Do you rent or build software for sustainability?
This is a very common question that comes to any professional especially sustainability analyst or manager performing sustainability benchmarking and assessments. I will first explain 3 ways you can have software at your office for work.
Building a software
Building a software system in today’s world is not far-fetched. It will cost anywhere from 50 thousand to 300 thousand and will cost you an extra year of time.
There are few common reasons why, in computer history, teams have built software.
- Create custom process for the team and save more time and money.
- Giving teams a market advantage with new ways of doing things.
- Providing the participants with their special requests.
Buying a software
Buying is another alternative, but it is more expensive. However, you can start using it once it is installed and configured at your premises or your data center (Server space). You will be stuck with the product if it doesn’t work according to the plan. A full time IT person will be needed to maintain it.
Renting a software
Renting is fabulous in the era of Uber, AirBnB, and Amazon web services. Few advantages of renting the software known as Software as a Service
1. Start using instantly or in a few days.
2. Stop using it any month; stop paying for it.
3. Use it over a web browser; no installation and maintenance services are needed.
4. Best for teams with no IT team to help.
How about building your special request on top of the rented software you have purchased? Wouldn’t that be better? In most of the scenarios we have experienced over the past many years, the standard process of doing benchmarking remains the same. It will have half a dozen variation on different steps which seem like a completely new benchmarking cycle.
Hybrid Solution
80% of the software should work from the rented service that is provided. Above all, it should be able to plug in the bespoke (custom) request. Some of the suggestions we can share from our experiences are
1. Dynamic Surveys ( See Chapter 18 )
2. Instant Feedback ( See Chapter 13 )
3. Custom Question Types ( See Chapter 19 )
4. Automate Notifications ( See Chapter 66 )
5. Stage Your Process ( See Chapter 03 )
*The chapters are given in details in our eBook Benchmarking Innovation, you can download your free copy here.
Think about a platform where making custom changes to your software is a onetime process. The upgrade will be built in a few weeks’ time, also making the others upgrade from the teams using the software available for all. You make the best of both world and keep your cost affordable.
Our software, Probench will cost you less than 3 Starbuck coffee a day.
You can download the ebook from here to read the rest of the chapters.
