While spreadsheets serve as an excellent starting point for data management, they can eventually become a hindrance to business growth and innovation.
In the early days of a business, spreadsheets are often hailed as the saviors of data management. They are simple, accessible, and versatile, making them a go-to tool for tracking, calculating, and organizing all kinds of data. However, as businesses grow and evolve, they frequently encounter challenges that can't be effectively addressed with spreadsheets alone. These issues can range from concurrent access problems and inconsistent data to the more insidious challenge of building processes around the limitations of these humble grids.
In this blog post, we'll explore the common issues that our clients face as they outgrow spreadsheets and discuss the way to move forward with a minimal impact on business operations.
The Spreadsheet Predicament
Spreadsheets are ubiquitous in the business world, and for good reason. They are user-friendly, readily available, and capable of handling a variety of tasks. However, when a business starts to experience growth and complexity, spreadsheets can quickly become a hindrance rather than a help.
Inconsistent Data
As your business experiences growth and expansion, ensuring data integrity becomes increasingly critical. Spreadsheets, due to their inherent vulnerabilities, are prone to errors, which can easily introduce inconsistencies, ultimately undermining the reliability of your data. Such issues can result in costly mistakes, ill-informed decision-making, and a significant erosion of trust in the integrity of your data. Many of our clients know the consequences of making decisions based on the wrong data.
Restrict Access To Data
The problem of restricted access to data within a shared document presents challenges in privacy, security, and data integrity. Collaborative work demands precise access controls, or it risks unauthorized access and unintended changes. Balancing collaboration and data security is complex, especially when stakeholders have varied access levels. Effective data management and access controls are crucial for safeguarding data while promoting teamwork.
Process Policy Dictated by Spreadsheets
One of the most significant and common pitfalls in business operations occurs when organizations begin crafting their processes to accommodate the constraints of spreadsheets rather than aligning them with their genuine business requirements. This unyielding adherence to these tools can have a profoundly detrimental effect, stifling innovation, hampering operational efficiency, and severely constraining a company's overall agility and adaptability. When our clients had been introducing spreadsheets and rules to work with them, they hoped it would improve their efficiency. Still, over time, it has become an operational nightmare because simple operations such as “follow up with the partner” and “register and evaluate new contact” are getting increasingly difficult.
Turning into a custom solution
So, what can businesses do when they realize that they've become prisoners of their spreadsheets? The issues above made businesses consider the specialized system to manage their operations, and the first option that came to mind was to use SaaS solution for that. However, a solution for a reasonable price may ease operations but will not be adaptable to workflows in the company. So, the next step for the business is to consider the custom-developed platform, and here, we also stop our clients since experience showed that a slight improvement may bring a significant result.
Define what not to do
We strongly recommend our client conduct a Value Proposition Session with us where we help them define their value-driven jobs without considering related activities (aka. “Add row to Excel Document”). That gives us a clear understanding of the client's business, and in its turn, the client has an overview of what exactly their new system should look like. The biggest challenge during this phase is keeping in mind that our goal is not to replace spreadsheets, we should think about the particular value-driven approach to client
Define the way to reach client goals
The client’s challenges can likely be addressed by using Low Code or No Code solutions and do not require a traditional approach to development. Here are a number of reasons:
- Rapid Development Low-code platforms are designed to accelerate the development of custom software solutions. With a user-friendly interface and pre-built components, businesses and their implementation partners can quickly design and deploy applications that cater precisely to their unique needs.
- Iterative Improvement Unlike traditional software development, which often requires lengthy planning and development cycles, low-code platforms enable iterative development. This means that you can start with a basic solution and continually improve and expand it as your business evolves, ensuring that your software remains aligned with your requirements.
- Cost-Effective Building custom software from scratch can be prohibitively expensive for many small to mid-sized businesses. Low-code platforms offer a cost-effective alternative, making it accessible to a broader range of organizations. You pay for what you need, without the hefty price tag associated with traditional software development.
- Tailored to Your Needs The hallmark of low-code platforms is their flexibility. You can create software solutions that precisely meet your business requirements. Whether you need a project management tool, CRM, or inventory system, a low-code platform can help you build it without the limitations of spreadsheets.
The next step is to choose the appropriate tool for the client's problem and start designing the application. Using Low Code helps us to rapid our development so, the client gets a new version of the app daily. Such speed makes the feedback loop extremely short and flexible.
Conclusion
While spreadsheets serve as an excellent starting point for data management, they can eventually become a hindrance to business growth and innovation. It's essential to recognize the limitations of spreadsheets and the issues they can create in concurrent access, data integrity, and process management.
Low-code platforms offer a refreshing escape from the spreadsheet trap. They provide businesses with the tools to build custom software solutions that grow with them, all while remaining cost-effective, agile, and precisely tailored to their unique needs.
As your business evolves, don't let your growth be stifled by the limitations of spreadsheets. Embrace the power of low-code platforms and unlock your full potential. Say goodbye to the spreadsheet cell and hello to a world of dynamic, custom software solutions.
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