As an example of the power of a bespoke solution to save time and money, we’ll cite the case of one of our clients who owns a business directory called “The Biz” (based in Kirkintilloch). We provided him with a bespoke planning software solution.
Background
Every month he has to plan the directories for the regions he covers. This means creating a layout for each directory based upon which advertisers have paid for advertising and grouping all of the adverts together in a way to make best use of the space available for the size of advert purchased. Adverts are priced according to size and location within the directory.
Each month this process used to occupy 4 or 5 days of his time.
He got in touch with us and asked if we could help. We went to his offices to analyse what he was doing, what he needed and whether there was a software solution to the problem.
Solution – bespoke planning software
Our solution, constrained by his budget and the level of business upheaval that his business could tolerate, was to adapt his existing tracker spreadsheet and add macros to it such that for each directory he could:
- perform reporting on which advertisers had advertising due to expire
- only include adverts for customers who had paid
- book advertising in a way which eliminated costly human error
- create a layout, moving adverts about in a graphical way
- automatically generate the indices used
- produce an initial draft ready to be sent to the designers for population with actual adverts
Outcome – 3.5 days per month saved
The result of all of this is that our client has bespoke software, tailored to suit his exact business needs. More importantly, the task which used to take 4 or 5 days each month is now achieved in under 3 hours saving him at least 3.5 days per month days which he can use to grow his business, get more sales or just play golf.