Question? - Answer!
Digitalization
Many people prefer good old-fashioned shopping and personal contact with their supplier to new-fangled digital technology. Why shouldn't I (continue to) focus my business on them? Because they will soon be extinct. These days you're more likely to come across a living dinosaur than a high school or college student handling a pencil and paper better than a smartphone or laptop. And while most affluent people are still of the old-school generation, people who literally grew up with computers, gadgets and other fancy gizmos will take their place in the next few years.
How can I increase my market share with digital technology? There are 2 main ways: 1. Utilize the latest digital capabilities to attract more customers to your product (mainly the "online" generation); 2. Speed up, reduce the cost of basic business processes and improve the quality of your products by optimizing them for digital technologies and moving competitors away, both those who are still working "the old way" consciously and those who have not yet paid due attention to it. The benefits will be felt by both the old-school generation and the online generation of your customers.
How can I achieve sustainable cheaper and faster business processes and improve the quality of my goods/services with the help of digital technologies? It all depends on your specific situation. In most cases, the biggest gains are achieved by using intuitive, stable and fine-tuned hardware and software (digital solution) that automates part of the work done by your team/your supplier, thus reducing your need for staff/external suppliers. In this way you reduce your costs and, since machines are far superior to humans in certain operations, you increase your productivity. Contact us and we will be happy to understand your specific situation and suggest the most promising areas of digitalization, from which you can choose the most suitable one.
How can I get a digital solution that will provide a steady increase in productivity for my business without being too expensive? Such a solution should definitely reduce your costs. There are 2 main ways to go for such a solution: 1. Develop it independently and exclusively for your business processes. In this case it makes sense to prepare for the revision of these business processes, as your own development will most likely bring maximum benefit only if your business processes will be optimized for automation; 2. Buy an off-the-shelf product and implement it in-house, adapting it to your needs.
How to understand what is better in my situation - to develop a solution independently "for myself" or to adapt an "off-the-shelf" solution? What estimate should I prepare for? It is recommended to develop independently only if your company has a certain financial potential. Small projects at the level of home pages are usually within a five-figure sum of €, but if you are planning to automate business processes, reduce personnel/supplier costs by automating the work they do, you should not estimate the project costs at less than six-figure sum of €. Despite the fact that the purchase of a ready-made product and its adaptation in theory can cost the same six-figure sum as in case of independent development, a well adapted ready-made solution is almost guaranteed to have a large set of functions that will be useful when expanding your business and will tell you how best to build fundamentally new business processes, not to mention the savings on the development of this functionality "for yourself"; Write to us at contact@enerxcite.com - we will help you decide on the most suitable option for you and avoid many risks.
What are the main advantages of developing a digital solution on my own? When does it make sense to choose this option? Self-development gives you much more freedom and flexibility to maintain your business processes in their original form, especially if you find it impossible or unacceptable to adapt them to automation. If you run a small or medium-sized enterprise, you are likely to find that most of the popular "off the shelf" digital solutions you are considering adapting to your needs are designed and deeply optimized for the needs of very large companies with large teams, distributed environments and very complex infrastructures. The costs of operating and maintaining such complex systems in a small or medium-sized enterprise can outweigh all the benefits of their implementation and make your digitalization project unprofitable. It also happens that the manufacturer of such an off-the-shelf system at some point decides that its further development is inexpedient and (after a certain period of time, usually 2 - 4 years) stops adapting this system to the constantly changing requirements - both legislative and customer preferences and then you are faced with an unpleasant choice: - Either continue to use an unsupported system and put up with either the considerable costs of maintaining it yourself or ignoring all security standards, - or migrate to a new system, having previously purchased it and possibly re-adapting it to your needs. E-mail us at contact@enerxcite.com - we can help you decide on the most suitable option for you and avoid many risks.
I would like to develop a digital solution on my own, where do I begin? Order the development of a customized solution concept from the company to which you intend to entrust the development of your digital solution. Good developers, such as us, can present you several different solution concepts, including the advantages and disadvantages of each, so that you can choose the most suitable one. We at enerxcite.com will be happy to analyze your needs and create one or more solution concepts for you, unencumbered by unnecessary complexity.
How can I ensure that the solution I develop will meet my expectations? If your company does not have the right technical experts to evaluate your project in detail, hire an independent expert (not from the company you want to hire for the development) and ask to confirm the feasibility and profitability (proof of concept) of the solution concept of the company you want to hire for the development. We at enerxcite.com will be happy to help you find the weak points in the solution concept of the company you want to hire for the development and rectify them together with them.
How do I not become dependent on the company I am going to outsource my digital solution to and make sure that even if I don't use the services of that company, I can continue to get all the benefits of that digital solution? The key here is not to depend on the sole opinion of the company you are going to outsource development to. Make sure you get a second opinion, either from a specialist in your company with experience in commissioning digital systems or, if you do not have one, from an independent external consultant. During the conceptualization phase of the solution, provide the project with its own employee (one or more, depending on the scope of your project), whose main task will be to gather experience about the digital solution being developed in order to actually "own" the digital solution with the possibility of using it with minimal or even no support from the development company. In this way, your company will also gain experience in managing digital technology providers and the knowledge of the digital solution will be able to be transferred deeper into your company. We at enerxcite.com will not lock up the knowledge in order to keep you as a customer, but will gladly train your staff, provide them with accurate and useful documentation and hope that you will entrust your next project to us.
How do I make sure that the development of a digital solution does not reach a dead end and is within the expected budget and timeframe? Agree a rough plan with the company you are going to outsource development to and aim to keep it within the desired scope. Such a plan should include a list of components that will make up the digital solution to be developed (servers, databases, user environment, APIs...), a plan for its integration into your company's IT environment (i.e. how the new system will interact with existing and planned ones) and a list of resources required - human, technical, etc.
How long does it usually take to plan the development of a digital solution? From a few hours to a few months - depends on the functional set and complexity of the future digital solution.
There are many technologies (or even entire ecosystems, e.g. from Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Apple...) on which my future digital solution can be based, how do I choose the right one? If you don't have a specific preference, an existing environment with one of them, or extensive positive experience with one of these technologies, it is wise to entrust the choice of technology to the company to which you are going to entrust the development of your digital solution. If you prefer us, we will analyze the current market situation, select the most suitable technologies/ecosystems for your project, evaluate both the development prospects of each of them and the references of subcontractors deeply specialized in each of these technologies, and provide you with the most suitable options with a list of advantages and disadvantages of each, which will allow you to make an informed choice.
What budget makes sense to plan for, what final cost to prepare for? At least double the cost of creating a digital solution, as named by the company to which you are going to entrust its development. On average, at least 50% of the cost is not for the creation of the digital solution, but for its operation and maintenance throughout its lifecycle. You should also not lose sight of the fact that choosing the right people is far more important to the cost and quality of a digital solution than choosing the right technology.
What organizational measures do I need to take to increase the likelihood of success of the digital solution development project? You should pay special attention to communication with the company you are going to commission to develop the digital solution. In practice, this means that your employees work closely with the employees of the company to which you intend to assign the development of the digital solution. A very useful tool is regular Alignment Meetings, where the functionality that is currently being developed is discussed, where mutual expectations are clarified and misunderstandings are avoided. Both your costs and your benefits will depend on how well this communication works. We at enerxcite.com know many more techniques that are easy to do, but avoid very expensive mistakes and misunderstandings. Contact us and we will minimize the likelihood of both unforeseen costs and disappointing results for you.
Should I try to save money by ordering software development for a digital solution in Eastern Europe or India? It depends on your specific situation. If your project is relatively small and your corporate policies allow direct communication of future (key) users directly with the programmers, it would be best to organize and actively facilitate such communication. But in this case the issue of language and, perhaps, cultural barriers will inevitably arise. And if the level of qualification of developers from Eastern Europe is similar to that of German developers, and cultural differences are quite surmountable, everything is much more complicated with India. The main risk here is cultural differences, which often lead to very costly misunderstandings. It is also not always possible to get a quality product within the agreed timeframe. India is only recommended to consider if you already have extensive experience of working with such specialists. We at enerxcite.com speak fluent German, English and Russian and have experience working with developers from these countries. Give us a call and we will find the best value for money for you.
Should I consider working with freelancers and why? What do I need to consider in doing so? Definitely worth it, as the most experienced specialists in both development and communication with non-technical staff often work as freelancers. Working with them directly also saves on agency markups to find them. However, if you are assembling your own team of freelancers, you should keep in mind that they will likely have to build their own workflows from scratch and that there may be personal incompatibilities.