The market is swamped with thousands of business tools that cater to your specific business needs. For example, Jira which solely focuses on software project development. The issue with this is that purchasing every other tool for every specific purpose will not be easy on your resources and can lead to many complexities.
There are also all-in-one multipurpose tools such as Vault that can deliver everything your business needs under one platform. All-in-one business tools have remained a popular choice amongst scalable businesses as they offer a lot within a reasonable price. They also tend to have much better customer service and tech support, allowing for finer customizations that you would not be able to find on a rigid project management tool.
Continue reading to understand why you need an all-in-one business tool and how to pick the right one for your business.
Why a project management tool might not be enough
Project management tools are not enough to ensure the long-term success of your business. By its very definition you can see that project management tools are defined by one thing, the project they are used for. They cannot be expanded successfully to bring on other business operations as crucial as the project activities to sustain the business.
Your company will be managing a multitude of processes that need to be integrated for easier information flow and uninterrupted workflows, and you can’t achieve that level of optimization just with the help of project management tools. Here are some major reasons why project management tools simply do not satisfy all the needs of your business:
Narrow niche
Most specific purpose project management tools focus on one aspect of project management and build features for that purpose. For instance, Jira is all about agile software development and almost all of its features, such as storyboarding, project tracking, and bug tracking, are related to this narrow niche. It will be an uphill battle to try and use the same platform for more generic usage.
Read on: How Vault stacks up against Jira
Long onboarding
Project management tools also tend to have a steep learning curve that will add to the overall onboarding process for your employees. Any new change or addition to features will require some level of user training that can affect your productivity.
Stiffness
Most well-established project management tools are quite rigid with their feature implementation. Whilst you may get a good level of options to use, they are not as flexible as an all-in-one solution.
For instance, adding any new feature or integration with any other third-party tool could be a difficult process or sometimes even an impossible option. Scaling up or down with project management tools can be quite complex. If your business requires a good level of customization for each project you undertake or needs flexible arrangements to keep track of your business operations, it won’t be easy to find a project management tool that can accommodate such flexible requirements.
Advantages of an all-in-one business tool
Let’s assess how all-in-one business tools fare when compared to project management tools. Here are some reasons you will find all-in-one business tools to be more advantageous:
- Help avoid duplicate data entries and ensure all information is integrated under one platform and readily accessible as and when required.
- Facilitate tracking of deliverables and business items throughout all business processes as all operations can be handled under the same platform. You can ensure nothing will ever go missing.
- Reduce the need for tech expertise and training. All-in-one business tools have an easy-to-use and intuitive interface that eliminates the need for a long training schedule.
- Make way for automated workflows and ensure business continuity at all times.
- Make it easy to integrate data-based solutions to your business operations which will help you make smarter business decisions.
- Require you to deal with fewer vendors and fewer messy service contracts.
- Provide better security protection compared to using multiple solutions as now you will have a single point security.
- Easier to scale according to your requirements with no added complexity.
What to look for in an all-in-one business tool
In order to benefit from the advantages provided by an all-in-one business tool, you need to ensure you pick the right tool that can actually provide you with those advantages. Here’s some criteria that you should use to help evaluate prospective business tools:
Features
It goes without saying that a decent business tool should be able to provide you with a good set of features that are critical to your business. Look for a comprehensive set of features that can perform your company’s basic needs such as HR management, project management, operations management, sales management, and finance management.
Modularity
Modularized features let you use the business tools more economically and help with easier organization. Modularized tools are easier to scale, are more standardized, and can be easily customized.
Read on: Modular ERP: advantages and disadvantages
Customization
One big advantage that all-in-one business tools can offer over standard project management tools is their level of customization. Customized solutions go a long way in improving overall productivity and the optimization of business operations. Your vendor should understand your requirements and provide you with an adequate level of customization.
Quick onboarding
Quick onboarding is essential as it can keep up productivity and save costs on employee training. All-in-one business tools can provide you with a simple interface and options, such as drag and drop, that can get you started with the tool with ease. Look into the user interface and how easy it would be for a new user to adapt to the tool. You can also look at additional options such as mobile app support that make it easy for the user to get used to the tool.
Scalability
Scalability is the software solution’s capability to increase or decrease its capacity based on the requirements posed by the user. When your business is just starting, you may want the tool just to support the basic operations and expect it to serve a low number of users. But as your business grows, so will your software requirements. A good all-in-one tool should be able to accommodate your growing needs and any cutdowns as and when required.
Support
Most of the tech support provided by popular software project management solutions, such as Jira, is restricted to a 9 to 5 window and is riddled with long wait times. The solutions are also mostly workarounds and may not be ideal for your exact problem. However, the same cannot be expected of all-in-one business tools like Vault. Vault provides a high level of support that encompasses customized tech solutions and round-the-clock service to make sure all your queries are resolved.
What should tech support look like?
Tech support with all-in-one tools tends to be more high-end than training material or bug fixing. You can get your custom requirements served with custom solutions and get complete ongoing support for all the features provided by the tool. Here are two notable aspects of tech support you can expect from Vault:
Development of custom apps and features
Custom apps and features go a long way in optimizing your business processes and streamlining all the workflows. This can be a difficult task with project management tools as they are built with a single purpose. As mentioned earlier, tools like Jira are built solely for agile development projects. But what if your business makes use of different project paradigms and workflows? For instance, a business may need a specialized sales feature to keep track of its seasonal marketing and sales. An all-in-one business tool will be able to provide you with such custom solutions on a needy basis.
Such advanced tech support can only be expected with all-in-one business applications. They have the expertise and tech team ready to gather requirements and provide exceptional guidance that will help you employ custom apps and features.
Seamless integration of third parties
Platforms like Jira either have a limited set of third-party app support or come with their own marketplace with a wide range of features. But they don’t always readily integrate with all of your legacy applications or custom apps that you might already be using. This leaves you with little choice regarding your third-party app integrations.
This is not the case with all-in-one business tools. Business tools like Vault can provide you with add-on support for all your third-party application integrations as their level of support goes beyond just presenting available options. They will be ready to get down and help you get customized solutions that can be easily adapted to your working environments.
Read on: Introduction to Vault's integrations
Multi-company set up as extended scalability
Another amazing offering from Vault is that they can provide you with a multi-company setup and therefore extend your capabilities across your sister companies and subsidiaries. This level of extended scalability ensures that you have a uniform platform with smooth data exchange and workflow sharing.
Read on: How does a multi-company setup benefit you?
Quality doesn’t always come with the price
It is an often-held belief that the more you pay, the more you get. While that could be ideal, it is not always what happens in reality. Project management tools with a specific purpose may have an expensive price tag, but this does not automatically equate to better quality. Every business has its own needs and niche requirements that need to be accommodated properly. When you can achieve a level of customization with a strong, scalable solution, that is when you know you are getting what you pay for. So, choose wisely and select an all-in-one business tool that you can use to your advantage and can efficiently optimize your business operations.
