fit the tool. If the question “can the software do that?” decides how you work, the tail is wagging the dog.
- You stack plugins. Three subscriptions, each covering part of a job, plus manual work to bridge the gaps.
- Staff keep workarounds. Ask your team what they do when the system “doesn’t do that”. The answers are your specification.
- Data is typed in more than once. The same order, customer or stock figure entered in two or three places.
- Costs scale with success. Per-seat fees, per-booking commission or per-order charges that grow faster than your margin.
- Nobody trusts the numbers. If the first question in every meeting is “which system is right?”, you have a data problem.
One or two of these is normal. Four or five means it’s time to think.
The three options
Buy (or switch)
Choose a different off-the-shelf product, or a better plan of the one you have.
Right when: your needs are common, your process is flexible and the main issue is that you picked the wrong tool.
Watch out for: migrating to something just as ill-fitting, and the cost of moving your data and retraining the team.
Connect
Keep the tools you have, but make them share data automatically, so nothing is typed twice. For example: orders flowing from your shop, through stock and into Xero without a person in the middle.
Right when: each system does its own job well, and the pain is purely in the gaps between them.
Watch out for: a fragile chain of quick fixes. Integrations should be monitored, documented and built to survive an outage. This is what our Connect service is about.
Build
Create software around how your team actually works. A booking system, an internal dashboard or a customer portal.
Right when: your process is a genuine point of difference, off-the-shelf tools only half fit, or fees scale painfully with growth.
Watch out for: over-building. A good build starts small, solves the most expensive problem first and grows from there.
How to decide
Here’s the quick version of the conversation we have with clients.
| If this is true… | Lean towards |
|---|---|
| Tools are fine individually, but you re-key data between them | Connect |
| A good product exists and you just haven’t found it | Buy |
| Your process is unusual or is how you win customers | Build |
| Fees scale with sales and eat your margin | Build (or renegotiate) |
| You’re not sure | Run a discovery sprint first |
Real examples
- A campervan hire company was paying commission on listings and plugin fees, and still plugging gaps by hand. We built a booking platform with payments, ID checks and insurance (case study).
- An SPC flooring company needed its website, B&Q and its accounts to agree on stock. We connected them around Xero (case study).
- A timber merchant’s salesman spent hours on lookups across several tools. We built an agent that did the lookups and left the judgement to him (case study).
The pattern is the same each time: understand the process first, then pick the lightest tool that fixes it.
Map the process before you spend a penny
Whichever route you take, the first step is the same: write down how the work really flows, who does what, and where time and errors pile up. We run this as workshops with your team, and it often turns up fixes that cost almost nothing.
Need a second opinion?
Got a quote for new software, or a feeling your current set-up is holding you back? Talk to us. Our Advise service includes sanity-checking an existing quote, with no obligation to build anything with us.