Appropriate stack for web based business management app

[strong_s5470]

OK, so this is coming from a non programmer and I recognise this is a quite an ambiguous way of asking a complex question but... if you were to choose a stack to build a new web based platform to manage a business on, which included internal HR, quoting and customer management, procurement, inventory and billing, project management, asset management and service management, what would it be? There's a bunch of programs that do many of these things but not tailored specifically to the industry I'm in which leads us to have several platforms that don't really integrate or that have not been effectively integrated.

[Rybo]

10 minutes ago, strong_s5470 said:

OK, so this is coming from a non programmer and I recognise this is a quite an ambiguous way of asking a complex question but... if you were to choose a stack to build a new web based platform to manage a business on, which included internal HR, quoting and customer management, procurement, inventory and billing, project management, asset management and service management, what would it be? There's a bunch of programs that do many of these things but not tailored specifically to the industry I'm in which leads us to have several platforms that don't really integrate or that have not been effectively integrated.

I'd buy a software suite that already did it.  Unless you have VERY niche administrative needs, the cost of the team of developers, QA testers, business analysts, etc, will far exceed the cost to license such software.  

 

But to not duck-roll your question, as a C# developer, I'd choose C#, ASP.NET, Microsoft SQL Server, and maybe React for the front end.  But I'd probably go with something a little lighter for the frontend.  People don't realize how beefy your computer has to be to run anything beyond a small React app.  

[Andiq]

Another benefit of licensing software in general is that you can get maintenance quite easily and that your own IT department does not have to be as big.

[strong_s5470]

Yeah we are currently licensing several pieces of software that either don't integrate, need to integrate ourselves or poorly integrate together and it's a bit of a mess. There's definitely better ways to do it than what we are doing but also a hole in the market that could be filled, as I'm aware that other business in the industry have the same issue. I'm a long way from a decision maker in the business, more just curious about this. Very much a theoretical, high level question, no so much the finer details of what it would take to pull off haha.

[Rybo]

1 minute ago, strong_s5470 said:

Yeah we are currently licensing several pieces of software that either don't integrate, need to integrate ourselves or poorly integrate together and it's a bit of a mess. There's definitely better ways to do it than what we are doing but also a hole in the market that could be filled, as I'm aware that other business in the industry have the same issue. I'm a long way from a decision maker in the business, more just curious about this. Very much a theoretical, high level question, no so much the finer details of what it would take to pull off haha.

Unless all of this stuff being very tightly integrated provides some strategic value to the company, spending time rewriting it to achieve that integration will probably never bear fruit.  You'll just spend years trying to achieve feature parity with the solution you discarded and if you ever even get there, then you'll be able to attach all of the parts together.  

 

As someone who's taken solutions like this and applied integrations previously thought impossible, getting a smart dev involved is probably going to get you way more mileage than trying to reinvent the wheel.  If these apps have APIs, batch outputs, or some other way of extracting information from the system or putting info in the system without clicking through the UI, they can be integrated.  It's just not something a typical business spends much time and effort on.  

[Chris Pratt]

45 minutes ago, Rybo said:

Unless all of this stuff being very tightly integrated provides some strategic value to the company, spending time rewriting it to achieve that integration will probably never bear fruit.  You'll just spend years trying to achieve feature parity with the solution you discarded and if you ever even get there, then you'll be able to attach all of the parts together.  

 

As someone who's taken solutions like this and applied integrations previously thought impossible, getting a smart dev involved is probably going to get you way more mileage than trying to reinvent the wheel.  If these apps have APIs, batch outputs, or some other way of extracting information from the system or putting info in the system without clicking through the UI, they can be integrated.  It's just not something a typical business spends much time and effort on.  

Totally agree. Setting up something like an HR system isn't just building the CRUD. There's a virtual mountain of legal and regulatory stuff you have to take into account, as well as tax stuff, which of course changes every year. There's a reason why companies provide these systems, and people don't just roll their own.

 

You'll be much better served just hiring some developers to make/improve integration points between the system's as necessary.

 

[johnroper100]

On 10/2/2020 at 7:25 PM, strong_s5470 said:

OK, so this is coming from a non programmer and I recognise this is a quite an ambiguous way of asking a complex question but... if you were to choose a stack to build a new web based platform to manage a business on, which included internal HR, quoting and customer management, procurement, inventory and billing, project management, asset management and service management, what would it be? There's a bunch of programs that do many of these things but not tailored specifically to the industry I'm in which leads us to have several platforms that don't really integrate or that have not been effectively integrated.

It's always better to not re-invent the wheel, however, to answer your question I would suggest that you look into NodeJS with either Vue or React. Here is a good example tutorial showing how to create a basic CRUD app with Vue: https://developer.okta.com/blog/2018/02/15/build-crud-app-vuejs-node

[Franck]

The system you are looking is called ERP. I have worked with many in the past and there is not a single that exists that is tailored to any company. It is made generic. BUT most of them include support from the company and also allow you to get custom forms added tailored to your needs. The best one i worked with was about 8 years ago and we could create ourselves new interface and reports inside the software. We even had 2 normal everyday people that were able to customize all these things to. It just need a small training and you are good to go. as a developper it took me maybe 2 days to understand the editor completely and maybe 6 months to master everything above the normal user that have been using for over 15 years.