2Paths Team Blog

There are many common activities that all businesses must deal with, and there are many kinds of software out there to help: Business Development, Human Resourcing, Compensation, Finance, Regulatory, to name just a few. Then there is Supply Chain Management. Unless you are strictly in the people business, chances are there is a supply chain management element to your business. You likely have unique terminology around it that is specific to your business, your staff has a collection of sticky notes to track how to deal with exceptions, and they pass on rough instructions to their colleagues in hopes the supply workflow can continue when key personnel are away on vacation, as it is an integral piece of your business.

If this sounds familiar, then you are like many businesses who we, at 2Paths, speak to about streamlining and automating their supply chain management process. The question businesses struggle with is whether to build or buy software for managing their supply chain. Should you buy a packaged software package for a handsome fee, and handcuff yourself to years of expensive annual licensing fees? Or should you venture into the great unknown of custom software development, and risk leaping into the great void of unknowns, of which cost and process are at the forefront?

With one client, I used the following example to help understand the single biggest difference between the ‘build or buy’ question as it related to their supply chain management decision. When I was working as an engineer at BASF ten years ago, we went through one of the first major Supply Chain Management - SAP - implementations. It took two full years, and every employee in the organization felt its pain during the implementation. If you asked the employees at BASF today about that implementation, not a single person would have a happy memory of the experience, even ten long years later. Why was it so painful, you ask? The main reason is that BASF had to overhaul its entire workflow to fit the supply chain management application, which was behemoth and inflexible. Exceptions, which were previously accommodated by easy work-arounds, were no longer possible, and were, in fact, suddenly incredibly time-consuming. Everyone had to rethink how they did their jobs, and in some cases, do extra work to fulfill activities required by the application. The soft costs associated with adjusting the workflow to that application were exorbitant, and difficult to quantify at the time.

In sharp contrast, a solution devised by a custom software development company, like 2Paths, is built exactly according to your organization’s workflow. This way, there need not be any changes to your workflow — unless of course we discover process inefficiencies while analyzing your business processes, which then provides an opportunity for positive change. The end result is a solution designed to fit your unique business. Since the software includes no unneeded modules, everything is pertinent, and because the system is designed in concert with the customer, built with intuitive navigation in mind, training is easy and you do not require an elaborate User Manual. Like your favorite web applications, there is context-sensitive help for unfamiliar steps. 2Paths supports every application we develop, so in the unlikely event you do need personal help, we are ready to provide assistance.

Additional functionality requests are addressed promptly and efficiently, which is a sharp contrast to making a request for new functionality to a large, ‘packaged’ software provider, whose release cycles are often booked a year or more in advance, and even then requests are in competition with many other client’s requests. Another advantage of the custom solution is the platform independence. Our customers are not required to install anything on their laptops or desktops because our applications are always secure and web-accessible. Managers can approve audit reports from their hotel rooms when on a business trip, or from the comfort of their own home.

And of course, you may need supply chain management today, but down the road, inevitably there will be talk of billing (finance), sales forecasting, and other related business functions that can be integrated into the custom application. For many growing companies, it makes sense to solve one piece of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) puzzle at a time, rather than being overwhelmed with an application that is over-engineered for where they are at. With a custom solution, the client gets the application they need at the stage their business is in at the appropriate time, and can build on it as required. They enjoy a suite of solutions designed to effectively respond to their evolving needs. These days who can resist the word ‘custom’, and frankly, why would they?