Software is critical to many modern-day business operations. From project management to accounting, software products support a variety of core business competencies. Choosing top-quality software that fits your company’s unique needs can go a long way in promoting operational success.
Smart software choices are becoming even more important, as companies increasingly embrace remote and hybrid structures involving independent talent. This makes picking the right software more crucial—and more complex. Selecting a tool that doesn’t meet corporate needs or poses problems (like not being user friendly) can complicate processes and leave teams feeling frustrated.
Don’t doom your team to failure because of bad software choices. Software evaluation is the key to picking products that work. This guide details the critical factors that any team or business leader should consider in their software evaluation process.
Software evaluation: Basics and benefits
Software evaluation is an objective means of assessing a software’s ability to effectively serve its intended purpose while meeting your unique business needs. It requires identifying technical capabilities and evaluating the usability of individual products. A comprehensive evaluation will further take a comparative approach, looking at different tools meant for the same purpose with the goal of selecting the product best suited to the organization.
Why bother with software evaluation? Businesses invest massive amounts of money into the software. This isn’t just a financial investment but also an investment of time and energy. Say you purchase call-tracking software for your sales team and then decide that a different software better meets your team’s needs. Not only have you paid for a product you no longer need, but you also have to retrain your team to use the new product.
In the short term, effective software evaluation helps companies save money by avoiding needless waste. Software evaluation also saves money in the big picture by ensuring that the selected software products support efficient operations instead of slowing them down. If you want your organization to reap these rewards, your software evaluation process should cover certain factors.
7 key factors to improve your software evaluation process
From a technical standpoint, software evaluation might cover points like source code quality and user interface. Another obvious factor to consider is the price. Beyond this, there are less obvious yet still critical factors to include in your software evaluation. Here are some of the less tangible—but still essential points—to take into account.
1. Compatibility with your organization’s current tools
Ensure that whatever software you’re looking at is compatible with your organization’s current tools. There’s no point in getting software that won’t work with your company’s operating system of choice, for example. Beyond basic compatibility, look into integration capabilities. Being able to connect your email and calendar systems can be highly valuable, for instance.
Another example: Say you manage a graphic design team and want to invest in photo editing software for all to use. Since your graphics team uses Adobe products, you might prioritize Adobe Lightroom, a popular option. However, alternatives like Skylum Luminar can be integrated with Adobe Photoshop. Such integrative capability isn’t a given.
2. Adaptability to emerging technologies
Technology is constantly evolving and changing. Innovations frequently emerge (or are perfected) with the aim of making business processes more user friendly and efficient. You want software that can keep up with such innovations so that you can tap into the advantages they offer (and keep up with the competition).
Take artificial intelligence (AI), for example. AI can automate certain software coding processes, such as basic debugging. If you were to invest in coding software, you would want to prioritize products that can incorporate AI functionality. This will take one more tedious task off your software development team’s plate, allowing them to focus on other duties.
3. Customization potential for bespoke solutions
Software that can be customized to your company’s unique needs offers many advantages. For example, some software products allow for customizability via complex coding. Is this possible, and, if so, do you have the professionals on hand to tailor the product accordingly?
If you have a distributed team, you want to make sure that customized solutions can be enjoyed remotely, as well. You need the resources to define, implement, and test customized software solutions. If you don’t have the necessary skilled professionals on hand, you can find them remotely via a platform like Upwork.
4. The type and availability of technical support available
All software has a learning curve. Even a simple word processing program requires a new user to accustom themselves to a different interface and shortcut commands. Check out the educational support available for various software. Recognizing the demand for better learning tools, many software companies now go beyond a basic user manual and provide other formats like video tutorials.
Also, look into the type of customer support that a software product offers. This can vary between providers. One company might only offer an online forum and email support, for example, while another may offer 24/7 chat and phone support, too. Being able to get help promptly if confusion or glitches arise helps avoid operational bottlenecks.
5. Your organization’s training resources for new users
A software product’s educational resources will only show how to use the software. You also have to teach workers how, when, and why to use the software as part of your company’s day-to-day operations. Say you’ve brought in a new project management software, for example. Workers need guidance on its implementation.
Creating and communicating such policies will require company resources. Consider whether you’re in a position to provide the level of training required. This will depend in part on how complex the software is. A simple project management program likely won’t require as much time and attention as a complex accounting toolkit.
6. The difficulty of adding and removing users
Growth is integral to a company’s success. You want software solutions that can support your current user needs and be scaled up to accommodate more users. Do your research into a software’s scalability. In most cases, prices vary depending on how many people are using the software.
Additionally, look into how easy or difficult it will be to add or remove users. This is a question of practicality and security. If you have a professional leave the team and want to ensure they can no longer access the software in question, how complicated will that be? Is it a matter of changing passwords? Or do you need to access the individual’s device to uninstall the software?
7. Security and access flexibility for different types of team members
The workforce is becoming increasingly flexible, with more businesses relying on remote workers to perform complex tasks like software development. While this opens up a world of talent at recruiters’ fingertips, it also presents new hurdles—for instance, in terms of security. Enlisting the aid of a distributed workforce for high-security projects requires special attention to cloud and network security.
When selecting software, you need to balance access flexibility and security. For example, you might opt for a cloud-based solution or decide to pay extra for your own hosting. Make sure the software product you choose offers your preferred option.
Selecting software—and the team to use it
A software evaluation process will help your business select products that not only meet your needs in terms of technical capability and price point, but also in terms of operational compatibility. In the big picture, software evaluation will save your company time and money while sparing your team undue frustration.
