Thinking about setting up an in-house distillery system? Here’s what it could cost you.
When a distillery has outgrown manual data entry and spreadsheets to manage their stock and maturing spirits, distillery managers will turn to technology. Managers are faced with two options, they can either find a trustworthy provider that offers Distillery Management Software, or they can develop a solution in-house. It is often wrongly assumed that developing a solution in-house will help to save money. From our experience, we have found that this is often the costlier option.
Distilleries often underestimate how much these systems will cost to develop, how long the project will take and don’t have the staff know-how to keep them running smoothly. These distilleries often start trying to build their own system and eventually opt for an external provider as they realise it will save them time and money long term.
Here are some of the issues distillery managers run into when developing an in-house distillery system:
- Lack of staff know-how
Developing software is a complex, multifaceted and difficult process. High-quality software and IT has usually been developed by IT experts and software engineers. These people have years of experience in learning about the intricacies of software and know exactly where issues may arise and how to avoid them. Although you may have very skilled and knowledgeable staff, it is unlikely you will have anyone in-house with the right skills and experience to build complex Distillery Management Software. If software is developed by people that don’t fully know what they are doing, there is an increased risk of viruses and data breaches, which could be detrimental to operations.
This lack of staff know-how may mean that you need to hire a software expert full-time to help develop the necessary software and then to maintain it. This can prove much more costly than buying Distillery Management Software from a trustworthy provider.
- Your software will become outdated quickly
Technology is constantly evolving, meaning if your software is not regularly being updated, then it will quickly become out of date. This means your software will fall behind other software on the market (potentially used by your competitors). Trying to build software from scratch is often compared to reinventing the wheel. If any one part is not maintained, then it could easily stop working.
Distilleries often find that the cost and time dedicated to maintaining and updating software exceeds the cost of outsourcing your software from an external provider. External Distillery Management Systems are not only often fully customisable to your specific needs, but they come with round the clock customer support. That means if something stops working, help is just a phone call away.
Cofficient have developed a Distillery Management Software, which is fully-cloud based and is built on the NetSuite platform. This means it can easily be integrated with your other technology.
