The two roads
When you need an automation written for your company you have two kinds of supplier in front of you. They really are different, it isn't a nuance
On one side there is the structured firm, with several people in it, a sales rep who looks after you, a technician who writes the software, maybe a project manager in between, a standard contract and a switchboard that answers even in August
On the other there is the very small outfit, sometimes one person, where whoever answers the phone is the same one who then opens the editor and writes the code that concerns you
Muffin Suite is in the second group. It's Antonio Fuccillo, working out of Nove, in the province of Vicenza
What you gain with a small company
The most concrete advantage is that you talk to the person who writes the software. What you say doesn't have to cross three people before it reaches whoever has to understand it, so an odd case from your office doesn't get lost on the way
Nobody here has something to sell you, and that changes the conversation. If your process doesn't deserve an automation, he can tell you right away without ruining anyone's month
Small decisions get made the same day, without going through a meeting. And in work like this, small decisions are most of them
There is something you see on the price too. A structured firm has an office, sales people and a back office, and all of that ends up on the buyer's bill, while a one-person company carries almost nothing that isn't the actual work
What you risk
One person falls ill, goes on holiday, has a funeral to attend, and on those days no colleague covers for him
The more serious risk is the long one. If one day the person who wrote your system stops, changes trade or disappears, you are left with a process that runs and nobody beside you who knows how it's built inside
Then there is a matter of capacity. A small company can't look after twenty companies in the same week, so if you need something enormous and you need it now, this isn't the right door to knock on
When the big road really is the right one
If you are buying something that has to stand for twenty years and that the whole company depends on, if you have a board that insists on a supplier with more than one head in it, if the project is large and has to be carried forward by several people at once, then the structured firm is the sensible choice, and there is no clever argument that turns that around
The obvious case counts as well. If a ready-made product already does exactly your job, buying that is the better deal either way, whether the supplier is large or small
How you protect yourself
Against a supplier who one day isn't there any more, there are four things to put in the contract. They are not a slight against Muffin Suite, put them to anyone who sells you software, large or small. Anyone who takes offense is already telling you something
- ask for the rules of your process to be written in a document a person can read, not only inside the code
- ask what you keep of the work that was built, and in what form
- ask what happens if the supplier is gone, and how you get out without standing still
- ask for all of it to end up in the contract, because a spoken promise counts for nothing
The exact Muffin Suite terms on these points are set in the contract for each individual project, so you won't find them promised in here. And if you did find them written loosely on a page like this one, you should be wary
The test for deciding
The test isn't the size of the supplier. It's what the day costs you when that supplier isn't there, and how much of that cost you can cut with what you put in the contract
With an automation that takes hours of repetitive work off your hands, that day costs you annoyance, you go back to doing it by hand for a while. With a system the whole company depends on, that day stops you
Do that sum before you sign. If it points you toward a large firm you have made a fair choice, and if instead you want to look at the concrete case you can write to us, or read what you are left with if you switch supplier