Best Ways to Utilize Software Business Solutions

Best ways to utilize Business Solutions

Businesses these days are opting for Software Business Solutions which help in driving effectiveness in various business operations. The fields that these solutions traverse include Finance, HR, Sales, Data Management, Operations etc. There are various business solutions that are provided by Business solutions companies which cater to these business requirements. Therefore, it is imperative that one analyses the various options that are available and chooses the solution which is optimal for his business.

Identifying the best ways to utilize the business solutions requires a good understanding on:

  • The operations of the business and the necessity to use a business solution.
  • The features and workings of the Business solutions.

Understanding of these two aspects is complementary to each other – best solutions for business can be developed only when there is good understanding of the business operations. Similarly, understanding of the features and the workings of a solution is needed to be able to ascertain if the solution is optimum to the business operations.

Before we look at identifying different ways of optimally using the Business solutions, it is important that we understand what a Business solution is. Along with it, it is also important to understand the role played by a Business analyst or a Business Consultant and the different business consulting services that are offered in general by the consulting firms.

What is a business solution?

Business solution as a term has varied definitions which are mainly based on the view point of the consumer who utilizes the Business solutions. However, there are 4 aspects which define a business solution.

  • The customer for whom the business solution is being developed.
  • The operations carried out by the customer
  • The purpose of carrying out a specific operation
  • The challenges faced by customer in carrying out a specific operation.

Any solution developed by any business consulting services need to consider these four important aspects.

In simpler terms, business solutions help the customers to implement solutions in their operations in order to achieve efficiency in various aspects like accuracy, compliance, timeliness etc. Organizations – both small firms and large MNCs are in lookout for consulting firms who would be able to provide solutions for their business operations. India is emerging as a leader in providing business solutions for various firms across the globe, with many of the IT consulting companies providing cost effective and reliable IT consulting services in developing these solutions for businesses.

TIARA TECH is one such IT consulting companies providing services all over the world and has a wide ranging portfolio of service offerings for customers spread across different aspects of business operations like procurement, customer association management, supply chain supervision etc.

The solutions offered by the Business consulting firms vary and are customized as per the specific requirements of the customers. As described earlier, the solution developed is dependent on the nature of the business operation and the challenge that the firms are looking at overcoming by adopting a business solution. Hence it is important that these consulting companies analyze the actual requirement of the customer and develop solutions specific to the needs. The role of a Business consultant becomes important in the whole process.

Role of a Business Consultant / Business Analyst:

A business consultant plays a very important role in providing unique business solutions. The role of the business analyst in industries has expanded significantly since the past few years. The Information technology is playing a key role in business and as a result a large number of business organizations, are now turning to hire the services of trained business development consultants or analysts. In fact such consultants help the organizations to better understand the entire business operations and guide them in running their company efficiently.

A competent business consultant will conduct an initial, unbiased evaluation of the company or its specific part and will eventually give a report that suggests solutions and remedies for the problem areas. The main aim of having such business analytics is to help the companies, both large and small, to improve their efficiency, productivity as well as profitability.

A business development consultant offers a fresh and a broader perspective to the problems. Depending on the specific situation, the business analyst may require a few days, weeks or even a few months to do a complete evaluation. Any analyst needs to follow a particular process in developing a business solution.

Process of Developing a Software Business Solution

A Business Analyst or a consultant follows a particular process in developing a business solution as per the needs of the customers. IT consulting companies follow this process to ensure that the requirement of the customer is duly understood and a solution is being developed which would address the operational issues faced by them and help to drive efficiency in the process. In general, the process consists of six stages – Planning stage, Analysis, designing a solution, developing a solution, Testing and maintenance. Each of these stages needs to be properly executed to ensure that the business solution developed is in line with the requirement.

  • Planning: It is the first and critical step of developing a business solution as it sets the tone for the whole process cycle. Any of the business solution companies would lay emphasis on this critical stage. An effective plan helps to ascertain the existing process and identify the scope of improvement. It lays out the process which needs to be followed in developing a business solution.
  • Analysis: Business Analytics helps to analyze the current state of the business operations. The analysis helps to identify the need of developing a business solution and the impact it would have once the solution is being implemented. The later function is an important aspect of developing a solution as it provides a scope to ascertain the impact of the solution and make any changes if required.
  • Design: Once a business analyst is done with the analysis part, the next step would involve coming up with a design of the prospective solution. This is a critical part of IT consulting services and would involve various aspects like selecting the right software, building up the architectural framework for the solution etc
  • Development: This is the stage where the actual work happens. Based on the inputs received from the Business Development Consultant, the developers wok on developing a solution. Business solutions companies lay lot of emphasis on this stage as the product to be used is developed. Once the solution is developed, it is implemented in a test scenario which helps to ascertain if the solution is in line with the requirements.
  • Testing: In this stage, the solution which is implemented is tested. Business solutions companies use both manual as well as automated tools to test the various test cases to identify any bugs in the software or any discrepancies. A business analyst also utilizes this stage to compare the requirement received and the solution developed.
  • Providing Maintenance: Providing a solution does not only involve developing it but also providing the maintenance services along. Consulting firms consider providing maintenance as a key aspect of IT consulting services which differentiates the services between the various Business consulting firms providing the solutions.

These 6 steps are an integral part of the business solution development cycle and help the consulting companies in developing corporate business solutions as well as solutions for smaller organizations.

The need for a Business Consulting Firm and utilizing it:

The whole process of developing a business solution starts with identifying the need to have a solution in place. Many organizations go about with their regular operations, not realizing the need to have a solution which could help improve the process. It is generally in the wake of a problem that most organizations look at business solutions which would address the issues. There are few organizations who regularly review their process and identify the need for developing business solutions. Various Business Consulting Firms provide consulting services which includes reviewing the operations of the business and coming up with solutions which help the organizations.

Business Consulting companies like TIARA follow certain process to identify the scope of improvement in the process and the need to develop business solutions for them.

  • Review and listing the problems: A business has various process and each of the process could include various problems. Business and strategy consulting firms employ various methods through which these problems can be identified. Such problems need to be listed down for further analysis.
  • Prioritize the problems: Not all problems have solutions nor can be resolved at once. Hence it is important to understand the challenges and study the impact each of these problems have on the organization. Based on this study, the priorities need to be identified which needs immediate solutions. This is truer in the case of developing corporate business solutions as the corporates have diversified process and they comprise of multiple problems which need addressing.

Few of the aspects that firms offering solutions for business services look out for to prioritize includes:

(a) The problems are easier to address

(b) They have a high impact on the functioning of the organization.

(C ) Provides the most monetary savings.

(d) Process automation solution is already available which could help address the problems.

  • Diagnose the problem: “Do not fix something which is not broken” is an important axiom to lie by while developing the solutions to the problems. Hence it is important for Business solutions companies to run through diagnostics of the problems and ascertain the need to have business solutions. Consulting firms like TIARA provide a host of management consulting services which includes evaluating the process, running diagnostics, identifying the problem and developing solutions.
  • Right solutions for the right problems: The nature of business problems vary and each of these problems need a different solution to address them. Varied skills are required to develop the required solutions. Firms providing these business consulting services have the required resources, using which the solutions can be developed to address the problems. These solutions can be already existing solutions or the ones which needs to be developed as the customized ones.
  • Viability and maintenance : The best of business solutions are not the ones which use the best of technologies or have the better tools, but the ones which suits the business – that are economically viable to build as well as maintain. Any organization providing prudent consulting services would provide a solution which the customers can maintain at their end with minimal effort and cost. The whole idea of management consulting services would not be successful if the solutions that are built so not take into account the the maintenance viability aspect. Therefore, any strategic consulting firm providing either corporate business solutions or solutions for small scale firms, need to take these aspects into consideration while identifying the problems as well as developing a solution to these problems.

An insight into the various kinds of business solutions

Business solutions offer avenues for companies to achieve consistent business development. There are various types of business solutions that are developed by firms providing business services and consulting services.

  • Off the shelf solutions: These types of Business solutions are already developed by business development and IT consulting firms. These solutions are ready made solutions which firms can use for their process. They are most suitable for small scale organizations which are looking out for ready fixes to address their problems or process automated solutions which would address the issues arising out of manual process.
  • Hybrid Solutions: As the name suggest, these solutions are a mix of off the shelf solutions which can be customized as per the requirements of the companies. Consulting firms advise on these hybrid solutions in those scenarios where the operational problems can be addressed with solutions which are already developed and needs some customization to meet the specific requirements of the clients.

Many of the solutions are web based and cloud based solutions, with the development firms hosting them with the feasibility of the users using them.

  • Customized Software Business Solutions: Many of the business operations require solutions which are customized for the business needs. Especially the corporate business solutions are expected to be tailor fit as per the needs of the companies. strategic consulting firms offering strategic consulting and business development services provide a whole gamut of services which not only includes – ascertaining the current business process, identifying the problems and the need for business solutions, developing customized solutions, providing options of maintaining the solutions.

Business and Management consulting firms provide the required expertise in identifying and understanding the problems faced by various organizations and provides holistic business services.

Most of the business solutions that are developed are to address the inefficiencies in the operations and to bring in more efficient ways of handling them. The main aspect of developing business solutions in place is to keep process in place which would mitigate the manual effort and bring in an element of automation to the process. The processes which are automated have a lesser risk of having issues. Many consulting firms thus focus on providing process automation solutions.

Process Automation – the way forward

Organizations realize the fact that less of manual intervention helps in bringing down the scope of manual errors. Processes which have automation solutions follow specific predetermined algorithms and hence the chances of committing errors are reduced. More automation companies are looking at building process automation solutions across various processes within the organization as well as across various sectors.

The automation solutions offered by various automation companies include Marketing solutions, operations, HR solutions, sales etc. Automation tool companies develop various automation tools which can be easily used by organizations which can be used by customers as part of their process.

The automation solutions offer various advantages which include:

Few of the organizations like the marketing automation companies, HR & Financial automation companies provide solutions which help in improving the productivity in these specific processed.

Building automation companies are an emerging trend providing automation business solutions to various activities involved in building and construction

  • Mitigating errors: Another major advantage of having automated business solutions is the mitigation of the errors or risks which are involved in the process. These automation solutions mitigate the risk factors in both the IT as well as industrial based organizations. Industrial automation solutions reduce the scope of errors that occur due to manual intervention and help in efficient functioning of the production lines.

IT companies have various procedures which does involve manual intervention. By automating these processes, the element of human errors is mitigated.

  • Safety: In a factory context, Factory automation solutions not only look at reducing the errors but also provide enhanced safety from potential accidents which would cause much harm. Industrial automation companies are providing solutions for safety which not only reduce the involvement of humans in danger prone areas as well as ensure that the system controls are in place reducing any potential accidents.

Automation tool companies also provide solutions which provide security and safety to IT & related industries like security against virus, spyware, malware and data security.

Apart from the advantages provided by automation solutions, there are certain challenges which exist because of the automation. Few of the challenges that we have with the automation business solutions provided by the automation tool companies include:

  • Maintenance: Most of the automation tools does require regular maintenance. Especially factory automation solutions and Industry automation solutions do require regular maintenance, the failure of which could lead to issues which these solutions are required to resolve in the first place.
  • Cost: While the solutions provided by Automation companies prove to be cost effective over a period of time. The initial costs involved in setting up these solutions are higher. The solutions provided by Building automation companies and Industry automation companies does require huge amount of capital which can only be recouped over a very long period of time.

While the software automation solutions like the ones offered by HR, Finance and Marketing automation companies do cost less comparatively, the cost is still on the higher end. Most of the automation tool companies are looking at effective ways of reducing the cost of automated business solutions.

Conclusion: Software Business solutions for effective processes.

The competitive environment in which most of the businesses run require the businesses to be more effective in the operations and the results that they deliver. Business solutions help to achieve this effect in the process thereby enabling the organizations to run and provide services at their optimum levels.

To achieve this, it is important that business understand the need for having business solutions in place. Software business solutions and strategic consulting firms assist the businesses in understanding the requirements of the business and developing solutions which help the organizations. These consulting and development firms provide a wide range of services which are spread across various fields and processes as well as covering the whole cycle of developing business process solutions.

TIARA TECH SOLUTIONS an IT company in Eluru provides software business solutions which address the requirements of a wide range of organizations. This IT and Business development consulting firm has the technical expertise and knowledge that enables them to understand the specific requirements of the clients and develop solutions which are customized to the needs of the clients. These solutions are cost effective and the return on investments of the clients is positively higher.