Insights

Positions, not thought leadership

Each of these argues something specific about how business software should be sold, implemented and judged. Several argue against our own commercial interest, which is rather the point.

The software was fine. Receiving was the problem.

Implementations rarely fail at the counter. They fail in the back room, at a step nobody looked at during the demo.

Read · 1 min

What we ask before recommending anything

Nine questions about how a business actually runs. None of them are about software, and the answers decide more than any feature comparison.

Read · 1 min

Your business is not unusual. Your constraint is.

Almost every business believes its operations are too particular for a ready product. The operations usually rhyme. What differs is which single thing is binding.

Read · 1 min

When you should not buy software from us

Five situations where the honest recommendation is to wait, or to keep the spreadsheet.

Read · 1 min

Nobody absorbs transformation. They absorb one change at a time.

The word describes an outcome visible in hindsight. Treated as a plan, it produces projects that ask people to change everything at once.

Read · 1 min

The migration you should not do

Importing ten years of history is the most common way a rollout stalls, and the benefit is almost always smaller than expected.

Read · 1 min

Two shops, the same software, opposite outcomes

The difference is almost never configuration. It is whether one person inside the business owns the thing.

Read · 1 min

The licence is the cheapest part

A business with no IT staff pays most of the cost of software in time, and almost none of it appears on the invoice.

Read · 1 min

Built for the phone, because that is where the work happens

Site engineers, delivery staff, salon floors and market stalls. Assuming a desk designs software for the smallest part of the day.

Read · 1 min

Why 77 of our 78 integrations say “on request”

A logo on a marketing page is not evidence that a connection works in production for your configuration. We would rather understate and be right.

Read · 1 min

How to read a software case study

Five checks. Most vendor case studies fail at least three, and the ones that fail all five are marketing with a customer's name attached.

Read · 1 min

We do not build custom software. Here is how to choose someone who does.

AnantaTech Hub sells products. If your requirement genuinely needs building, this is what to look for in the firm that builds it.

Read · 2 min

Disagree with any of these?

Several are arguable, and we would rather hear the argument than not.

Discuss Your Requirement Browse guides