Custom line-of-business apps for distributors.

When custom software is the right answer

Custom is not always the right answer. If a process is the same at every distributor, a packaged product will usually do it cheaper. Custom earns its cost when the process is part of how you compete: the service your customers cannot get elsewhere, the way your area managers work, the rules your billing partner requires.

The test is simple. If you are running something important in a spreadsheet, on paper, or in one person’s head because no product fits, that is a custom software problem. The spreadsheet is not the failure. It is the evidence that the need is real.

What I build

• Productivity apps for the field. Scanning and data-capture apps on handheld devices for people who work away from a desk, designed so the common task takes one step.
• Portals for customer questions. Self-service access to the information your customers call and email about, so your inside team spends its time on work that needs a person.
• Tools for your operators. Desktop and web applications that walk a trained operator through a critical process, check the work against your business rules, and explain what is wrong when something is.
• Reports and workflows. The views that turn collected data into decisions for managers and owners.

How I approach a build

I start with the process, not the screen. I want to know who does the work today, what they know that is written nowhere, what goes wrong, and what happens when it does. Most of the value in a line-of-business app comes from getting those answers right. The code is the smaller half.

Then I build in stages you can see. You use early versions, tell me what is wrong, and the design adjusts while change is still cheap. You know where the project stands against the estimate the whole way through.

Questions