5 Reasons to use Red River

It’s hard to estimate how much software impacts on all of our lives today.

From daily work time to our leisure and home lives we’re constantly interacting with phones, apps, computers, wearable devices and transport systems. Software is a rather abstract term for a thing that makes devices do useful things. It is the collection of rules, logic and calculations that allow “stuff” to happen and the “stuff” that can happen is immeasurable.   

No doubt, there would have been several interactions that you have had today that were made possible by somebody writing some code that allowed you to communicate with someone at the other side of the world, to place an order, organise a holiday or even run your company.

The world of business software is vast.

Often when meeting people, I get asked “what sort of software” it is we create. Not being limited to a particular industry sector, it’s not easy to sum this up in a single sentence.

The part of the software world that we thrive in, is in the creation of tailored software systems that are focussed of automating businesses, turning services into product or connecting all parts of a company’s business ecosystem. We are focussed on helping our customers think and operate like tech-focussed high growth businesses and, where possible, dominate their industry sector. 

It is a step into the future and we believe a very creative and rewarding experience for all along the journey.

The journey doesn’t always start from the same place and customers often contact us for different reasons.

I have listed a number of common reasons where people contact us below, some of which might resonate with you.

Simon Pringle
CEO Red River Software
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The reason for digital transformation is to automate, to make information available and processes happen right across your business’s ecosystem.

Digital transformation allows all parts of your business, your team, systems, suppliers, customers, partners and network to be connected and integrated. Information is available everywhere and immediately. Manual processes and duplication of effort is removed.

In a world where it’s getting harder to find people with the right skills, where productivity and profitability is being squeezed, digital transformation is the approach to take. 

Creating a platform to underpin your business and connect everything together (platformification we call it) will bring growth and the ability to exploit new opportunities. 

Or perhaps you are in an industry sector that is poised for some digital disruption, where the whole industry is due for digital transformation.

Digital transformation is, in our eyes, about making businesses tech-focussed, high-growth, profitable and valuable enterprises where systems we create become the window for all interactions. 

People come to us on that journey and we make it happen.

Bear in mind the AI movement and how quickly that’s integrating in our lives , in our case, we’re adding that to our toolset, so that we can add it to yours.

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Embarking on a digital transformation project is a big step for all businesses and a serious investment of time and money.

A business may adapt its ways of working, require different skills and need to keep ahead of the technology it is employing. Fundamentally, the whole of a business could be in the control of a software system created by software developers, designers and analysts.

It is a huge responsibility to get it right, to ensure that all processes are captured, the complexity is understood and the route to release is planned.

But sometimes it isn’t the case, software development projects can go off track, due in no fault to the client. Digitisation may have happened but automation may not have. Projects may never get to completion because the complexity was not understood.

The effort required was more than a development team could manage or technically, the solution wasn’t up to it.

All too sadly people have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on projects that have gone nowhere.

With years of experience and a deep understanding of the complexities involved in digital transformation projects, we can quickly identify the problems and solve them.

What you need to look for when employing a software company –

 

Digital transformation is not a one off thing, it’s transforming your business for the better and planning for the future. It can happen in discrete steps and can be delivered quickly.

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Some of the greatest tectonic changes in the way the world works have come from the software world.

The agility, ability to rapidly get to market and create whole new sectors is something that software industry has brought to the world.

The concept of the start-up is well-known as developers and technologists, with limited funding and resource race to get ideas to market with sweat, ramen noodles and boundless energy. 

Large corporates with deep pockets also employ software and technologists to drive invention and protect market share.

Outside of these worlds is the middle ground.

Established businesses in established markets that could at some point be squeezed by start-ups or corporates.

Our mission is to help these companies act like the tech-focussed, agile businesses, to exploit the opportunities they have, whether that is productising a service, undergoing digital transformation or exploiting new markets.

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Pivoting a service business to a product-based business is a much desired step that many business leaders are keen to make happen. 

With all of the advantages or rapid scalability, guaranteed and repeated revenue generation, higher business sale multiples, product based businesses are often seen as the natural step once established in a particular sector.

SaaS products, delivered via web or mobile are the logical evolution of product development plans but it goes without saying that the key to success is to go to market with a clearly defined feature sets, scalable business models and infrastructure, and a matching plan for marketing.

Rather than servicing one customer, the product will service orders of magnitude for more customers, with functionality that will need to address the needs of an unknown customer base.

It is not just white labelling a bespoke system.

Our skill in this area can be demonstrated with eFD Seker Tech where we have created and released a SaaS product into a mature market not traditionally known the strength of its tech.

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It is not read that all problems are solvable by everyone.

Enthusiasm and Google can only get you so far: Knowledge, critical thinking, experience, time spent and intelligence applied in the right way is going to get you further. 

However, there are times that problems may be technically and conceptually too difficult for one person or one team to address.

It is critical to get the best advice and help as, all too often people have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on projects and not solved key difficulties, thus rendering the end product not fit for purpose.

A great deal of the reasons customers come to us is that they have a conceptually or technically difficult problem to solve, for example our work with Veolia.

At Red River we have a team of experts who can handle complex projects with ease and provide the guidance and expertise you need to achieve success.