Get it right from the start

By ADAM GIFFORD

On the surface, the firm where Bev Morrow works as office manager doesn't look big. At Ellerslie tool importer Ron Enright there's just Bev, Ron and Les, who handles customer service.

But the challenges it faces - getting stock in, sending stock out, keeping track of thousands of items, making sure everybody gets paid, handling multiple currencies, dealing with Customs - are similar to those faced by much larger businesses.

One of the challenges is finding the right software to run the business without breaking the bank.

It's not as if they are spoiled for choice. While a handful of major vendors fight over the top end of town, there are dozens of products aimed at small and medium-sized firms.

Ron Enright runs its business on exo-net, a New Zealand-developed software package now used by thousands of businesses, from sole traders to medium to large organisations such as Ullrich Aluminium and Glengarry Hancock.

Morrow says exo-net was chosen because it is user-friendly and can be adapted to specialist needs without huge drama and expense.

"We do a lot of quotes for insurance companies or for firms which buy a standard toolkit when they take a new technician on, so we got exo-net to build us a special quoting module," Morrow says.

"When we went on to the system I was the only one with previous computing experience, but it was so easy to use that once I got the hang of it I was able to train the guys.

"It is also a system which has grown as we grow."

Mark Loveys, who developed exo-net from an in-house accounting system he built for PC Direct - a company later sold to the Blue Star Group - says coping with growth was always a priority for the development team.

That is one reason exo-net is built to run on Microsoft's widely-used SQL Server database.

Using Microsoft technology helped its rapid acceptance in the market.

"Small business needs a ready supply of people to support the software," says Loveys, whose company Enprise sells and implements exo-net and SAP's new Business One product. "New Zealand businesses like to bolt on bits and pieces to a system, typically something which is very specific to what they do,"

Other vendors making software for small and medium companies include New Zealand-produced Greentree, the various products in the Microsoft business software stable like Great Plains, Solomon and Navision, Accpac, Mind Your Own Business, and dozens of others.

Greentree founder Don Bowman says smaller companies are looking for things like strong core financials and inventory management, and they are usually not fussed about the underlying technology.

Greentree is written in Jade, a powerful software technology developed in Christchurch. Jade architecture allows Greentree implementers to write complicated custom add-ons without interfering with the main product "Any programmer who knows Java can pick up Jade with a few hours training," Bowman says.

"Our big challenge is not getting good programmers, it's getting good business analysts."

Gary Taiaroa, from Dunedin-based Greentree and Accpac implementer Enabling Technologies, says there is no "simple" business and many of his customers are running complex and sophisticated businesses from remote locations.

"What we tend to do is spend a week on site doing all the system specs, then take it back to Dunedin to build," Taiaroa says. "If you do good planning and design, you get good delivery."

He says New Zealand firms push software to its limits to extract maximum value and they are also starting to embrace features like customer management.

Loveys agrees that preparation is the most crucial factor in any software project.

"It is critical the project is scoped out, that before customers buy a product they put time into documenting their requirements and mapping that against software. That is how they can prevent unexpected glitches in the end."

Loveys says that if vendors or implementers say they can deliver functionality which is not yet in the software, customers should negotiate their project plan so not all the money is paid over until all promises are met.

"It all comes down to customer expectation management.

"That is the ultimate business we are in."

Some of those expectations may be concerned with better management of suppliers and customers, or accessing the systems remotely using the internet, phones or personal devices.

Loveys says the idea of software as a service is starting to catch on, with application service providers like GDC's iVASP or HdS's Business Fabric starting to make headway by offering small businesses a range of specialised programs which can be accessed online.

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(to be continued throughout this week)