Hello everyone, I'm Melanie Foxcroft from MF Consulting.
Today I'm back with Maarten Kruger from Tech Genius
and we will learn about Sally, the owner of a startup business and how she can get her
feet wet in the process of Business Process Automation. Welcome Maarten.
Thanks Melanie.
So, I think the reality is that most business owners don't start out by actually automating their
business. What they usually do is they have one of two problems. The one problem is
that they don't have enough business and the other problem is that they've got too much business.
Now I don't think many people start their business by having the problem of having too much business.
Typically it's: "Listen here, let's find business!" So, how do you do that? Now a typical thing that
a new business - startup business owner - will do is try and improve the online visibility
and a good way of doing that is typically by just, you know, getting yourself your own website.
Now these websites typically are what we call brochure websites. A brochure website is
something that is like a printed brochure. You just put it online. So on your
website you'll typically find an About us page, Products and services page, Contact us page
Yeah, and that's typically how people just improve their online visibility in the beginning .
And what are some of the best platforms to use for this?
Yeah, I think there are a lot of platforms
out there you can use to create brochure websites. I mean typical things are Drupal, Joomla
Wordpress and Wix are popular ones. One specific one is very popular and powerful, something called
Wordpress obviously. Uhm, now the thing about Wordpress is a lot of people don't realize
that it's a software program that you actually install on your web server and you're not actually
developing or programming your website. You're just using the software to
set up the pages that you want.
Okay, so let's say it's going very well with Sally's business
and she gets busier and she gets more clients and now she needs a little bit
more systems in place to make her business work. What would you recommend for her?
Yeah, somebody like Sally would typically start to want to capture information, you know, and
stop using paper. And a good way to start doing that is by using spreadsheets.
Now, most people will start with excel and they'll put a spreadsheet up. Let's say for example
customer inquiries. You want to start keeping track of those things. People might not want to
go for a full CRM system yet so a spreadsheet is not a bad alternative. So typically they'll
create a spreadsheet with your client information. The kind of inquiry information about that and
another thing will probably happen in that stage. Sally will probably start to employ some people
and it's not just Sally that will be working on the spreadsheet. Other people will start to enter
information, you know, on this spreadsheet as well. And the typical scenario problem that happens
in that regard is that people will start to lose changes. And that's, we often get
that businesses at that point will approach us and ask us, you know: "We've got this problem. Information's
getting lost. Multiple people working in the same spreadsheet. Can you just help us in that regard?"
So what solution do you have instead of Excel spreadsheets?
So, Excel is a great product but it was developed long ago. I mean, the first version
came out in 1985. Now what a lot of people don't realize, I mean, that was 10 years before
the internet started taking off which is in 1995.
So, I mean, things like online sharing and people working on the same spreadsheets over the internet
wasn't even imagined at that stage. And now if you compare that to a product, like, developed
by Google (which is called Google sheets), I mean , that was developed from day one to be an online
platform where people can use spreadsheets online, collaborate and work on the same spreadsheets at
the same time. So I think Google sheets has always just been one step, you know, quite a few steps ahead of
Excel in that regard, so the first thing that we will do is convert the Excel spreadsheets
to Google sheets and set it up so they can all work on the same spreadsheets simultaneously.
And a typical thing that also happens with startups is that people start employing more and more people
and as you employ more people you realize that you don't actually want to share
all your sensitive information with everybody. And it becomes quite a challenge especially if only
certain columns in certain sheets are confidential and some are not. What do you do? Because you can
give some people access to specific sheets but you can't limit specific columns.
And then you start to realize that listen here, we've actually outgrown spreadsheets and it's time
to be looking at something else as a long-term solution.
And what is that something else?
Yeah, at this point you're gonna start paying money. Let's face the facts. You can either buy
existing software or pay a subscription fee to use a cloud-based platform of some kind
or you can develop your own solution. Now, I think what a lot of people don't realize
is just what a big compromise it can be to actually buy existing software or subscribe because
you can only use the features there that have been developed and it's actually quite rare
that the system out there is as unique as your business. So often it's a compromise and why make
that compromise? And that's where we come in. So, in terms of developing your own custom solution
there are different options available. Different routes that you can take depending on your needs.
Okay, so what are some of these options that one can use?
Well, long ago when everybody was sitting
in front of their desktop pc and was sitting at a desk, people would typically buy or develop in this
case, your own Windows software for your business. But I think you know, as cloud computing became a
reality, people started realizing how convenient, you know, using different devices like tablets and cell phones
and, you know, doing work on the go. And even if you're with a client
you've got access to so much with mobile devices, that the day of developing Windows
software for your business is not a popular choice anymore. So what are your options?
You know, you've got the choice of developing Windows software for desktop pc's and then
developing a mobile app as well, but if you develop a mobile app for what platform do you develop it?
If you develop it for Android only what about those very loyal iPhone users who will never ever
use anything else than an apple device for example? So now not only do you have to develop a Windows
program, now you also need to develop an ios program. You need to develop an Android program, um and that
can become quite expensive because now you're talking about doing three development projects
instead of one. So a much more cost effective solution is actually to develop something which
you call a web app or a web application which is pretty much a website on steroids.
Okay, so Maarten, tell me a little bit more about web apps because I am boggled here.
Okay, so a web app is still a website. I mean, and I know it can sound a little bit confusing
and we've spoken before you know with a startup, like Sally, we'll start by creating a website for
a business called the brochure website. So it's very much like a printed brochure that's online
but a web application is not something that you do on a platform like Wordpress or Wix
where you just set up a few pages. It's where you develop the system from the ground up.
So you've got all the power of something like a mobile app or a Windows app but the
big advantage is that that app is actually, well, it's a website behaving like a app,
and it's accessible to any device that's got a web browser. So you can use it on your cell
phone. You can use it on your tablet. You can use it on your desktop pc. You can pretty much use
it on any device that's got some kind of a web browser on it. Any smart device
Well, thank you Maarten. This has been fantastically entertaining and very interesting information so
I would like to come back and speak to you more about Web apps and more
about Business Process Automation. So, as always, stay tuned. Stay safe. And don't forget to visit