Facing Crisis. Facing About in Business Behavior

What’s good in crisis, it helps us to get rid of unnecessary things, habits and rules. Let’s take an example of common life. For instance, I am used to visit a Starbucks once a day to sit there sipping a coffee and thinking about how to set the world to rights. Now imagine I’ve got a problem that requires all my attention. What about my everyday visits to Starbucks? No doubts, I would totally forget about them, being fully absorbed into solving current issues. Any losses? No, just acquisitions: more time for real life, less blood sugar, and besides readings of the scale become more pleasing. Very similar things happen with business behavior in crisis times: good chance to give up weird unnecessary habits in favor of more real productive work.

One of the questionable things in crisis times becomes competition in its traditional understanding. I have already mentioned strange advertising techniques we use in our battle against competitors. However, although they look really weird, these methods still are among the most harmless and neutral means of struggle. We all are used to consider business as a real battle, with its winners and losers, with acquisitions and toll, with gains and trophies. Thus, “competitor” becomes almost equal to “enemy”, and “win the competition” equates to “beat competitors” or “crush competitors”. The point is: our success is supposed to be success against somebody. Yes, it might be challenging, yes, it might be exciting, however I believe this violent against is a bit excessive even in “normal times”, to say nothing of “crisis times”. Aikido philosophy of harmony is much more natural to my mind: if somebody or something threatens your existence, be able to manage this threat without doing harm to a threatening party.

Human being is a really strange creature: for the most part, in normal calm times we are selfish, aggressive and focused on approbation, but in tough times we strangely become more sensitive, more helpful and more human. Some kind of compensation? Maybe it is; or just result of getting rid of unnecessary things alien to one's nature. Anyhow, my point is that this social shift been projected to business might be of great benefit in this time of crisis and uncertainty.

Businesses are able to help each other. It is undoubtedly true for non-competing businesses, however it remains true for companies working in the same field, i.e. for competitors. We all are aware about lack of clients and lack of projects. If you got to know about some bid for job not fitting your own needs, why not share this information? Possible concerns about strengthening your competitor are out of time, now it is just help. What is good about helping people: it is strongly symmetric relation. If you are helping somebody, others will be helping you. Not exactly as it is understood in math: those helping you might differ from those whom you help yourself, but in general it works.

Got other ideas about applying the humane shift to business? Let’s talk about it and put into practice what we find.

Laozi says in the famous Verse 38 of his Tao Te Ching:

WHEN WE LOSE THE WAY, WE TURN TO VIRTUE.

WHEN WE LOSE VIRTUE, WE TURN TO KINDNESS.

WHEN WE LOSE KINDNESS, WE TURN TO MORALITY.

WHEN WE LOSE MORALITY, WE TURN TO RITUAL.

RITUAL IS THE MERE HUSK OF GOOD FAITH AND LOYALTY

AND THE BEGINNING OF DISORDER.

Usually our relationships in business balance at the lowest level between DISORDER and RITUAL. Now we have a chance to upgrade them to MORALITY or, with a bit of luck, even to KINDNESS.

Software development business essentials

I am in IT business for more than 20 years already, and since 1991 I am a CTO and one of the two co-owners of the Inreco LAN software development (SD) company. It's quite a time. One day this notion has transformed into a sudden idea: why not share my experience and my thoughts about how this business lives; what are the benefits; what are the difficulties; when and how issues tend to become problems, and so on, so on. It is interesting to discuss these ideas with people who would find my notes worth reading.

So, let's go. Where to start from? Ab ovo, i.e. from the basics, from the very beginning.

Although at a first glance SD business looks easy to organize, to manage and to make money on, in reality it is a very difficult business.

It was difficult always: from the very first days when people began thinking of software as of a product, and up to our times when software is considered just an ordinary industrial object. At the beginning, software was something weird, something unusual, and it required a lot of efforts from an enthusiastic seller to open client's eyes to the benefits that might be got after a new software product is developed.

Now all this stuff about selling SD services is quite the contrary: client is able to find an existing software product for any reasonable need. In this situation, custom-made software seems to be absolutely unneeded. Like if you want to furnish your home, you just visit a store and buy furniture. Right? Yes, but not for all people and not for all possible homes. If you have some special ideas and/or some special home, what you need is custom-made furniture. More often than not, such custom-made furniture costs more than the contemporary, available at stores, however it is worth money you pay for it: this furniture is made for you exactly, and it fits your home, your situation and your style completely.

Absolutely the same is true for software: if you just need to type texts or to send e-mails, or, say, to do simple calculations, than you will be fine with some existing cheap or even free software tool. However, a person might discover a need that cannot be satisfied by existing software. For instance, one is struck by an idea of a new promising business that requires very special computer-based activities or some computer-based backing. In this case customer undoubtedly needs his/here own software adjusted to special narrow requirements. Successfully developed, this software can become a locomotive for the entire customer's business. It is not just a theory, we have a number of real examples around us, among our clients. Take, for instance, the Better World Books company: brilliant business idea and its perfect software implementation resulted in successful business.

So, the general concept of custom-developed software turns out to be absolutely viable. At the same time, the key advantage of such software, i.e. its novelty, becomes the first serious obstacle for the supporting business activities. For a customer and for a vendor, the way they move forward from their very first meeting, is much more alike R&D process rather than a routine business procedure. All this makes custom software development so interesting, so challenging and equitably so difficult.