I must admit, that running my own business is an interesting proposition. There are plenty of things to be learned, money to be made, and mistakes to recover from. My background is that if IT computer systems development. Which means, that I was the guy that designed, developed, and fixed the administrative types of systems that kept a company running. Systems like Personnel, Payroll, Financials, and the Order Management System. While I liked certain parts of my previous jobs, I must admit that starting and running my own business held many new challenges for me.
So, when it came time to consider my companies need for administrative software, I was at an interesting crossroads. Did I use my expertise to develop and design my own systems from scratch, or do I buy off the shelf solutions. The answer, is actually a little bit of both. A hybrid approach. For the systems like book keeping and payroll, I decided to go with off the shelf solutions. But for certain systems, like track and maintain my marketing and promotion solutions I had built my own. And, I must admit, that it’s now one of the cooler aspects of my job. I don’t do it a lot, but when I get a chance, I do develop and design custom software to keep my business running. The best thing I like about this side of my job, is all the boring meeting and analysis takes place inside my head. I’m both the end user and the IT department. What I also like about it, is how much easier my day to day work gets, when the system is up and functioning to my exact requirements.