Customer expectations are changing dramatically. In response, digital transformation is becoming an unstoppable wave that is overtaking all sizes of businesses. To succeed in this environment, it is vital that businesses transform into smart and intelligent ecosystems.

Digital transformation is continuously increasing its presence, by developing ecosystems that are increasingly adaptive and provide sustainability. Companies are developing a dynamic network of external partners and internal departments to provide seamless customer service.

While developing an intelligent ecosystem has been a red-hot subject during the pandemic, it is likely to further accelerate adoption, especially among mid-sized businesses. Given its value generation and potential to grow and generate revenues from new products and services, most mid-sized companies are actively considering transforming their ecosystem business model. 

Is yours a mid-sized business?

Are you among the many who are wondering how to remain sustainable in today’s fast-evolving market?

If so, then this blog is designed to help you understand the reasons why you need an ecosystem that can create value. 

Embrace The Future with A Smart Ecosystem

We live in a digital world, so moving with intelligent ecosystems is key to the continued improvement and growth of your business. The future of your business depends on the ability to do more with less, speedy services, and the elimination of inconsistencies. 

It is time for mid-sized businesses to move into the digital age and finally put their existing tech stack to work through the digital ecosystem.

Here are five reasons why mid-size businesses must reshape ecosystems:

1. Logistics will continue to grow in complexity

Technology is changing as the world continues to change. Given that, the many needs and demands of customers and partners are changing. Those changes will continue to grow in complexity as new suppliers and businesses arise on the world scene.

To keep pace with these changes the ecosystem must adapt, creating a continuous evolution cycle. A Digital supply ecosystem powered by Artificial Intelligence can help future-proof operations. 

2. Ability to make informed decisions

Today’s technology provides many things at your fingertips. Customers today, thus expect quick responses, real-time updates, and services at their doorsteps and fingertips! When demands increase, companies need to be efficient and capable of making quick decisions. 

Besides, making decisions regarding delivery time, costs, and outcomes based on partial information can be detrimental to the growth of your business. On the other hand, digital ecosystems allow you to access real-time data whenever and wherever you need it, enabling you to make informed decisions that impact your business. 

3. Bridge and divide for better control

An ecosystem bridges a network of organizations, people, information, and resources to move a service to the customer. 

Empowered by AI, the digital ecosystem has enabled businesses to move to a more streamlined and successful chain of command. It helps bridge every team member and trading partner making quick and easy communication possible. This can be done on each and every level, without exceptions. 

Read more: A Detailed Guide to Understanding Digital Business Transformation

4. Fast and free is the in-thing 

In the instant world, customers expect fast and free delivery and every shipper strives to provide this. Customers would like to track their items digitally and receive real-time updates. 

The current gold standard of delivery experience is two-day, one-day, or same-day deliveries. It is the minimum requirement for supply ecosystems to provide such deliveries to stay ahead of the game.

5. Recapture sustainability

Providing fast and unique customer experiences requires more energy and resources. It affects the bottom line of the business and can cause you to cut corners in other areas to make up for the expense. Doing so can have a detrimental effect on sustainability.

This is why businesses must look for ways to recapture sustainability without compromising on the gold customer experience. And leveraging a digital ecosystem that is powered by emerging technologies is one means to that end. 

6. Internal and external collaboration

The strategic partnership between large organizations and large platforms is increasing. Fortunately, the ecosystem allows partners to share data when required, scale assets up or down as needed, and collaborate internally and externally. 

Additionally, enormous amounts of cross-functional data with AI help pinpoint the root causes of issues and identify opportunities for performance improvement. 

Read more: It’s Time To Pivot Your Legacy Software To A Platform Ecosystem!

Reshape Your Business Ecosystem with Fingent!

Creating a smart ecosystem from scratch would open up a whole new world of possibilities for your business. However, the first step would be to get your transformation right. 

George Westerman a research scientist aptly said, “When digital transformation is done right, it’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but when done wrong, all you have is a really fast caterpillar.”

Fingent doesn’t just help you deploy technologies! We help you digitally transform into a future-proof and successful organization. 

How do we do that?

Here’s how we helped one of our clients transform with a customized smart ecosystem!

The client: Cheetah Transportation System – a leading truck transportation service that provides transportation of time-critical freight throughout the United States.

Their requirement: They needed to rethink their existing business processes to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

Their challenges:

• Complexities in placing and handling orders
• Licensed third-party software was partially used but was increasing overhead costs
• Ineffective Master Data Management
• Inability to provide their customers with real-time updates about their shipment
• Complex off-the-shelf systems
• An inefficient process led to delays, increased trip cycles, and wasted resources and time

What role did Fingent play in its digital transformation?

After a thorough analysis of their major pain points, Fingent helped Cheetah Transportation System build a customized software solution that included a web app for dispatches and administrators and a mobile app for drivers to simplify their interactions with the company. Their new transformed ecosystem streamlined:

• Rate Sheet Management
• Master Data Management
• Invoice & Accounting
• Payment Processing
• EDI and GP Integrations
• Dashboards and Reports

The solution’s overall architecture helped Cheetah maintain business transparency, avoid potential disruptions and do much more than what was possible with their previous system. They could reduce the time taken to respond to customer queries by 30%, and save overall time by 40% with automated tasks and real-time reporting. The company also gained an increased capability to ensure continuous performance optimization.

At Fingent the digital transformation strategies are focused on the value it brings to businesses and their customers. Once we identify gaps and growth points, we offer customized technology solutions that can help clients to stay ahead of their competition in the current fast-changing digital world.

To know more about how we can help you reshape your business ecosystem for a sustainable and successful future, connect with our experts today!

Augmented Intelligence has presented enormous potential in several sectors. Enterprises are adopting Augmented Intelligence to gain the best outcomes. 

After 2 years of disruption, partners, employees, and customers increasingly expect businesses to focus on long-term value creation. With this new mandate, enterprises adopted Augmented Intelligence to build resilient businesses that prioritize communities, employees, and better customer experience.

Augmented Intelligence is poised to improve the speed and quality of employees. It improves household and workplace security, combats fraud, and increases productivity. Deploying Augmented Intelligence correctly can diminish information overload and lead to fast, data-driven decisions. 

This blog discusses how you can improve business performance with Augmented Intelligence.

Some confuse Augmented Intelligence with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Is there a difference? Let us first find that out. 

What Is Augmented Intelligence?

Essentially, Augmented Intelligence boosts human abilities and has the potential to revolutionize how we live and work. Augmented Intelligence is the utilization of AI and other types of automation to provide new and better information to help professionals make better-informed decisions, rather than having fully automated decisions. Augmented Intelligence may also eliminate rote tasks, freeing people to reflect and evaluate more easily.

AI enables machines to think and act like humans, whereas Augmented Intelligence uses the same machines to assist humans with specific tasks enabling them to make smarter and faster decisions. That means not only discovering hard-to-see trends, conditions, and outliers but also presenting these things to decision-makers in timely and easy-to-understand formats.

Read more: The Convergence of Edge Computing and AI: Why Is It Important For Your Business?

Does Your Business Need Augmented Intelligence?

Augmented Intelligence can make sense in any business where experienced and knowledgeable employees are key to business success. Job functions that involve making sense of many factors can benefit from Augmented Intelligence capabilities that organize or synthesize information. Companies that have difficulty finding people with the right experience or with business roles that involve lots of training can employ Augmented Intelligence to reduce training needs.

1. Distribute accurate information companywide

Deploying Augmented Intelligence helps data scientists prepare data, gain the latest insights, and distribute necessary information to all involved. It offers the full benefits of connecting technology and analytics with your employees. 

2. Ease of use

The Augmented Intelligence capabilities help routinely assemble information from all types of structured data, from multiple sources. After gathering it, it can clearly present relevant data for humans to see from every angle. This allows employees to be more informed on news across their organization.

How Does Augmented Intelligence Improve Business Performance?

Augmented Intelligence is a partnership model of people and AI working to enhance decision making, cognitive performance, and more. Business leaders striving for competitive advantages are finding that Augmented Intelligence elevates the prowess of their workforce in a variety of areas. Here are some ways Augmented Intelligence can improve business performance.

1. Build a “high-trust network”

New employees may not be familiar with how the business functions. Such unfamiliarity can shift your work culture to higher supervision leading to more towards a “low-trust network.” 

Leveraging Augmented Intelligence can equip newer staff to rapidly achieve the competence they need to take responsibility for running their own areas of business leading to a “high-trust network.” 

2. Prevent blind spots

Businesses that cannot see the necessary information when they need it grows slowly. 

Augmented Intelligence can help you see all the information about your business, customers, employees, or even competitors. Such information will help plan your business strategies meticulously, yet quickly.

3. Improve the customer environment for better satisfaction 

Augmented Intelligence helps businesses create innovative products and services. These innovations can enable a business to address customers’ queries faster, improving the customer environment. 

Read more: Memorable Customer Experience – A Key For Brand Transformation!

4. Faster and smarter decision making 

Businesses that make decisions faster and smarter are the ones that grow and remain resilient during a critical period. 

Using Augmented Intelligence to make suggestions to employees and record their responses can help you come up with the best solutions faster. It can help achieve faster results and save significant costs by reducing risky experiments.

5. Tighter security and lighter resource

Augmented Intelligence enhances the speed of knowledge in human resources and cybersecurity. By using the capabilities of Augmented Intelligence, companies can sense, decide, and act at speed and scale. Thus, companies can achieve faster results, cut costs, generate insights, and improve security. 

6. Enables strategic planning

Businesses without strategic planning are like a traveler without a map. Strategic planning creates a map for businesses to follow and correct course when needed. This is where Augmented Intelligence plays a key role.

Augmented Intelligence tools can help clean data sets and forecast future trends based on social trends and customer feedback. Thus, you will be able to make smarter marketing plans, faster.

7. Enhanced customer relationships

The success of a business greatly depends on customer relationship management. The better the relationship, the easier it is to generate leads and revenue. 

Challenge is when the business grows, the customer base increases. Such an increase can affect how you manage your customer relationship leading to either satisfied or dissatisfied customers. Thankfully, you can manage customer relationships in a sustainable and consistent way with Augmented Intelligence.

8. Keep tabs on financials

Financial monitoring is continually evolving. It’s no longer enough for companies to have regular, reliable financial reports. Today’s businesses benefit from real-time notifications and early warnings of trouble. Examples of not being able to monitor financials effectively could be the inability to invoice fast enough, detection of inaccurate billing, or identification of services that are no longer profitable. 

Augmented Intelligence capabilities can help businesses keep track of their financials even during a period of intense growth. 

Read more: Can Augmented Intelligence Improve Finance and Accounting?

Let Fingent Create a Recipe for Success with Augmented Intelligence

If Augmented Intelligence is like fine dining. Artificial Intelligence, RPA, and Machine Learning are just some of its ingredients. An experienced chef like Fingent can combine them in the right ways and at the right time to make an outstanding dish. 

Fingent professionals are experts in applied technology. We work with clients to understand their business objectives. By employing the right mix of technology we devise options for advancing their business strategy within available budgets and required timeframes.

With an ever-evolving competitive landscape, enterprises deploying Augmented Intelligence will be quicker to insights, faster to market, and more able to leverage data to navigate changing conditions today and into the future. Our experience working with many clients from many sectors and types has equipped us with insights beyond a narrow and vertical. 

 Give us a call and let’s discuss your project.

Your Financial Service business needs software solutions that fully consider all the individual features of your services.

Why?

The best financial advice must be provided in real-time and should be based on customer behavior. Their services must be original and unique for successful business development. This is what will make you different and will help you stand out from your competition and emerge a winner.

How do you achieve that?

Custom software for financial firms can solve complex challenges of business workflow. With custom software leading the way, the finance industry is seeing a significant shift in multiple areas including customer experience and business operations. 

You see, to stay competitive it is important not to cut corners when dealing with customers. To win a customer and retain his financial services, you need versatile capabilities that will help you stay customer-centric despite the rigid nature of the industry.

A financial custom software application can help financial services match customers’ high expectations while managing the company’s unique needs. They offer simplified transactions between people and enable financial institutions to create a wider customer base. 

In this article, you will find out how you can deliver services that separate you from your competition. 

Read more: Digital Transformation in Financial Services: All You Need to Know!

What Is Custom Software and Why Do You Need It Now?

Unlike off-the-shelf solutions, custom software is designed and developed exclusively for each customer’s tasks and requests. The custom software solution can be designed to handle the roadblocks specific to you. Given that, you can choose to eliminate features that your business does not need.

1. Custom software is built around your business landscape

Off-the-shelf applications are rigid and do not allow you to adapt quickly when market dynamics change. Whereas custom software can be responsive to your customer base and market advancements. 

2. Ensures robust data protection

The foundation of financial services is based on trust as it deals with private and sensitive data that demand robust protection. Custom software gives you control over the level of security you need to keep your customer’s data and your reputation uncompromised. 

Trust is a fragile thing in the finance industry. A small mistake or a performance issue can drive your clients away from you to your competition. Essentially, one mistake due to data vulnerabilities can cost your company and your customer millions. 

There are hordes of hackers looking for opportunities to steal financial data. Custom software ensures your security requirements are adjusted to keep your customers’ data secure. 

While keeping your customers’ data secure is of paramount importance, those measures should not jeopardize customer engagement. This balance can be achieved through custom software development as it allows you to create an engaging digital tool that also helps keep your data safe. 

3. Competitive advantage

Custom software is dedicated to achieving the results that you want. So, it is a strategic initiative and investment that allows you to align with your business. When you custom-build your software with a futuristic outlook, your business can outperform your competitors in the long run. 

4. Address errors in real-time

When customers encounter a bug while making a transaction, they will expect an immediate resolution. Custom software allows your team to provide a quick response without depending on scheduled maintenance. 

5. Scale up as required

The market is always in flux with changing customer demands. Responding quickly to those changes is only possible if the software is flexible and agile. Custom software can be built with the ability to scale as and when required. It allows you to add new features and integrate 3rd party services that enhance your app’s performance. The ability to scale as required can support rapid business growth.

6. Seamless customer experience

Today’s customers expect convenience, speed, and seamless experience across multiple touchpoints. Custom software can make it easy for your organization to intelligently and adequately handle any business challenge.

To become customer-centric, financial services need to integrate digital capabilities to keep up with market dynamics. It provides the technological backbone that can adapt to your organization’s growth. 

Custom software is personalized to meet customers’ business needs. With a simplified business process, and operations your customers will find it easy to use. As a result, tailored software always scores high on the customer satisfaction front. 

Read more: FinTech: Safeguarding Customer Interest In The Post Pandemic World.

7. Technologies under control

Preconfigured software does not offer much control over the choice of technologies. But custom software can make any technology more competent, sustainable, and efficient. You can tailor it to meet your expectations and deploy it into your existing business process. 

8. Exclusively yours

Each finance service is unique, and fulfilling the unique needs of the business is only possible with tailored software. This makes customized software a requirement and not an option. 

It will work exactly the way you want it to work. Instead of you adjusting your business process according to the software, custom software fits right into your business process to help you achieve your business goals. 

9. Optimized cost control

As mentioned earlier, customized software allows you to choose preferred features and functionalities based on your business priorities. 

You are at liberty to opt-out of a particular functionality if you feel it is irrelevant to your business. So, you pay only for the features and functionalities that you need. This can considerably save your technology investment costs. 

10. Real-time reporting

Finance services rely heavily on reporting. You may have to spend hours digging your way through a number of excel sheets and other files. Customizing your software can spare you that pain and save you time as it can give you a summarized report.

Read more: Business Intelligence in Financial Services

11. Compatible with your existing process 

You may have been using many useful tools and technologies. Creating custom software does not mean you have to revamp your entire business process. 

Conversely, since the custom development process involves consideration of the various tools that you already have, the software can be built to be compatible with your existing process.  

12. Reduced risk factor

With off-the-shelf software, your business will be highly affected if you decide not to maintain your application, or your business goes bankrupt. During such dire circumstances, you will have to either change your business process or find another vendor to develop another software. 

This can mean extra expense on your business investments. On the contrary custom software can be maintained as long as you need it to be maintained.

13. Relieves you from constant concern

Each business has its own concerns. When a custom software does its work perfectly and serves its purpose optimally, you will be relieved to focus on your core job instead of spending enormous amounts of time finding solutions to your routine business concerns.

An Essential Boost for Your Business

Custom software is the right decision for your business and within your budget. It works more efficiently and can provide your business model with the much-needed lift. 

So, take time to analyze the needs of your business and choose the right software for your business.

Give us a call and let’s discuss what that is for you.  

Old is gold … but is it? There are some things that get better with age of course, but when it comes to software, it’s a hard NO.  

Business after Covid is not the same as when you started it. So, using legacy software to run your business is like using bullock carts for transportation even when bullet trains are available. 

True, there are some systems that are hard to be replaced. On the other hand, there are some that need to be modernized or even completely scrapped. One of these is legacy software. Nevertheless, the modernization or replacement of legacy software is not always defined by its age. It might be that it is no longer relevant to the current business strategy and goals. When such software becomes difficult to maintain and improve, it is time to pivot to the platform ecosystem. 

This article discusses the benefits of pivoting your legacy software into a platform ecosystem. Before that let’s understand when and how a company should consider pivoting to the platform ecosystem.

Let’s start by understanding what a platform ecosystem is.

Read more: 5 Ways Application Modernization Enables Your Business to Grow and Reap ROI During a Pandemic

What Is Platform Ecosystem?

A platform ecosystem is a connected system of companies that share large amounts of data with a common goal. When executed well, it has a massive impact on solving societal challenges successfully establishing and launching a viable ecosystem. 

When Should a Company Consider Pivoting to AI-enabled Platform Ecosystem?

Legacy software may have been useful in the past. Today, you no longer see enough ROI. The longer you allow it to interfere with your business, the more resources you will have to devote to keep your current system functioning. 

After all, any company would expect to profit while ensuring to invest in the right places. Recognizing the obvious downsides will help you understand when and why you must pivot to the platform ecosystem. Here are three examples that increase the cost of running legacy software:

1. Maintenance cost

Overhead cost: When your legacy software needs constant patching and repairs, your overhead costs can increase exponentially. 

Human resource: If your team spends most of their time on maintenance, they will be distracted from higher-value projects that can contribute to increased ROI.

2. Cost of Integration

Integrations: You may feel tempted to look for workarounds that allow your system to work with current software and hardware. This can lead to reinventing your entire system. Essentially, you will be left with a lot of new patches on the old system that can increase your integration cost and maintenance costs. 

Equipment: You will have to retain some of the old software and hardware because of compatibility issues. Maintaining such old equipment also can increase your cost in terms of money and human resources. 

3. Cost of brand image

Customer retention: Because legacy software may become cumbersome and slow for today’s fast-paced customers, they may move on to your competition. These customers may include some of your loyal customers who lose patience. Gradually, such loss of customers will diminish your market share. 

Brand reputation: Cumbersome legacy software can change the way your existing customers and the general public view your brand. Remember, if it costs your reputation, it will cost your business!

Read more: Why modernize your legacy systems. What is the best approach?

Steps to Pivot Your Legacy Software

Steps to pivot legacy software to a platform ecosystem vary from business to business. But there are common threads in how they can approach this journey. The companies wishing to grow with AI-enabled platforms must carefully assess and plan the transition. Doing so will ensure long-term success.

1. Assess and document your current software

Analyze and document how your current software fails to meet your business needs. Such analysis will help you understand what you need. 

Create a journey map to visualize the UX and CX of your legacy system. Find out how your partners, customers, and stakeholders are using your current system. 

This is a preliminary step so do not rush through your assessment. A thorough review now can provide you with a clearer picture of your journey and save you much time and resources during the journey. 

2. Find out the right strategy for your organization

Some of the strategies you could consider are replace, rebuild, rehost, and re-platform. The right strategy depends on various factors including the expected ROI, the timeline, and more. It is important to get your stakeholders involved in this step. 

Read more: Legacy Software Modernization: For Organizational Survival!

3. Access to partners’ data

Access to partners’ data plays a huge part in driving value. Ensure to include access to partners’ data. Also, ensure this relationship comes with the ability to use AI models like customer matches and recommendations. 

4. Create an interface and a timeline

Ecosystem partners need access to AI data and decisions. This is made possible by creating an API architecture. API network allows providers to interface with the company. 

When mapping out your journey, factor in the time you will need to locate any other resources and the current projects your team is working on. 

5. Identify and gather

Most decisions are made by AI. Hence, Identify the key decisions that you would want AI to make and then use that data to train the models.

6. Design and implement a smooth process

The frictionless platform model can simplify the process for your customers.  Work with your partners to design and implement a seamless process that meets your customer needs. 

7. Data is power use it wisely

The machine learning process will continue to improve as they make decisions, and they will get better at predicting or recommending. Retrain them as soon as you source new data. You can also train them when you notice that they are not doing their job very effectively. 

8. Begin implementing your project plan

Once you start implementing your project plan, ensure to keep all lines of communication open and clear. Sharing information across the team about changes will help prevent problems.

Advantages Of Pivoting to Platform Ecosystem

The primary value of the platform is to grow your business. It is also useful for gathering data to train AI models. Each new member of the ecosystem provides more value to the network and more data. As result, you will have better AI models. 

Data powers AI-enabled decisions in order to quickly and efficiently process claims for your customer. In a platform ecosystem, companies work together towards a common goal. They create value for each other and their customers.  Clearly, new technology delivers a bigger return than keeping the existing software. At Fingent top software development company, we work with our clients to make this transformation smooth and seamless. 

Give us a call and allow us to help you effortlessly pivot your legacy software into a platform ecosystem.

The onset of globalization has encouraged business operations on an international scale. It offers companies the opportunity to reach new customers in new markets. Exposure to unknown markets and sometimes even known markets can expose businesses to greater competition and greater risk. However, efficient management of the supply chain can do away with many of these risks and put you on the path to success. 

The challenges in the supply chain can include being unsure of the reliability of your suppliers, and their quality, cost, lead time, lot size, and more. Your business will surely profit if you had a way to monitor your supplies and the risks to your business.

Yes, clear visibility is crucial.    

This is where custom software can benefit your business!

Custom software equips you with a way to collect, organize, and monitor the supplier-related information that is most meaningful to your business. This blog discusses which functions of the supply chain can be better managed with custom software and also talks about the benefits this can bring to your business.

Why Is Customized Supply Chain Management Software Important?

Efficient management of the supply chain depends primarily on data gathered at each stage of the supply chain process. The success of the business hinges on the way companies use those insights to make decisions that optimize demand, supply, inventory, and deliveries. 

That is why custom software is essential to managing the supply chain. Custom software can enable organizations to make better use of their data as it gives structure to the information already in their possession. 

Through the use of custom software solutions, companies can identify faults in their supply chain process. Such visibility can help them make better inventory decisions or inform their customers of the shipping status for their confirmed orders. 

Essentially, custom software is instrumental in improving business operations and relationships with both customers and suppliers. 

Read more: Build or Buy Logistic Software: An End To The Prolonged Discussion 

Manage Key Supply Chain Functions with Custom Software

Every business is unique in its functions. A software can address the specific company challenges only when customized and tailor-built after crucially analyzing the workflows and industry pain points.  Here are a few to look into.

• Raw material acquisition: Supply chain management is a journey, and purchasing is at the beginning of that journey. Purchasing includes sourcing raw materials and other resources. Custom software enables smooth coordination with suppliers to deliver the material without any delays requires.
• Planning and forecasting: The operations team must anticipate the possible market demand and the number of units for production. Over-anticipated demand can result in excess inventory costs. If it is underestimated, then the company will not be able to meet its customer demand and thus lose revenue. Custom solutions for planning and forecasting can help the operations team to anticipate demands more accurately. 
• Warehouse arrangement: Supply chain management requires warehouse arrangements till it is shipped for delivery. If the products are delivered outside the country or state limits, there will also be a need for outstation warehouses. Custom software can optimize logistics to reach end-point delivery without any glitches. 

Advantages Of Custom Software in Supply Chain Management

1. Increased transparency throughout the supply chain

Knowing exactly where your item is at any given time is important for all businesses as it allows you to sell the item before it even reaches your warehouse. Custom software can help you sell this way because it can pinpoint the exact location of your item and the time that it will reach your warehouse. 

This will allow you to provide a guarantee to your customer that he will receive the product he purchased. Streamlining the supply chain will help achieve faster response times and increase customer loyalty. 

2. Efficient inventory management

With the help of custom software, you can sell your item while it is on the move or as it is in the making. It can help you estimate how many items you must produce, eliminating excessive production.

3. Supplier management 

You can keep a good relationship with your suppliers with custom software. Real-time data will allow you to know if you are running out of stock or if your tools and equipment need repair or replacement. This data will help you contact your suppliers immediately and thus minimize any potential delays. 

You will also have details such as account receivables and other information at your fingertips when dealing with your suppliers. This will ensure that you are up to date with payments and discounts. As a result, you notice that your communication and cooperation with dealers and vendors improve considerably. 

4. Streamline Processes

Custom software will create highly streamlined processes for supply chain management, especially for businesses that operate from different locations across the globe.

Fully customized software enables companies to accumulate all business data in one centralized location. Employees greatly benefit from this as they can now gain access to the latest versions of data, even if they are accessing it from multiple locations or branches. 

5. Un-bottleneck your supply chain

Bottlenecks in the supply chain are a direct result of the ineffective system in place that does not allow teams in different locations to communicate and align statuses to fulfill overall objectives. Companies that experience such bottlenecks miss opportunities and lose customers because they are unable to provide what their customers want. 

An unsatisfied customer walks out on you and straight into the open arms of your competition. If you are beginning to notice lower satisfaction rates, numerous complaints, or bad reviews from the customers, it is time to explore custom software that can give you a business-targeted approach to customer experience. 

When a business looks to meet or exceed customer demands, they have to rely heavily on its supply chain. Internal bottlenecks can slow down the entire process and risk order fulfillment. To prevent such bottlenecks, a business must understand what causes them and how to prevent them. 

Custom software can help a business identify such bottlenecks and thus help efficiently manage the supply chain.

Save Money, Time, and Your Business!

It is clear that custom software comes with many benefits. It is also obvious that it saves money with time. While off-the-shelf software may come with a lower initial cost, investing in custom software will give more benefits to the supply chain management cycle. It improves sales functions and boosts productivity.

Custom software that is fully optimized to the supply chain will improve business function in a way no off-the-shelf software can. Fully optimizing the supply chain process can be lean and seamless through the use of custom software. If the business growth process is left unchecked by the off-the-shelf software solutions it can become highly chaotic. Custom software gives companies a higher level of control over all supply chain operations while taking control over the growth process.

A company that is digitally driven by custom software automatically enables a more proactive and open business. If this is what you want for your business, give us a call.

Our experts at Fingent thrive on creating custom solutions for our clients. They will be happy to talk through the game plan with you and show you how your business can excel with custom software for your supply chain. 

The popularity of edge computing and artificial intelligence (AI) has risen in recent years due to the widespread adoption of mobile technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) by various industries. The Linux Foundation’s State of the Edge Report 2021 predicts that the global market capitalization of edge computing infrastructure would reach $800 billion by 2028. If edge computing garners a wider attention span, the number of enterprises investing in AI is also growing year over year. According to the State of AI 2021 Report, the global AI funding witnessed a whopping 108% increase in 2021. More than 54% of the organizations surveyed by McKinsey in 2021 said that they have adopted AI in at least one function. 

Individually, both AI and edge computing help businesses in incredible ways and hold immense potential for future development. Many forward-looking organizations are investing in these two technologies as part of their digital transformation journey. “Two heads are better than one”, goes the saying. True to this, many enterprises and technology champions are discovering new opportunities by combining edge computing and AI, or Edge AI. In this blog, we’ll see how edge computing and AI are being put to work together and discuss some use cases that will take AI applications to the edge.   

Read more: Future-proof your business with 5G, edge computing and cloud

What is Edge Computing?

Edge computing refers to a distributed computing framework that brings the deployment of computing and storage resources closer to the data sources, such as local edge servers or IoT devices. By bringing enterprise applications closer to the data sources, edge computing offers a multitude of business benefits; including faster data processing and insights generation, better response times, and enhanced bandwidth availability.  

In edge computing, all your device-generated data is processed and analyzed close to the source where it’s created. By preventing your data from traveling over a network to a centralized or cloud data center, edge computing reduces latency and improves bandwidth availability. 

Example: Electric vehicles (EVs) leverage edge computing for data aggregation and insights generation, which help optimize charging stations and monitor the health of EV batteries.  

Read more: 9 examples of artificial intelligence transforming business today

What is AI?

Artificial Intelligence or AI refers to machine intelligence, where a computer-controlled (software-programmed) machine simulates human intelligence to perceive its environment and take corresponding actions that help the machine achieve its goals. AI uses machine learning and deep learning techniques to churn robust input datasets (labeled training data) and enable rapid problem-solving. 

The content recommendation systems used by Amazon, Netflix, or YouTube and Google’s advanced web search engine are some of the leading examples of AI today. The growth of artificial neural networks and deep learning technologies enable AI systems to process massive amounts of data at an incredible pace and predict future states with exceptional accuracy.     

AI-powered applications command a larger share in today’s enterprise landscape. AI helps banks, insurance companies, and financial institutions with fraud detection. AI is being used by conversational bots to enhance customer service. Smart assistants like Siri and Alexa leverage AI to improve customer experience. Hospitals and healthcare providers use AI-embedded applications for making clinical decisions and delivering remote patient care. 

Case Study: MUSA, Fingent’s AI-powered virtual assistant minimizes day-to-day workplaces struggles related to PeopleOps and DevOps. Read Now! 

Edge AI: The Next Wave of Enterprise Digital Transformation

AI applications give the intended results by relying on seamless data transmission and computation of complex ML algorithms. Edge computing helps move AI systems close to the source where the data is generated. When AI computation is done at the edge of the network, next to the data source, it gives more accurate and desired results. This process has given rise to a new computing paradigm: Edge AI.

In edge AI, both data generation and computation take place at the network’s edge, instead of sending and processing data in a faraway cloud computing center. Here, “edge” of the network could connote anything – mobile devices, retail stores, factories, hospitals, medical equipment, traffic lights, autonomous vehicles, and so on. 

Read more: Quantum vs. Neuromorphic Computing: What Will the Future of AI Look Like? 

Here’s how your business can benefit from the adoption of edge AI: 

1. Low-power, offline capabilities

Traditional AI applications require enormous amount of processing and computational power to operate some of the complex ML algorithms. Distance from the cloud servers often affects the deployment of AI systems in remote locations. Edge computing helps overcome this challenge as the technology is designed to operate in low-power, offline environment. For instance, blockchain and smart contracts that rely on decentralized ledger technology (requiring no central broker or mediator) can independently run on computation-heavy AI algorithms within the edge devices.

2. Faster computing and real-time insights

Edge AI enables your applications to respond to users’ requirements in real-time. This is because edge computing analyzes data locally, close to the source where it’s generated, instead of a remote cloud data center, which usually delays responses due to long-distance communications. 

3. Better data security

If AI ensures the privacy of data that needs to be analyzed by securing if from getting exposed to cyber miscreants, edge AI adds an additional layer of privacy by containing that data locally. Edge AI uploads only the insights and analysis to the cloud and even anonymizes the data uploaded for training purposes to protect user identities. Thus, edge AI enables businesses to ensure data regulatory compliance. 

4. Constant improvement

AI models can improve their accuracy when they get access to more training data. When an edge AI application confronts data that it is unable of processing, the application will upload the data so that it can retrain and learn from it. Since the new data set is captured right at the production edge (without any transmission delays), the edge AI application will quickly learn from the new data, ensuring constant improvement through learning.   

5. Cost reduction

Offline capabilities and decentralization enable Edge AI to process data without larger internet bandwidths. This reduces your networking costs significantly. Enhanced performance of AI-enabled applications keeps your operating costs down. 

Potential Use Cases of Edge AI

The rapid growth of intelligent applications and the increasing enterprise workloads on cloud are driving the adoption of edge AI. The edge AI software market is estimated to be worth $1,835 million by 2026, states a recent study. The amalgamation of edge computing and AI has led to many breakthrough advancements in recent years. Here’re a few potential uses cases of edge AI:

Healthcare

AI-powered medical devices and instruments at the edge deliver on-demand insights for clinicians to make crucial and faster decisions about patients. During surgical procedures, surgeons can rely on the ultra-low latency surgical videos streamed into AI-powered medical data processing applications to quickly detect abnormalities and identify chances of excessive bleeding. Devices out of the operating room, such as CT and MRI imaging scanners, DNA sequencers, cryo-electron microscopy, and other life science instruments also benefit from edge AI. 

Energy and utilities

Edge AI models can leverage past insights, weather patterns, grid conditions, and other crucial meteorological information to create advanced simulations that help define new ways to improve the generation, distribution, and management of energy resources. This facilitates intelligent forecasting in the energy sector, which helps prevent discontinuous power and energy supply affecting the day-to-day lives of people.  

Manufacturing

Edge AI applications can collect data from sensor-enabled devices installed across the factory floor and process the same in real-time, with ultra-low latency. This advantage gives rise to new use cases in manufacturing and distribution, where real-time and rapid data processing is required. Examples include detecting workplace hazards, finding product defects in assembly lines, flagging machines that require attention or human intervention, and more.  

The list of edge AI use cases keeps growing every day. Smart virtual assistants, voice commands that replace text-based searches, autonomous vehicles, self-driving cars, video surveillance, motion detectors, and industrial IoT security are a few typical use cases that could be enhanced through the integration of edge AI. Fingent helps build faster, reliable, and cost-effective enterprise applications powered by edge and AI.

Are you ready to explore the possibilities of Edge AI in your business operations? Contact us today!   

There couldn’t be any better empirical evidence than COVID-19 to prove the transformational impact of AI on healthcare. Had AI not been there, it would be unviable to develop and distribute vaccines at record speed, empower public health officials and front-line workers, support equipment manufacturers, take critical life-saving actions, and respond to these abnormal times. 

Leading pharmaceutical company Moderna relied on automated processes and AI algorithms to rapidly bring out their covid vaccine nominee for its first clinical trial. From an anticipated 15% chance of success, AI helped the pharmaceutical company lift their success rate to a whopping 50%, placing the vaccine efficacy levels close to 94.5%. AI’s role in healthcare isn’t limited to pharmaceuticals alone.

In this piece, we’ll see what AI holds in store for healthcare now and in the coming years.   

Read more: AI in Medicine – Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Top Applications of AI in Healthcare

Over these years, AI has brought more sophistication into what humans do, particularly in segments like healthcare. Here’re a few AI healthcare transformations currently underway:

1. Allows People to Stay Fit

AI and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) have helped launch several consumer health applications and self-health monitoring devices such as wireless-enabled wearables, activity trackers, pedometers, smartwatches, and other physical fitness monitoring gadgets. These healthcare technology applications encourage people to take proactive measures for maintaining a healthy lifestyle and allow consumers to be in control of their health and well-being. Similarly, healthcare professionals can rely on AI to better understand what their patients need. With insightful patient data, caregivers can provide the necessary guidance and support, thereby enabling people to stay healthy.  

2. Early Disease Detection

It’s well established that the early detection, screening, and treatment of cancer can improve outcomes. American Cancer Society is successfully using the cloud ML engine on the Google Cloud Platform to analyze breast cancer images with 12x improved speed. Advanced deep-learning models are being used to detect Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) during the early and asymptomatic stages. This helps save diabetic patients from the daunting issue of irreversible blindness caused by lesions on the retina. The proliferation of consumer wearables and self-health monitoring devices, combined with AI, allows doctors and caregivers to detect potentially life-threatening ailments at more treatable stages. 

3. Medical Diagnosis 

The market value of global AI in medical diagnostics is estimated to be worth $3988.0 million by 2026. Leading AI platforms such as IBM Watson Health and Google DeepMind Health enable a large number of healthcare organizations to unlock massive amounts of clinical data to boost medical diagnosis. 

Combining machine learning and neuroscience, AI helps build powerful neural networks that are capable of imitating human abilities. Watson can review and store huge volumes of medical data scattered across journals, seminars, conferences, treatment case studies, and umpteen other sources. AI’s ability to ingest enormous amounts of data, decipher images, and discover hidden patterns escaping even the most-canny human eye are expected to significantly transform healthcare in the near future. 

Read more: Deploying Digital Twins in Healthcare

4. Clinical Decision-making

In the past, clinical decision support systems (CDSS) were fed by inaccurate datasets that led healthcare professionals to make flawed assumptions. Diagnostic errors are one of the top reasons behind higher mortality rates and prolonged hospital stays. Thanks to AI, ML, and the growing volumes of real-time clinical data gathered from numerous healthcare apps and devices. Clinical decision-making is now more precise and efficient with the emergence of AI-powered CDSS. 

Sepsis Watch, a deep learning tool installed in the emergency department of the Duke University Health System has considerably lowered sepsis-induced patient deaths. The tool flags sepsis patients who are at medium to high risk, allowing doctors to identify early signs of sepsis. Not only does AI reduce diagnostic errors, it also suggests the best practices for post-surgical care and patient discharge, as well as recommends medications and follow-up checks to optimize patient care.  

5. Medical Research and Training

The average cost of bringing a pharma product to the market is exploding year over year. Manual R&D processes and the time taken to conceive, design, and conduct clinical trials slow down drug production and increase the costs involved. The latest advances in AI help streamline drug research and discovery and reduces the time to market for new drugs. Researchers can use AI-enabled simulations on their devices to explore the impact of new therapies or medicines, thereby reducing the risk of testing in live conditions. 

AI allows training and quick catch-up sessions to be held from anywhere, even after a medical resident leaves the campus post a tricky clinical case. AI-powered chatbots can answer queries on the fly, at any hour of the day. With instinctive AI diagnostic support and a low level of supervision, the next generation of medical students will definitely rely on automated self-learning platforms. 

Read more: How Virtual Reality Improves the Standard of Medical Education and Training

Most-anticipated AI Innovations in Healthcare!

Real-time data, technological advancements, and innovation are driving the industry forerunners to discover new AI opportunities in healthcare. Here’re a few healthcare AI innovations to behold in the coming days.

1. Address the Shortage of Physicians

Google is running experiments to develop transformative AI imaging and diagnostic tools that can assist clinicians and even address the dearth of talent in a possibly grueling situation (like the global pandemic). Further research is being held to improve the detection of breast and lung cancer, sight-threatening eye conditions as well as skin diseases.   

2. Genomic Analysis

Research proves that 30% of individual health effects are congenital. All of us carry 4 to 5 million genetic variants, each of which can influence our health traits. The cost to sequence a genome and poor sequencing data have marred genomic analysis in the past, preventing clinicians from identifying genetic disorders and high-risk diseases at an early stage. Deep neural networks such as DeepVariant exhibits top-class accuracy in analyzing genetic variants and sequencing genome data. 

3. Decentralized Clinical Trials

The advent of AI is helping medical researchers and pharma companies worldwide to reduce in-person assessments in clinics. Various digital endpoints, such as smartphones, healthcare software, wearable sensors, EHRs, video conferencing, and numerous physical fitness monitoring devices are being used to gather data with the patient’s consent. This has drastically shifted medical trials from clinics, thereby reducing the risk of compromised immunity, exposure to fatal viruses, respiratory or cardiac malfunction, and other lethal health risks. Decentralized clinical trials allow institutional and federal health boards to review existing processes, implement new regulations quickly, listen to feedback and concerns, take proactive steps, and make healthcare more accessible to everyone.    

AI is Pivotal to Healthcare New Normal

Necessity commands invention. Over the past two years, we saw how healthcare stakeholders around the globe took efforts to harness AI technologies – for discovering new drugs, extending the capability of existing drugs, reducing the time to distribution, screening for COVID-19 symptoms, supporting clinical decisions, automating hospital operations, and so on. Key U.S. healthcare decision-makers surveyed by Intel stated that their trust in AI in processing medical records has increased by 67%. As AI gets infused into more crucial areas of healthcare, it’s important to earn customer confidence and comfort, and support from various stakeholders in the ecosystem.   

Fingent custom software development experts helps develop innovative, AI-integrated, custom healthcare software applications to improve your competitive advantage, time-to-market, ROI, and clinical precision. As the world enters a new era of health, it’s important to choose the right technology partner that helps adopt the right technology at the right time. We have an eminent list of healthcare clients, including NHS, Novita Healthcare, Mundipharma, and Casenet, LLC among others.

Contact us to understand how we’re helping businesses build trust and deliver sustained outcomes by making the most of our experience and technology. 

If you’re a business with an expanding online retail footprint, your hard work actually begins once a customer places an order. Each new order triggers a multifarious chain reaction, right from confirming the order through payment acceptance to picking, packing, and finally shipping the consignment to the right location. As digital shopping becomes the primary buying method today, it’s important for brands to simplify online ordering for their customers.

How can you make your order processing and fulfillment smooth enough for both your customers and employees? 

If you’re a small business, you might be able to handle your orders with basic pre-packaged software. But as your business grows, you need a customized order management system to fulfill the orders gushing in. With a custom order processing software, your business can bring the best of both worlds, that is, streamline your order processing and fulfillment and simplify order placement for your customers.   

View Infographic: Custom Software vs. Commercial Off-the-shelf Solutions

What is an Order Management Software?

Order management refers to the set of processes used by an organization to track, manage, and fulfill an order, right from the time when it (order) is placed by a customer to when it is safely delivered at the right destination. 

Order management systems are software tools used to monitor the end-to-end customer order journey. With order management software, you can organize and automate processes, keep track of your merchandise, control the delivery process, and ensure that your customer receives the right order at the right time in a good condition. 

Say you’re running an online medical procurement store. A clinic places an order with you for disposable saliva ejectors. Your order management software checks if the payment was successful, send the order details to your warehouse, tracks the order form when it is being picked, packed, and shipped, and finally ensures that the saliva ejectors were delivered properly. 

Modern order management systems are capable of going beyond delivery and order fulfillment. They can record customer service actions, track returns or exchanges, prevent shipping errors and processing delays, and save profits by reducing refunds and reshipping costs. By collecting vital metrics that define your success and efficiency, your business can identify what’s working and what needs to be improved.  

Why Do You Need a Customized Order Processing Software?

Investing in an off-the-shelf order processing system is enough if you’re content with your business’s status quo. But it wouldn’t suffice if you’re thinking of expanding your business. Offering personalization is the only way to make yourself stand out from the competition and attract more customers. That means, making some serious changes to your existing workflow. When you try to alter your current workflow to incorporate personalization, your canned software offers limited ways to do it successfully. This is where a custom software solution comes to your rescue. 

Watch Video: Why Your Business Requires Custom Software

Custom order management software allows you to configure the workflows required to meet your specific business needs. If off-the-shelf software provides you with 80% of the functionality, custom software allows you to tailor the remaining 20% (or even more) to enhance your workflows and make your business future-proof. 

Some Inspiring Stories 

We’ve done it in the past and we’re doing it now as well! 

We’ve simplified what was once considered complex order processing, with custom-built ordering software that lets customers place orders quickly and allows businesses to track every order with improved efficiency and sophistication. Here’re a few inspiring stories.

1. Cheetah Transportation Systems

Texas-based Cheetah Transportation Systems leveraged Fingent’s custom software development services to implement a personalized transportation management system. The new system allows Cheetah’s customers to view their order status in real-time and access up-to-date shipping data. With a customized software solution, Cheetah re-imagined their logistics and supply chain operations:

• Streamlined and accelerated ordering, tracking, and delivery processes
• Cut licensing and subscription costs by eliminating complex third-party software integrations
• 30% improvement in Turn Around Time (TAT)
• 40% time-saving attained through automated tasks and real-time reporting 

2. AEC Advisors

Another pretty interesting digital transformation story is that of AEC Advisors. The New York-based investment banking and corporate finance advisory firm experienced a business transformation with a customized survey management cum analytics and reporting software developed by Fingent.  

• Ability to create and circulate customized surveys prior to the yearly conference held by AEC Advisors
• Quickly generate KPI reports based on survey responses
• Secure, scalable, and flexible IT architecture to address AEC’s specific needs
• Make it convenient for AEC’s clients to securely share complex financial information

3. Lakeside Cabins

A custom order management application for a manufacturer who builds customized sheds for growing families needing more space! That’s the story of Lakeside Cabins, headquartered in Ohio. The manufacturer wanted us to build an in-house software customized to support the different stages of their building processes. Fingent created a personalized, flexible, easy-to-maintain, and scalable order management software with the following features:

• Custom-built 3D configurator that allows customers to configure building designs, generate floor plans and invoices, and reduce human errors
• Integrated modules to manage CRM, dealers, orders, purchase orders, work orders, and route-optimized delivery schedules

Interested to explore similar success stories? Click here to read our top case studies. 

Business Benefits of Custom Order Management Software

1. Features that fit your business needs

A customized order management software offers the best features your business would actually require. Collaborate with the right software development partner to identify your unique business needs. Avoiding unwanted features helps you get cost-effective custom software within a shorter development cycle. 

2. Flexibility 

Your customers may want to split orders and deliver them to multiple addresses. Using an off-the-shelf software to split your shipments will increase your fulfillment costs due to longer development cycles. A customized order processing software offers the flexibility to split consignments, choose multiple payment modes for a single order, and a horde of other capabilities that will enable you to deliver an Amazon-like experience to your customers. 

Read more: Custom software solutions – the ideal way to build business apps

3. Easy to integrate with other tools

Most off-the-shelf software don’t offer flexibility in integration, making you spend more on missing software integrations. In contrast, custom order processing software offers makes it easy to integrate with necessary third-party ware that can improve the accuracy of your order fulfillment process. Fingent develops powerful APIs and plugins that support seamless integration of third-party tools with your custom software.  

4. Automation of mundane tasks

When your custom order management software does the heavy-lifting by automating invoicing, billing, banking integration, payment, and stock management, you can focus on improving your customer service. Automating mind-numbing operations will allow you to keep your order processing tasks much more organized and easier. 

5. Flexible pricing

Most pre-packaged order management solutions offer functionalities that your business doesn’t require and demand you to pay extra for useful features. A custom software solution is designed and developed after defining your objectives clearly. So you end up paying only for the features you use.   

Read more: Know What’s Driving Custom Software Development Costs in 2022

Develop Your Custom Software Application with Fingent

When you’re in complete control of your order management system, you will attain better visibility, productivity, and cost control. Custom software befits businesses of any size- small or large, as it can save your costs and support your long-term growth plans. Whether your requirement is to develop a custom inventory/ order/ warehouse/ transportation management software, our developers have considerable experience in handling anything that comes our way.

Read more: How to Choose the Right Custom Software Development Firm

Our core experience in developing B2B e-commerce applications, customized product ordering systems, tailored self-service payment portals, and an array of bespoke software solutions makes us a trusted software development partner to hundreds of organizations worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies.

If you want to learn more about custom software or would like to know how it can improve your bottom line, get in touch with us.     

Every small business requires an array of software to run its operations smoothly and successfully. When starting a new business, it may seem like your off-the-shelf software would suffice all your needs. As your business grows, your business management software should scale to meet your team’s evolving needs, boost the efficiency of your workflows, and be flexible to support new use cases. Custom software or a software application tailor-made to address your specific business requirements helps improve your market competency and realize ROI at a faster pace. 

How will you determine if custom software is the right fit for your small business?

Read on this post to learn more about custom software for small businesses. 

Read more: 5 Reasons Why Custom Software is Important for Your Business

Top Signs Indicating Why Your Small Business Needs Custom Software          

The classic “build vs. buy” decision is a pertinent question that every small business faces when addressing their software needs. Considering the cost, time, energy, and resources dedicated to custom software development, many SMEs adopt packaged software in a haste. Look out for these warning signs before deciding whether to build or buy. 

1. Employee Discontent

Find out if your employees are satisfied with your existing off-the-shelf software. Do they still stick to old-school tricks or find manual methods faster and more convenient? Are your employees forced to discover alternative workarounds to use the software? Do they still rely on spreadsheets and how-to guides for using the software? All these signs indicate that your off-the-shelf software lacks employee approval and can fail your business eventually.

2. Existing Tech Isn’t User-friendly

Rolling out enterprise-wide canned software that commands an advanced level of technical expertise will inflict more harm. It will complicate the processes for your employees and incur heavy training costs. Complex shelf software will fail the very purpose of technological innovation, that is, to simplify human efforts. If only less than 20% of your employees find the software workable, it’s better to build a customized solution.

View Infographic: Custom Software vs. Commercial Off-the-shelf Solutions

3. Wasting Time on Mundane Tasks

Is your software forcing your employees to spend their valuable time on routine activities that don’t require human thought and creativity? If your software isn’t allowing you to leverage the potential of automation, it can minimize your employees’ productivity and workplace efficiency. Automation of mundane tasks with minimal or adequate supervision is a must for small business growth and success.

4. Software Spend Drains Your Wallet     

Adapting a rigid off-the-shelf solution for your small business needs requires you to subscribe to third-party apps and pay multiple licensing fees. Most biz owners end up paying full price for unwanted features. Some companies would want to integrate estranged business applications to increase the usability of their shelf software. All these challenges lead to increased software spending.

5. Unable to Make Data-backed Decisions  

Your business data comes from multiple sources such as your website, emails, social profiles, chat, and conversation histories, helpdesk, and so on. How far is your canned software allowing you to make use of this data? Are your decisions driven by live data? If your dashboards aren’t getting updated in real-time and reports throw only past information, it’s time to consider custom software. Integrating multiple business systems and exporting all the useful data insights onto a centralized, user-friendly platform in real-time will empower small businesses to make rightful decisions.    

Watch Video: Why Your Business Requires Custom Software

How Can Your Small Business Benefit from Custom Software?

Small business competition has intensified in recent years. Thanks to the increasing democratization of digital innovation! Access to technological advancements is no longer limited to large enterprises. With a custom-built software, your small business can stay relevant and competitive.

1. Own Purpose-built Software 

Custom software development guarantees 100% alignment with specific business needs. You can rest assured that no crucial operations are left unsupported and there aren’t any wasted features. Share your unique requirements with a trusted custom software development company like Fingent and get exactly the features you would require on a long-term.

2. Uncompromised Security

Ready-to-use software is highly vulnerable to cyberattacks due to the widespread availability of code and proliferation of users. Owning custom code places your small business under lock and key and keeps your sensitive information hack-proof. Customized solutions offer built-in security with a specialized approach to development. Better compliance and data governance improves your organization’s reputation and trust. 

3. Improve Workflows and Efficiency

Attaining profitability amid stiff competition needs your employees to put in their best performance. Experienced custom software companies like Fingent can help you identify the workflows or business functions that can be improved with the right technology. This makes your business more efficient and maximizes the productivity of your employees.

4. Keep Costs Under Control 

Improved business efficiency transforms to lower operational costs. Technologies like automation enable your employees to complete more tasks in less time, without feeling monotonous. Custom software actually costs lesser than off-the-shelf solutions, considering the extra dollars you would spend on subscriptions, licenses, third-party integrations, software upgrades and maintenance, and other overheads required to make the shelf software workable.

Read more: Know What’s Driving Custom Software Development Costs in 2022

5. Round-the-clock Support 

Modern business might come to a standstill if technology stops working. A typical readymade software provider puts you into a long wait with back-to-back support tickets and repeated calls, whereas a dedicated custom software development partner offers access to a direct line of technical support to resolve your issues immediately.     

Read more: The Dos and Don’ts of Custom Software Development 

Tips to Choose the Right Software Development Partner

Hiring the services of an experienced custom software development agency will help you focus on developing a sustainable business model. How can you identify the right software development partner for your small business? Here’re a few tips we recommend:

• Identify your needs. Decide what you expect the software to do. List out your objectives. Use an application specification template to fill out your needs. This improves your communication with the software development vendor. It helps the vendor understand your expectations clearly. This can go a long way in finalizing the project’s scope. 
• Check the partner’s technical skills, expertise, and experience. Have they handled projects related to your domain? Read up their case studies and analyze their portfolios. Arrange catch-up sessions to learn more about their software development approaches and project management methodologies.  
• Ask for references. It helps you understand their reputation and trustworthiness. Use top B2B review platforms like Clutch and GoodFirms to evaluate their performance. Connect with the company’s past clients for more candid reviews. 
• Cost is as important as the experience and reputation of the software development partner. Bestow your project only if you’re confident of guaranteed ROI. 
• Is your development vendor passionate about your project? Figure it out over the initial meetings before the formal kick-off. Do they come up with unique ideas that improve your application’s value in the future? Make sure that their ideas are backed with convincing use cases or POCs.  
• Choosing a software development partner also depends on the quality of after-sales service and technical support. Do they provide cloud-based updates, software upgrades and maintenance, and other troubleshooting services when you need them? 

Selecting the right custom software development partner is a meticulous job. Check out our earlier post covering these and more crucial tips in detail. 

Also read: How to Choose the Right Custom Software Development Firm

Why Choose Fingent as Your Custom Software Development Partner?

Over the past two decades, Fingent has been serving as a reliable and capable tech partner for many leading global brands, including Fortune 500 companies. With an impeccable track record as a successful custom software development partner, we’ve helped improve cash flow and business efficiency for many clients. If hiring in-house developers is costing you a fortune, extend your development team with our dedicated talent pool at reasonable rates. 

Read more: Top Benefits of Outsourcing Software Development Services

We’re in track of the latest tech development trends and help our clients explore new and emerging tech such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Internet of Things (IoT), 3D Web Configurator, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and so on. If you’re an aspiring small biz owner trying to make the most of technology without burning a deep hole in your pocket, connect with our team and get started. Let’s help you build scalable and robust small business software.