Does your website or app support your company’s growth aspirations?

Are you looking to make your website or app bring more leads and revenue for your business, but you are also constantly running into limitations with your current platform? In this case, you might be in a situation where you have to make one of two decisions:

1. Continue with your current system that doesn’t fully meet your needs, or
2. Start looking for a solution that will allow you to grow and reach your full potential.

We understand that this may seem overwhelming for a start, but we will make it a little easier for you in this blog post by pointing to seven areas you should look at to make a swift decision.

To begin with, ask yourself this – Do you find yourself in one of the following situations?

1. It is difficult and costly to find developers to work on my website
2. My website is crashing frequently and it often shows recurring errors
3. My website is slower and slower the more visitors I have
4. I can’t get my website to do what I need it to do
5. I am investing more and more money in development, but my visitors are still not happy
6. My marketing team needs help from developers all the time
7. I feel nervous if we are on top of security

If so, don’t worry, many decision-makers are at one point in the same situation. But read on and you will soon find a solution to your problem.

1. It is difficult and costly to find developers to work on my website

If your company uses a system that is built with old outdated technology, or what is known as a legacy system, then you are stuck. Maintaining such a system is costly, time-consuming, and overall a nightmare. Not only that, but building new features for this system is downright impossible, often because of non-existent or insubstantial documentation.

For you, this means that instead of your system working for your team, your team is working for your system. 

Moreover, finding the team to work on this system is also quite tricky, as most developers develop their skills based on the evolution of technology. So, using an old tech-stack means:

1. You have a short supply of developers, developers want to stay relevant instead of working on “dying technologies”;
2. The costs for hiring those specialized developers are much higher than average;
3. Due to short supply, you don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing a team that matches your company culture.

2. My website is crashing frequently and it often shows recurring errors

To identify if your website or app is beyond repair or patching, you can ask yourself: Is your website or app slow, prone to recurring errors and downtime, or simply crashing at the most inconvenient times? 

Or are you in a situation where every fix or new feature takes longer and longer to develop and implement?

If the answer is yes to any of the above, then your website or app is beyond repair or patching. Regardless of the reason, there is little you can do to fix your current system. In fact, fixing your current system will:

1. It takes a long time to fix, which will result in high development costs;
2. Even if you manage to fix it, it can still be unstable and might still break shortly after.

3. My website is slower and slower the more visitors I have

If you have experienced a very rapid business expansion, you might find yourself in a situation where your system’s architecture is not ready for swift growth. This usually happens when companies create an MVP, but their solution picks up so much faster than they expected, which actually overwhelms the system.

Naturally, a non-scalable architecture will slow down your expansion, and will affect your business in many ways:

1. You can not reach your sales goals;
2. You risk losing existing clients as well as new ones;
3. Your systems will become slower and eventually crash the more users you attract.

4. I can’t get my website to do what I need it to do

Sometimes, you might choose a system because it’s convenient and affordable at the time. And by all means, it might have been the best decision for your MVP, or for your startup as a whole. However, as your business grows you will soon realize that this setup comes with limited features, which translates into limited benefits for you and your customers.

“Kostner wanted to increase our inbound traffic and online sales, but we could not do that on wordpress.com due to technical limitations. After Wiredelta helped us rebuild the website on wordpress.org we now have all the flexibility we want. We own our code and can add all the plugins we require. Our website is now a critical element in our marketing and sales, and we have been very successful in growing our revenue.”

 Kim Schrøder, Board Member at Kostner

Having limited functionality means that you can’t listen to your customers and give them what they need. It also means that you can’t grow your website or app – and ultimately your business -blocking you from attracting more clients, and even potentially losing the ones you currently have.

5. I am investing more and more money in development, but my visitors are still not happy

This taps both into legacy systems as well as unscalable systems. Simply put, trying to salvage a legacy system or a system that just won’t let you scale your business will bring less value for you and your users.

Such systems are slow because they usually are heavier, the technology used is either old or unstable, and they are often prone to errors. From your side, you will end up pouring funds into maintaining a system that simply does not meet your needs and stunts your growth.

On your customers’ side, they will have to put up with the constant faults, which will eventually drain their patience, and simply make leave, choosing a competitor over you, that provides a better, more reliable service.

6. My marketing team needs help from developers all the time

“We decided to switch from Drupal to WordPress to give more power to our Marketing team and make them less dependent on developers when changes or new features are needed.”

Jacob Pedersen, Digital Manager at EGN

If you are in a situation where your marketing department cannot make one move without asking the developers for help, you know how it felt for EGN.

Simply put, your system should enable your team, not limit them. And if you have to have a developer on retainer for every single time you want to publish an article or a new landing page for a marketing campaign, clearly that system is not sustainable.

So, in this situation think about the costs. Not only that you have employed a team to build a platform and maintain it. But every time there is a change as small as a new landing page, you will have to invest more and more into development, rather than focusing your budget on marketing and growing your sales.

7. I feel nervous if we are on top of security

Security is an incredibly important aspect in every business, especially if you are dealing with sensitive user data like passwords, usernames, and so on. If your system does not protect this data or it stores in a low-security manner, you are putting your users’ information at risk.

This is obviously an issue. But look at it from your users’ perspective – they trust you enough to share that data with you. One breach is enough for them to lose that trust and never come back to you. Even worse, once words get out that you “lost” your users’ data, your reputation will be in shambles, and recovering from such a blow will be next to impossible.

Not to mention the potential lawsuits that might ensue…

My website or app does not support the company’s growth – consider a rebuild

So let’s recap. If you find yourself in one or more of these situations:

1. Your system is too costly to maintain, update or upgrade;
2. Your current setup stops your team from doing their job because of technical limitations,
3. Your user data is at risk because your system is not secure.

Then, your website or mobile app does not support your company’s growth. And the simplest, fastest, and most affordable solution in the long run, is a rebuild. Simply put, it costs less to rebuild a platform using modern, secure and stable technology than maintaining a system that is not meeting your needs, is a problem to both your team and your users, and is simply not reliable.

A new solution will also give you more freedom and unlock features and benefits you previously didn’t have or were too costly to build on top of your old setup.

How does a rebuild work?

When you sit down with your team or a web development agency like Wiredelta, the first things you will do are:

1. Understand your current pains and needs and prioritize them into “must-have” and “nice to have”;
2. Create a demo focusing on the “must-haves” and refine your requirements.
3. Create a new and better solution that fixes your pains and brings more value to you and your customers and test it to ensure it matches your standards.

And remember, especially when using a development agency, to follow this process and be an active part of it so:

1. You have the last say – by testing extensively you will ensure the solution meets your expectations and high standards.
2. You are in control – since you have been a part of the process from day 1, you will know your platform inside-out. You will know how it works, how to manage it, and its future potential.

Need assistance?

If you:

1. Have found yourself in at least one of these situations, but lack the team to help build a new solution and enable your company to grow, or
2. Have the team, but you need a second opinion, then…

Reach out to us. Our experienced team of Project Managers and developers are ready to assist with a free consultation during which we can help you identify the challenges you are facing and what is the most optimal – and has the best value for money – solution for you.

See More Articles

https://wiredelta.com/7-reasons-to-consider-a-rebuild/

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