Most companies have digitised more in the past eighteen months than in the five years before that. Not because a strategy was finished, but because remote work, supply shortages and customers who suddenly wanted to do everything online left no choice. The harder part starts now: turning those emergency fixes into something that lasts.
The question we hear most often is not "which software". It is "where do we even begin". The honest answer rarely goes down well: not with the software.
Why the big project is the most expensive way to start
The usual reflex is the all-in-one solution. One system for everything, one vendor, one project that runs for a year. It sounds orderly. What usually happens instead: after nine months half the requirements are out of date, nobody in the company has ever used the new system, and the team still works from the spreadsheet, because at least that one works.
The software is rarely the problem. The problem is that a company only understands its own workflows once it has looked at them honestly. That does not happen in a requirements document. It happens on one small, concrete process.
Find the process that wastes time today
Every company has one task that everyone agrees is annoying. The order confirmation that gets typed in three times. The delivery note that disappears into a folder. Holiday planning on a pinboard. The timesheets someone copies into payroll by hand at the end of the month.
Take exactly that one. Not the most strategic process, but the one that visibly costs time and that everyone knows. It has two qualities that are worth more at the start than any roadmap: you can tell immediately whether the new solution beats the old one, and you do not have to convince anyone that a problem exists.
The stocktake that takes a week
Before you buy anything, write down how the process actually runs. Not how it runs on the org chart. Who gets the information first, who types it in where, where does it sit and wait, who has to search for it again later?
Two things almost always turn up. Part of the work exists only because two systems do not talk to each other. Another part exists because four years ago someone covered an edge case that has long since disappeared. The first is a technical fix. The second is a conversation.
Software comes after that
Once the process is written down, the choice gets easy. You are no longer looking for a system that does everything, but for one that handles this workflow properly and stays open enough to connect the next one. Pay less attention to the feature list and more to the interfaces. A tool that will not give your data back is your biggest problem three years from now.
Also expect the first attempt to be imperfect. That is normal and says nothing about the quality of the project. What matters is that you find out early. On a small process you know within two weeks. On a big one, after a year.
When to scale
Once the first workflow runs and you can name the time you saved, you have gained two things: experience with your own company, and colleagues who have seen the benefit themselves. That is the real starting point for everything else. Scaling before that mostly multiplies your mistakes.
Frequently asked questions
Is digitisation worth it for small companies?
Especially there. The smaller the company, the larger the share of one person's day spent retyping and searching. In relative terms the gain is often bigger than in a large corporation.
How much time should we plan for the first step?
A few days are enough to map a single workflow. For the implementation, think in weeks rather than quarters. If someone quotes you a year for the first step, the step has been cut too large.
Do we need our own IT department for this?
No. You need someone inside the company who really knows the workflow, and someone who owns the technical side. Whether that second person sits in house or outside is a question of capacity, not of feasibility.
If you are unsure which process would be the right place to start, we are happy to look at it with you: no obligation, no sales pressure.
This article is part of our knowledge hub AI and digital transformation for SMEs.