13. March 2020
edr software – agile, fast and flexible paired with 17 years of experience
"Every thing must have time to mature." (William Shakespeare)
Start-ups with digital applications for the construction sector are currently springing up like mushrooms. This year in Munich, the world’s leading trade fair BAU dedicated a separate platform to young entrepreneurs for the first time with the new “Digital Village”, where 18 selected software companies presented their innovative developments to a broad trade audience. However, even if their solutions appear promising at first glance, a not inconsiderable number of newcomers are finding it difficult to establish themselves on the market in the long term. The industry association BITKOM confirms this with sober figures: 40 per cent of all IT companies go out of business within the first five years, with the majority of them throwing in the towel within the first year. What are the reasons?
In this article, we list five typical pitfalls and also reveal why edr software has been able to establish itself so successfully in the construction software sector since it was founded in 2002. The following percentage figures are the results of a statistical survey published in the start-up report of the DIHK (Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce).
Start-up problem 1
Euphoria about the business idea clouds the view for the essentials: More than a third of young entrepreneurs give too little thought to customer benefits.
edr software’s recipe for success
With clever feedback strategies, partly supported by technical tools such as the customer service software Freshdesk or the digital idea management system Aha!, we have been turning our users into our product developers for 17 years now. We continuously incorporate emerging needs into our digital solutions or give existing functions the necessary finishing touches. We see creating customer benefit as a holistic task, i.e. in addition to the product features, our users also benefit from a number of additional services such as configuration service, training, support, mobility, maintenance, administration, offline capability, usability, data backup, etc.. Thanks to our strong user orientation, we receive numerous additional orders, e.g. for the development of customised apps, our customer turnover rate is close to zero and we enjoy a recommendation rate of more than 50 percent.
Start-up-Problem 2
Lack of expertise: 18 per cent have insufficient specialist and industry knowledge.
edr software’s recipe for success
edr software has its roots in the renowned engineering company EDR GmbH and therefore knows the construction sector inside out. Size, development, competition, demand, trends, economic situation – thanks to decades of experience, we have a sound understanding of processes, are extremely well networked and maintain a lively dialogue with all players in the industry, e.g. in advisory board meetings, at specialist conferences or trade fairs. We combine the expertise of construction and IT experts, which gives our products an extremely high level of maturity. While start-ups are still working out how to implement user requirements technically, the corresponding functions have long been available in mydocma and have already proven themselves in practice thousands of times over (see project list).
Start-up-Problem 3
23 per cent of founders cannot clearly describe their product idea: it is often too extensive, does not solve a real problem, innovates in the wrong place or focuses on gimmicks without any economic advantage.
edr software’s recipe for success
Offering customers added value – that is the driving force behind our entrepreneurial thinking and actions. The ideas behind edr software’s products are developed or continuously refined using the Scrum method. The guiding principle of this concept is based on the concrete solution of real problems, which requires a high degree of flexibility and customisation. Instead of detailed preliminary planning as in traditional project management, we use an iterative approach, i.e. we approach the exact or final solution in manageable stages, known as sprints. Before we start the sprints, we first define clear conditions in a list known as a product backlog. At the end of each interval, there is a fully functional intermediate product that is presented to internal and external idea providers such as customers, management, sales, consulting, etc. for review. Based on their feedback, the content of the backlog is then continuously updated and the work packages are reprioritised. We rely on releases – i.e. we regularly publish revised versions and therefore act extremely quickly and flexibly on the market.
While young companies still invest a lot of time, money and manpower in fine-tuning the basic functions of their solutions, the high level of development we have already achieved with our products means that we have free capacity to constantly expand our range of products: whether universal interface management or apps for forms and delivery notes, etc. – we are now very broadly positioned and offer our customers attractive packages with a very good price-performance ratio.
Start-up-Problem 4
The customer is king? 32 per cent express unclear ideas about the customer target group.
edr software’s recipe for success
Clear target group segmentation enables us to find, address and acquire customers of interest to our company in a targeted manner. Our marketing and sales campaigns are tailored precisely to the individual groups and are aimed not only at potential buyers, but also at influencers from the industry. Thanks to flexible configuration options, our standard solutions can be customised so that we can serve all professions in the construction industry and also tap into new target groups, such as those in the fire protection, energy or smart home sectors.
Start-up-Problem 5
A lack of experience and a strong focus on growth reduce the quality of employee recruitment: teams that are too homogeneous often result in the wrong priorities being set.
edr software’s recipe for success
Our credo is: A company is only as good as its employees. edr software has always invested in highly qualified personnel and staff diversity. We are committed to lean management and this does not allow any compromises when selecting employees. It provides for a lean organisation with flat hierarchies, a great deal of personal responsibility, a high capacity for reflection and constructive teamwork, and qualified personnel are the be-all and end-all. We pay attention to diversity in terms of gender, age and culture and bring together experts from different disciplines under one roof, such as civil engineers, IT specialists, lawyers, business economists, marketing experts and so on. While a typical mistake of young software companies is that they recruit technical specialists too one-sidedly and consequently neglect important areas such as customer support and process consulting, we were quickly able to establish ourselves as a permanent fixture on the market thanks to our broad range of personnel. Thanks to our low staff turnover, the entire workforce is deeply familiar with our products and our corporate philosophy.
Conclusion
By proactively engaging with the market using agile methods, edr software’s digital helpers have grown up step by step. Thanks to more than 17 years of learning by doing experience, our diverse team anticipates changing user needs and technological developments extremely quickly and is therefore always one step ahead of young entrepreneurs. For constructive feedback from the field, start-ups first have to put a lot of work into customer acquisition, whereas we already have a considerable number of long-standing business partners who are constantly helping to shape our products.
