Modernisation

A great store with great products can be built on an old, creaky base that ends up causing the owner time, money and effort every single month. A modern tech stack can fix so much of the plumbing, freeing you to focus on actually building your business.

Most small businesses are held together by something. A spreadsheet that grew arms, a form that emails somebody who left in 2022, a tool everyone pays for and nobody can explain. It works, mostly (and so nobody touches it) right up until the day it doesn't.

Modernisation is us having a proper look at how you run things, digitally: what you use, how it all fits together, and whether there's a better way. It's advice first. We work out what's worth keeping, what's worth replacing, and what the sensible order is, then we can set it up if you'd like.

This is different from Automation. Automation is about taking repetitive, boring, turn-the-crank tasks and handing them off to the computer. Modernisation is about ensuring that the aspects of the business you do have to work with directly are fit for purpose: modern, documented, reliable and trustworthy. And crucially, portable and interoperable, so everything works together and you can move if something better comes down the line later.

Have a look

• Tech Stack Review: a list of everything you use, what each tool costs, what overlaps and what's missing, with a recommendation on what to keep, drop or swap. Often the most useful hour in the whole project.
• Spreadsheet and Forms Rescue: a quick diagnostic of the spreadsheet or form your business secretly depends on, then, if it's worth it, a proper replacement that people can use without fear.
• SME Dashboard Sprint: a week to build you one clear dashboard from the numbers you already have, in a tool you can keep, so the answer to "how are we doing?" isn't buried in six places.

Choose the right tool

• SaaS Selection and Setup: tell us what you need the tool to do and we'll compare the realistic options for a business your size, then recommend one. If you'd like it set up and your data moved across, we can do that as well.

Where this fits

If you find your question is "can this be done automatically?", that's Automation, and it's often what comes next. If it's "does the shop itself work?", that's eCommerce. If it's "I really don't like the invoicing software I installed 20 years ago when I set up shop", that's modernisation.

The honest bit

Sometimes the answer is "it's fine, leave it." New tools bring new costs and new things to learn, and a creaky spreadsheet that does the job is better than a shiny platform nobody uses. We'll say when that's the case, and if we ever have a commercial relationship with a tool we recommend, we'll tell you before you sign anything.

Tell us what you're running on. Get in touch

See also: Modernisation (challenge) · AI & Automation (challenge)