Chapter 13: Standard Tools And Packages And Bespoke Solutions

IT Systems - Using This Part

Most of this part should be useful for all not-for-profit organisations, whatever their size. Chapter 13 in particular applied to all elements of the sector - from tiny to large. Regardless of size, if you are selecting standard packages and/or systems suppliers beyond the standard office tool kits describes in that chapter, you should benefit from reading all the chapters in this part.

If you are interested in small not-for-profit organisations, which are likely to meet their needs with standard office tool kits alone, you should still skim chapter 14 for ideas and ready chapter 15 to help ensure that your project, however small delivers the results you want.

Chapter Objectives

In this chapter we shall:

• Explain the main components of office tool kits and discuss the (rather limited) choices of office tool kits available.
• Define standard packages and bespoke solutions.
• Outline the arguments and factors you should consider when choosing which route to go.
• Set out some examples of tools for each main type of application used by not-for-profit organisations of various sizes.

What do we mean by the term "office tool kits"

Figure 13.1 illustrates a fairly standard example of an IT user's desktop in a not-for-profit (or for that matter, just about any) organisation

The IT structure section of the book discusses the main issues relating to machines and operating systems (computer programmes which enable users' programs to interact with the machines). Most users today will have some form of personal computer on their desktop. The vast majority of those computers will grant access to a collection of office software. We refer to this collection of office software as the "office tool kit". Although it is possible to buy these tools individually, most IT systems users today take advantage of bundled pricing and purchase a collection of office software as a suite, such as Microsoft Office or Lotus SmartSuite.

What do you get in an office tool kit?

The following table sets out the main office software one might find in a not-for-profit organisation worker's office tool kit. Not all tool kits include all of these tools, but many not-for-profits do not need all of the tools.

Table 13.1 Tools You Are Likely to See

Pick a brand

Although there are several tool kit suites on the market, at the time of writing the vastly predominant tool kit is Microsoft Office. The Microsoft Office suite comes in various editions (standard, small business edition, premium, professional). The main alternative suppliers are Corel WordPerfect Suite and Lotus SmartSuite, but their market share has been steadily falling for the past few years, which has been making the market less competitive. Smaller charities might consider scaled down tools such as Microsoft Works as a cheap, cheerful and quick to learn tool kit in circumstances where only basic requirements are envisaged. Another alternative, Sun's Star Office tool kit, is downloadable from the World Wide Web. At the time of writing, the basic Star Office suite is free.

Weighing up the tool kit options

Although smaller/cheaper options might seem attractive at first, not-for-profit organisations should always consider the hidden costs of training and compatibility before making choices based on price alone. For example, staff effectiveness can be seriously impaired if you are using non-standard tool kits. Weighing up these issues in recent years has tended to drive most organisations towards choosing the Microsoft Office.

Although suppliers’ policies towards voluntary sector discounts vary from time to time, it is currently possible to get significant voluntary sector discount on most suites. Suppliers of computers frequently bundle an office suite as part of a deal when selling machines. It is always worth checking whether such a bundled software meets your requirements, as the benefits of such a deal can soon evaporate if you need to buy even one individual component at full price to supplement a bundled suite. Organisations also need to consider whether such a deal is really a bargain for them, especially if they are eligible for significant voluntary sector discounts.

Although it is usually technically possible to exchange information between different office tool kits, it makes a great deal of sense for an organisation to standardise on a single collection of tools. Some people will make a big fuss if you try to wrench them away from their pet office tool kit, but it really is worth putting up with the noise in the short term to achieve standardisation. Standardisation helps enormously with ongoing support, enabling users to help each other and thus minimises the overall cost. Standardisation also helps to facilitate the exchange of information between users; such exchange is often key to the benefits your not-for-profit organisation can get from IT.

Standard packages and bespoke solutions

Office tool kits, discussed above, can be viewed as a particular sub-category of standard packages as defined below. Almost all computer users use office tool kits to some extent. Smaller organisations can sometimes choose to use elements of office tool kits as an alternative to the more sophisticated standard packages (see "Deciding between tools kits, standard packages and bespoke solutions" below). Think of office tool kits as being analogous with an "off the peg uniform".

Standard packages are software products produced to meet specific functions, such as accounting, fundraising, payroll etc. Packages are normally sold in a standard form, i.e. everyone who buys a standard software package is buying the same computer code. Packages are often configurable, i.e. you set up the software to operate the way you want it to operate, but nevertheless the software is the same as that being used by other users. This is not the same thing as customising a standard package (see definition of bespoke solutions below). Think of standard packages as being analogous with "off the peg" garments in a department store, sold for special events.

Bespoke software solutions are software products written specifically for you to your specification. Think of bespoke solutions as being analogous with a made-to-measure garment manufactured for you by a tailor. Bespoke solutions are not normally advisable for not-for-profit organisations.

Deciding between tools kits, standard packages and bespoke solutions

Office tool kits have been sold with more and more features “thrown in” to each release, as suppliers compete with each other for market share. Now that Microsoft dominates the market, the main competition is apathy (reluctance to spend time and money on upgrading), so suppliers try to entice people to upgrade to get more features. For a smaller organisation, this standard tool kit provides enough features to prevent them from needing many packages for other purposes. For example, Microsoft Outlook's contact management features (such as address book) will be sufficient for some small not-for-profit organisations such that they do not need a more sophisticated contact management or fundraising system. It very much depends on what your organisation needs to do.

Generally, the cheapest and fastest way to implement new systems is to use standard application packages. Such packages should preferably be well proven (i.e. lots of existing, happy users) and should be possible to implement with the minimum disruption. Selection of such packages, however, will normally require compromises to be taken over functionality. If no package comes close enough to meeting your requirements, it may be necessary to undertake a bespoke development. Not-for-profit organisations, like most organisations, usually begin the selection process from the premise that they want their solution to be based on standard packages. Once they have gauged diverse opinions and specified their requirements, it sometimes becomes clear that no standard packages come close to meeting all the requirements. Resolving this paradox requires sound judgement in scaling down expectations and specifying requirements again in line with pragmatic IT opportunities.

Bespoke developments may be done using internal staff resources, contract staff or a software house. They tend to be expensive and take a considerable time to reach full implementation. An even greater cost lies in maintaining and enhancing a bespoke development. Organisations should only go along this route if it means significant competitive advantage and the only available package solutions would mean unacceptable compromises. The need for bespoke systems in not-for-profit organisations is very rare - they are almost always limited to specialised areas of need where the only available packages are overly complex for the not-for-profit organisation concerned.

Indeed, complexity is an important factor to take into account when choosing between standard packages and bespoke solutions. An organisation that processes large volumes of data in an uncomplicated way is almost certainly going to be better off with a standard package, even if it needs to compromise on some desirable features to achieve that standardisation.

There are compromises available when an organisation has one or two unique needs in an otherwise standard requirement, such as:

• Customise an element of a standard package.
• Writing a small "bolt-on" bespoke application to work beside or with a standard package.

Although the above approaches reduces the risks in bespoke development, not-for-profit organisations should think long and hard before following the bespoke line. Just because "what you do" is complex does not necessarily mean that there is benefit in automating all of it. Indeed, for many complex elements of work, relatively simple automation is often preferable. Legacies administration is a good example of this principle in charities. Good legacies administrators can describe to you a myriad of complicated procedures, processes and decisions they make on a regular basis. A straightforward legacies administration system can support those activities well with appropriate record keeping, diarising, correspondence standardisation and financial monitoring. A legacies administration system seeking to automate all procedures, processes and decisions quickly becomes overly complex and unwieldy.

Because software suppliers know that authors like us try to put readers like you off bespoke solutions, some will try to tout their database and workflow bespoking tools as "highly configurable packages". Beware! If you are having to write most of the workflow rules for your system and especially if you are having to define the underlying database, you have a bespoke development on your hands with most if not all of the resulting costs, effort and risks.

Guiding examples and thoughts

With the usual caveats about rules of thumb, size measures not applying in all cases and the reader making sure that their own organisation’s requirements are met, Table 8.1 sets out some examples and thoughts on probable, sensible solutions for different sizes of not-for-profit organisations. Remember that you should always follow the process set out in chapter The Choosing Process below when selecting systems.

Table 13.2 Examples and Thoughts on Probable Sensible Solutions for Different Sizes of Not-for-profit Organisations

Summary

• An office tool kit is a collection of basic office software that most people have on their machines (e.g. word processing, spreadsheet, presentation graphics).
• Consider hidden costs (training, interoperability with other organisations) before choosing a suite on price (or lack of price!).
• Whatever you choose, it really is worth standardising within your organisation to minimise support costs and maximise the ease of information exchange.
• Standard packages are usually the quickest and easiest way for not-for-profit organisations to meet their requirements.
• Occasionally not-for-profit organisations will have an unusual requirement which requires bespoke or non-standard software. This route should not be chosen lightly, as the costs, effort and risks involved in following the bespoke route are comparatively high.