Transform your business with a custom inventory management system

Many of our clients have engaged us to create a custom web application to improve their inventory management. This is a broad term and can refer to stock control, warehouse management, goods in and goods out, stocking tracking and auditing.

An effective inventory management system will significantly enhance productivity and the ability to have oversight of each and every piece of inventory and its movement through your business. Here are several reasons why a custom inventory management web application is crucial for the growth of your business.

Real-time visibility

Custom web apps provide real-time visibility of your inventory. You can track stock levels, product movements, and location information instantly, reducing the risk of running low on stock or overstocking.

Automation

Custom web apps can automate various inventory-related tasks, such as order processing, reordering, and notifications. This minimises manual errors, reduces staff overheads and saves time.

Centralised data

All of your inventory data is stored in one central location, making it easy to access and update. This reduces data discrepancies, cuts down on paperwork, and ensures everyone in your organisation has access to the latest information.

Customisation

You can tailor the web app to your specific needs. This means you can track the data points that matter most to your business, set custom alerts, and design reports that help you make well-informed decisions.

Integration

A custom web app can integrate with other systems, such as your ecommerce platform or accounting software. This ensures seamless data flow and prevents data silos across your organisation.

Mobile accessibility

A web app can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. Mobile responsive web apps make it simple and straightforward to view your inventory information through a smartphone. This is especially useful for on-the-go decision-making and remote management.

Scalability

As your business grows, your custom web app can evolve too. You can add new features and capabilities as needed, including specific plug-ins, features or integrations, ensuring your inventory management system remains efficient and effective.

Analytics and insights

Our custom web apps often include reporting and analytics features. These will give you access to key measurables that provide insights into trends, sales performance, staffing levels, warehouse efficiency and much more.

User-friendly interface

We take good care in ensuring that our custom web apps are well-designed, accessible and user-friendly. They offer intuitive interfaces that make it easy for your staff to navigate and use the system effectively, whether they’re an old hand or a new starter.

Cost efficiency

While there may be an initial development cost, the long-term cost savings from improved inventory management, reduced carrying costs, and decreased manual labour can be substantial.

 

In summary, custom web apps can revolutionise inventory management by providing real-time data, automation, customisation, and integration, leading to greater efficiency, cost savings, and improved decision-making for your business.

So whether you’re a large organisation that’s only getting larger, or you’re a small business looking to understand how digital transformation can revolutionise your business, then drop us a line. We’d love to talk.

Improving cash flow and logistics. All in a month’s work.

We march into spring with a busy few months behind us. We’ve enjoyed several exciting problem-solving projects. There’s no greater feeling for us than tackling business owners’ challenges and ultimately giving them that “Ahhhh!” moment.

Sometimes it’s something as small as a simple software integration. Other times, it’s a deeper dive into their processes. Either way, we always rise to the challenge. Here’s what challenged us this month:

 

We significantly improved cashflow for a client

A growing client was keen to improve their cash flow as the business expanded, so helped them become more nimble and better protected from a financial perspective. We did this by adjusting their payment model and related systems from ‘arrears’ to ‘upfront’.

Any business owner will know the benefits that something like this can bring, but it’s not always so easy to implement, especially with so many legacy payment systems still in heavy usage. The win here? Vastly improved cash flow and less time/fewer resources being used up in credit control!

Scannable and scalable inventory management 

QR code use continues to exceed expectations, with so many businesses using them for inventory management. Our logistics client is no exception, utilising these handy little patterns to tie together all aspects of their stock movements throughout their organisation. 

A newly implemented QR code-based system has enabled them to track products’ movements throughout their warehouse locations and across their vehicle network. Right now, there is no better system for understanding your stock levels and ensuring the right shipments are going to the right place. Long live the QR code!

Digitised trip sheets for a busy logistics company

Anyone who has worked in logistics will be familiar with trip sheets, which have historically been a pen/paper/clipboard system. Times have changed, and systems have grown around organisations, with our logistics client being no exception. 

By digitising their trip sheets, we have been able to link them to their scheduler so the team can now easily reference itineraries and job sheets wherever they are in their day and wherever they work in the business.

As the clocks change and we find more daylight, we are excited to see what our clients bring our way as we continue to help founders and owners make business a breeze.

If you feel like your business could do with some tweaks and twiddles, give us a shout. We’d love to help.

 

15 ways a custom web application could benefit your business

Our primary goal when it comes to building custom web apps is to support businesses in their growth, increase their profits and unlock time, allowing owners and employees alike more time to get on with the good stuff.

These are lofty ambitions, but there’s no reason a business shouldn’t be running efficiently in the software, automation and integration age. In fact, this is our bread and butter. We love nothing more than helping a business grow and succeed by solving its internal challenges with technology.

We build bespoke web applications for our clients. That’s right – no off-the-shelf products here. Our clients are all unique, so their software solution should be, too. A bespoke management solution can become a valuable asset and perhaps even the backbone to your business.

Here are fifteen ways that a custom web application could benefit your business.

 

1. Process automation

A custom web application can automate repetitive tasks and processes. The obvious benefit here is around time-saving, but it can also reduce the risk of human error as well as open you up to opportunities where tasks can be linked together for improved efficiency and productivity.

2. Better data control

If your business is operating large amounts of data, then a custom web application can help to manage, process and store this data more effectively. Doing away with paperwork and manual spreadsheets is not only great for peace of mind but safety and sanity too.

3. Improved customer experience

A tailored web application isn’t all about the back end. A customer-facing application can provide a better user experience, leading to improved conversion rates. It can also present a better way for customers to use or purchase your products and services.

4. Streamlined communication

Many organisational issues are caused by poor communication. A custom web application can facilitate communication through providing internal messaging and collaboration, not to mention a huge opportunity for integration into other areas of the business, such as finance, sales or logistics.

5. Scaling

Scaling a team can be hard. When it comes to hiring, you need to recruit, interview and hire, which can vary in difficulty depending on the expertise you’re looking for. A custom web application, whilst not a direct replacement for employees, can scale to accommodate an increase in workload or user demand.

6. Competitive advantage

A unique web application can give your business a competitive edge by offering features or services your competitors do not have. It can also make you more nimble and proactive as a business, quickly reacting to change or demand in your sector.

7. Integration with existing systems

A well-built custom web app will have been created with integration in mind. Modern-day businesses can use all manner of digital products and services, and the more that can plug into your central application, the better. Integration is one of the most effective ways to unlock profitability and efficiency.

8. Data security

Security has never been more important. A custom web app works well to digitise important processes and documentation that would otherwise be subject to a physical security risk. Of course, digital processes are vulnerable too, but with the right measures in place you can keep sensitive business data safe.

9. Cost saving

As we’ve touched upon already, a custom web application can reduce the amount of hours your business is spending on laborious or onerous tasks. While the initial development of a custom web app may be an investment, the long-term cost savings by streamlining operations can really help your bottom line.

10. Analytics and reporting

Custom web apps provide no end of advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, helping businesses gain insights into their operations and make data-driven decisions. It also creates the possibility of dashboards, which are incredibly useful for operational units, finance departments and sales teams.

11. Accessibility

An often overlooked area of digitisation is accessibility. It’s important to remember that we don’t all have the same ability when it comes to accessing products and services. Custom web apps integrate with tools that ensure your organisation complies with accessibility standards.

12. Flexibility

“Computer says no” is a huge frustration point for many businesses tied into pre-built software. Unlike off-the-shelf solutions, our custom web apps can be updated, modified and adjusted to meet the ever-changing needs of your business or wider requirements in your sector.

13. Monetisation and productisation

Some of our clients provide a B2B service, meaning that the custom web app can be used by their clients. This presents an interesting revenue stream for businesses looking to re-sell the software or charge for access. This is generally a special request, so speak to us if this is something you’re considering.

14. Customer engagement

There is no better way to have your finger on the pulse of your business than by asking for direct feedback from customers or clients. With a custom web app, we can integrate NPS surveys, feedback forms or review functionality, helping you build a better business and a stronger connection with your audience.

15. Regulatory compliance

We’ve saved the best ‘til last. Everybody loves compliance, right? The truth is, that it’s a crucial part of many industries, so it’s important that businesses stay on top of their responsibilities. Custom web applications can be developed with specific regulatory requirements in mind.

 

The beauty of a custom web app, and the main reason that we love building them so much, is that no two clients are the same. We love to build a unique application that is perfectly tailored for our client.

So whether you’re a large organisation that’s only getting larger, or you’re a small business looking to understand how digital transformation can revolutionise your business, then drop us a line. We’d love to talk.

 

From Entrepreneur to Parentrepreneur 2: Twins, things and wins

So, it’s been a little hectic since the last post, and lessons have been learned – many of them! 

My number one lesson? As soon as you think you know something, it changes. 

No kidding! Not only is every baby different—trust me, we have twins, and what works for one doesn’t for the other—but also what worked yesterday doesn’t work today. They also have no regard for your plans, schedules, or client calls. So inconsiderate! 

Anyway, it’s been an interesting few months, and I’m squeezing in some part-time work around the twins. It’s been quite transformative in terms of: 

  • Prioritisation: Dropping from 7.5 hours to 2 a day, the focus has to be on impact 
  • Delegation: You have to utilise your team. You can’t hold on to what you did before 
  • Procrastination: There’s no time to waste time here – efficiency is key

The net result has been both the good and bad end of the stick for our newest team member, who joined to help take work off my plate and allow us to keep growing. There’s definitely some good freedom and autonomy in this role, both through necessity and high trust levels. And he has demonstrated he’s more than up to task!  

Case in point: The day the twins arrived, I had to tell him, “That project we were going to do a handover on is all yours now – good luck!” 

nic-blog2

Things that help as a parent and business owner

🗓️ In the main, working to a (semi-flexible) feeding and sleeping schedule has been a game changer. As parents, we have at least some predictability and, for the business, can plan in a few calls. 

👥 Trusting the team! All of them have stepped up and taken things off my plate at various points. We have great people, and it’s made life much more manageable. 

🍼 Nanny! We have some help a few times a week, and similar to the schedule benefit, it’s glorious to know when you might have some uninterrupted time to plan in calls or high-impact delivery work. 

 

Things that have been challenging as a new parent and business owner 

📈 Keeping up with clients and the sales pipeline proved a little tricky for a couple of months there. Now, my top priority is checking in with our clients on a regular basis and managing the inflow of new business. 

😄 Fun! It’s easy to get bogged down in babies, household chores and work. With the addition of day support and a little more predictability with the babies’ schedule, planning in some fun times has helped boost the general mood. 

 

Business strategy as a new parent: What’s next?

Good people are key!

In addition to our excellent development team, we’ve added to our talent with:

  • We’ve engaged a new CFO, Alfie Wenegieme, via Cactus and look forward to some structure and focus around our financials. Early discussions have already been both thought-provoking and energising. 
  • We’ve been obtaining independent feedback from our clients with the help of Remeny Armitage Royle at Brilliant and Human, which is helping instruct our operations strategy, service and marketing focus. It’s been a seamless process and generating hugely valuable insight.
  • You’ll be hearing more from us with the support of Ben Horsley-Summer, aka Null, who is himself a brilliant human and one I’d love to keep all to ourselves! 
  • Last but not least, we’re extending our outreach with PPC campaign support from Mark Proctor of Dropkick Marketing and it’s been great to see some early results and welcome new clients to the fray.

Pipeline

  • We’re working on five new major projects to automate business processes for our clients. Which makes five businesses that are about to get seriously scaled up.

Operations

  • We’re working on our own internal systems to automate more of our processes. The old ‘cobbler’s shoes’ phrase is suddenly very apt here!

Overall, it’s been an exciting (if slightly exhausting) period of living, loving and learning. But I wouldn’t change a thing. Keep your eyes peeled for Parentrepreneur instalment number three, coming soon-ish. 

If you want chat about parenting and ‘businessing’ then hit me up – I’d love to share our parentrepreneur ups, middlings and downs over a virtual coffee.

Or, if you’re a business owner looking to free up your time for parenting, general life stuff, or you’d simply like to scale up and make more money, then contact us.

Previous Parentrepreneur blogs:

From Entrepreneur to Parentrepreneur 1: Balancing parenthood with business

From Entrepreneur to Parentrepreneur 1: Balancing parenthood with business

Shock and excitement. That’s what I felt a few months ago (and still am!) upon hearing that my partner and I were expecting twins. Over the last few weeks, amongst the many thoughts swirling around my head, I’ve been thinking about how the inevitable change in my life will also change how I approach business.

I am curious – how does this entrepreneur graduate to ‘parent-repreneur’?

Off the bat, there’s the obvious stuff like building furniture (and bolting it to the wall, apparently!) and learning how to feed these bambinos. This is all new and exciting, but in a bid to be able to keep up the momentum in work and life, I’ve been looking at ways I can change my business to help me be the best parent I can be.

But how?

 

🔄 Replacing myself

Sounds a little dramatic. But what I mean is, especially as a business that specialises in unlocking time and building automation, it’s only natural that I find ways to offload as many of my deliverables as possible, replacing them with tasks, apps, automation, or simply third-party help.

📊 Filling the pipeline

Oh, if only it were that easy. It does seem a sensible course of action, though, particularly with the view that I’ll be taking paternity leave and would love to go away knowing there’s plenty of work to keep everyone busy.

☕ Meeting other parents 

Chatting to fellow parents, parents-to-be, or experienced parent-folk is a very sensible thing to do. I want to hear about the experience of others and how they’ve balanced children (figuratively, not literally). And that’s warts and all – I want the good and bad experiences because, let’s face it, nothing is ever plane sailing.

Ultimately, I am hugely excited about this new adventure, and I remain optimistic that my existing approach to work—one that is flexible and agile—should fit well with what’s about to happen.

If you’re a parent, I’d love you to join me on this journey, whether that’s through calls, comments or even coffee. I can’t promise I won’t be knee-deep in diapers, but I will endeavour to continue this #parentrepreneuer series.

Apparently, they’ll choose to come along whenever they feel like it – and I trust they’ll do it with some grace and aplomb! Their papa’s a nerd, goodness help them, so they will need some kind of running start.

Update!

They did choose their own arrival time – the twins arrived a few weeks ahead of schedule. My wife, Sarah, is doing well, and continues to amaze me every day. I’m a very happy man. Here we are reading them Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. It’s been a hit so far and we’re saving to put them to Hogwarts.

 

Keep up with the parentrepreneur journey

If you’re an expecting parent, a “thinking about it” entrepreneur, or a seasoned parentrepreneur, I’d love you to follow along. I’ll be posting regular updates here and on my LinkedIn (sleep permitting).

Or, if you’re a business owner looking to free up your time for parenting, general life stuff, or you’d simply like to scale up and make more money, then contact us.

Read blog number two here.

Make your own luck in business with the ‘four types of luck’

I recently read a blog by Sahil Bloom and fell in love with ‘the four kinds of luck’ and the concept of increasing your luck surface area. It’s a very optimistic and freeing idea. But it also just makes rational sense, and there’s real beauty in the simplicity. 

Not everything has to be measured. Not everything has to be a KPI. You can just do more good things, do it with good people, and your luck ought to improve according to the theory.

 

What are the four types of luck?

Dr James Austin, a neurologist, published ‘Chase, Chance & Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty’. According to Bloom, in the book, he defined four distinct types of luck:

  • Blind Luck
  • Luck from Motion
  • Luck from Awareness
  • Luck from Uniqueness

     

  1. Blind Luck
    This is arguably the best kind of luck – luck that occurs accidentally. It takes precisely zero effort and can strike at the most unsuspecting of moments. Think of it as a random occurrence. A frequently used example is winning the lottery, but of course, you’ll need to have bought a ticket. So to us, Blind Luck is even more random – perhaps being given millions by an absolute stranger.

     

  2. Luck from Motion
    This is a scenario where a little action on your part has triggered a lucky moment. By creating motion, you are ‘stirring the pot’ and helping somewhat random ideas collide. An example here might be saying ‘yes’ to more than you usually would, or reaching out a little further to make new connections, resulting in a big contract or unexpected referral.

     

  3. Luck from Awareness
    Now we are in a scenario where your own knowledge, experience and expertise act as a kind of ‘luck sonar’. Whether you know it or not, you’ll be good at spotting a lucky opportunity in your sector, so Luck from Awareness is the result of you positioning yourself in a way that benefits your business and the businesses around you. An example here might be pivoting your business or strategy to encompass an emerging market or new technology and then landing some work in said area.

     

  4. Luck from Uniqueness
    People in this scenario are seen by others as ‘routinely lucky’. You’ve become so good at 2 and 3 that you now move into 4, an existence where your unique attributes make you one big luck magnet. This is more common for businesses or individuals that have put in the time (often years) to perfect their unique craft and strategy, so much so that their reputation alone is bringing in lead after lead.

Luck Razor

Over the subsequent decades, these concepts have been applied to business in many ways, but the approach that rang the most true with me was the ‘Luck Razor’ – a theory that helps you make a choice when you’re faced with two paths or two decisions.

“The Luck Razor is for choosing between two paths.
Choose the path that has the larger luck surface area.”

Or more simply, which is the most likely to lead to me or my business ‘getting lucky’? To be able to make this choice, we first need to understand the four types of luck in more detail.

 

For us, it’s about opportunity 

Maybe luckortunity? Okay, that needs work. Let’s not make up words. But to summarise, we believe that Luck from Motion and Luck from Awareness (2 and 3) is something every business should be doing as much as they can. For us, that’s doing good things with good people, learning how to recognise good opportunities and being more strategic about your brand identity and business strategy. With 2 and 3, comes 4, and 4 looks like a pretty cool place to be.

 

Don’t get too wrapped up in measurables

Many sectors are driven by numbers and deliverables, ours in particular. But don’t let it rule everything you do. We believe that simply ‘doing good’ is enough and doesn’t necessarily need to be measurable. Of course, the goal is to get some kind of return, but that could be something as small as making one connection off the back of putting out four or five case studies. Applying a ‘worth’ to every marketing activity you do sounds wise, but is it?

“We want one lead per case study within the first week of it being published.” Why? Where did you pluck that number from? What’s the logic? Show me your workings! The luck theory and the idea of surface area takes the pressure off a little and focuses on incremental ‘doing’ actions, that over time, should compound and result in more ‘getting’.

Remember, every little thing you do when it comes to your business, your brand and your marketing is increasing your luck surface area. And sometimes, the old phrases ring true. ‘What goes around comes around’ can quickly become a business mantra – if you put enough ‘good’ into your work, people, clients or community, some ‘good’ will eventually come back.

 

The concept of ‘surface area’

By improving incrementally, which is the most natural way to progress through these four stages, you will find yourself at a place where you have to think about your uniqueness. 

  • What makes you different?
  • Why would someone pick you out from the crowd?
  • What can you deliver that makes your clients shout about you to others?

Whilst a business should never plateau, reaching stage 4 and really nailing your USP is the holy grail, and it’s something we’ve been thinking about a lot lately.

If you’d like to explore more about the four stages of luck, check out Dr James Austin’s book, and if you’d like to chat about it with something, I’m all ears!

 

We were inspired by Sahil Bloom’s podcast, ‘The Curiosity Chronicle’, which breaks the subject down really nicely.