Modular, bespoke or off-the-shelf solution?
We build bespoke and modular database systems because we believe in tailoring a solution which addresses your specific business needs and solves your business problems. Intrinsic to this, is providing a solution which makes your life easier, and which delivers value to your customers now, and well into the future.
Bespoke Database
Quite simply, it is a database tailor-made to the distinctive needs of your business. What it needs today, but also paying heed to what is around the corner. It will be designed with both in mind and focussed on of supporting the growth of your business.
A capacity to change is the bedrock of your business success.
It might be about diversifying your product offerings in line with changed market conditions. Or with trumping competitors who are already doing so. Or with displaying an agility to stay abreast of disruptive behemoths always keen to get a slice of your pie. Whatever the challenges, you can rest assured that your new database will change with you. Our collaborative design process guarantees future proofing and helps you to achieve stress-free organic business growth.
Website or Database?
Why do we no longer focus solely on building websites?
Your website is the interface with your customers. It is the advert for your company, the first thing a prospective client sees of you and your business online. While this is an important focal point and should be designed with your target audience in mind, we'd like you to think of it as the 'icing' on the cake. We are more concerned with the information, the workings and the knowledge that sits behind your company. The 'cake' itself, if you like.
A website (the 'icing') remains absolutely an essential part of your company's marketing and engagement strategy. However, it is easier than ever to build a website. DIY software is freely available online for the sole-trader. Also, a plethora of web developers now exists to churn out business websites. These have become ubiquitous and 'cheap' as a result (or at least some have).
Such solutions are invariably created using ready-made off-the-shelf products, e.g., WordPress. This type of solution suits smaller businesses with relatively simple business needs, often with little or no data requirements.
So, here's the answer to your question:
Because we create bespoke code, we cannot compete on cost as we do not use off-the-shelf products. This is due to the security, maintenance and future-proofing concerns that such products present. Since we now mainly deal with complex businesses with unique business challenges, we generally no longer produce stand-alone websites.
However, WE DO design and build the complex database (the 'cake') that underpins the majority of our current clients' websites. Most of these businesses require user interactions involving staff, students, customers etc. This, together with document management of a wide variety, will require a robust data system to facilitate frictionless data interactions.
This is where our expertise lies.
We specialise in building the 'cake'. We will bake you an industry leading cake. But we will also spread that cake with 'icing' your customers will find irresistible.
Why we do not use Off-the-shelf products (e.g. Wordpress)
We do not use off-the-shelf solutions for our clients because in the main they do not work for their specific requirements.
Generally, the business systems that we develop are of a nature that cannot be matched by currently available 'purpose-built' options. Yes, there are plenty of low-cost, off-the-shelf products that will provide varying degrees of partial functionality. However, they will not and cannot provide the desired or necessary utility needed by your business to operate at its optimum.
Conversely, there are products on the market that might provide more functionality than is required. These systems can be clunky and cumbersome with inevitably superfluous bells and whistles. Often resulting in user frustration and stress.
These products can be quick to implement but will invariably come at a HIGHER COST over the medium to long term.
Is it worth it for a solution likely to be under-used because your business just doesn't need that extraneous level of supposed practicality?
What worries us, and ought to concern you, is that off-the-shelf products will not necessarily provide you with full control of their code. Again, WordPress is a pertinent example. Any automatic updates to their underlying code could result in a malfunction of your company's core code. This might well affect the functionality of your entire business system! Importantly, corrective action to resolve such malfunctions would likely be hampered due to having your hands tied behind your back. No control equals no remedial engagement with code gone awry.
Off-the-shelf products will not necessarily provide you with full control of the code (in the case of WordPress for example). Any automatic updates to the underlying code could result in a malfunction of your core code and affect the functionality of your business system. Importantly, corrective action to resolve resulting glitches would likely be hampered due to lack of control over the code.
Some off-the-shelf products cannot be edited. Some can be. However, for those that can there is a danger that such solutions may introduce code into the platform that is surplus to requirement. This will make the code bulky and less efficient, resulting in it functioning slower. In our experience, there is only one way to ensure an optimum quality and performance specification. And that is to be fully in charge of what the code does.
Clients often come to us having tried to use an off-the-shelf solution and then attempted in vain to alter their work processes to suit the software. This is because invariably such software proves inflexible and incapable of bending to the needs of their business. Most of these clients are delighted that we can offer a bespoke and intelligent system, which they have full control over.
In summary, we do not use off-the-shelf products because our customers' needs are unique, specific and complex.
Further, their system will require to be easily supported and maintained well into the future.
Consequently, we are often more expensive than our competitors. Set against that is the fact that the value of our product is greater. That our build quality and after care are unrivalled. And last, but not least, that our guarantee gives you the peace of mind you need.
But we DO use open source resources
We are happy to use open resources (small parts of the system) that help us deliver projects rapidly and efficiently - provided the product provides a guarantee which we can extend to our customers.
For example, we often use the Bootstrap framework for design to assist with responsive design. This is just a design style library, but is not an off-the-shelf solution for main application delivery.
Providing a dedicated solution - this is how we think.
What makes you stand out from the crowd is your angle. This can be developed in so many ways, but the services you provide and the method by which you choose to deliver them play a great part in achieving this advantageous distinction from your competitors.
At Tayfusion Digital we think so far out of the box that it seems as though the box does not even exist at all. Our 'no box' approach to solving common (or not so common) business problems has been proven to produce unique and lasting solutions for the businesses we work with.
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