Whether you are starting a new venture or running an existing entrepreneurial company, you understand that there are never enough hours in a day. To be successful, you have to run lean and keep the employee head count at a minimum level. If your firm adds too many hires, you’ll quickly become a bureaucratic organization with lots of rules and red tape. By staying small and agile, you can quickly respond to market changes and be ready for whatever challenges the ever-changing business environment brings.
In recent years, there have been tremendous advances in technology and software solutions. This has allowed vendors to offer cost-effective outsourced options to potential customers. In some cases, the solutions are hardware-based, while other offerings rely on application add-ons that can easily be incorporated into the customer’s existing software ecosystem. In some cases, software as a service (SAAS) alternatives actually let a client use outsourced modules that are fully resident and hosted on the vendor’s platforms.
E-Commerce Solutions for Your Website
Rather than trying to develop your own e-commerce application for your website or purchasing an expensive package, it’s a lot better to rent the bespoke software development on a monthly or annual basis. There are excellent solutions that will allow you to make your site e-commerce ready for a fraction of what this capability once cost. Basically, the functionality can snap right into your existing code and customers can then order directly from you online.
The great thing about this option is that the e-commerce vendor will handle all the development and updates associated with the application. They will also take care of quality assurance and testing of the package, which will save you a tremendous amount of time. You’ll simply need to understand the interface and learn how to add the code for the e-commerce functions to your existing site.
Outsourcing Your IT Services
It takes a substantial budget investment to keep a full IT department on staff. Other than executive-level pay packages, IT salaries are among the highest found in many companies. It’s not unusual to have to pay a six-figure sum to many IT employees, plus full benefits. You’ll also find that recruiting and retaining technology staff is very difficult. If you provide extended training for people who work for you, that may just qualify them for a better position somewhere else.
Instead of trying to maintain and manage your own IT staff, it makes more sense to partner with a vendor who offers a full complement of managed IT services. They will be able to offer a wide variety of services ranging from IT infrastructure to service desk functionality and application support. In addition, they can provide endpoint management and cloud services too.
Human Resources Application Software
It’s possible to pick and choose application software packages in today’s marketplace. With SAAS alternatives, you run your business on an application that is hosted on the vendor’s systems or in the cloud. The software company is responsible for all of the technical support and system updates to keep everything up and running and fully available.
These solutions dramatically trim the previously high costs of purchasing a package, buying the hardware to run it in house and hiring the IT staff to keep the application going. With a SaaS solution, you don’t have to worry about any of that. It’s incredibly cost-effective and the vendor’s application provides you with the key functionality that you need.
If you are running an entrepreneurial business, it’s important to leverage technology and software solutions that are fully functional and can be outsourced. By choosing the best packages or vendor for each application or IT need, you’ll get top of the line solutions at a fraction of their previous cost.
