The acceleration of technological innovation doesn’t show signs of slowing any time soon. This means that new solutions are continually being developed, and the perfect solution to meet your needs may exist, or be just around the corner.

Related to this constant advancement is the truism that you buy technology when you determine that you need it; that there is no formula for how long to continue on with technology solutions that don’t meet your needs before you choose to replace the existing with something new.

Your best bet for improving your business through technology is to know your business well, and to develop a deep understanding of the needs of your process -- and have these in mind when seeking and evaluating options for replacing existing systems.  Taking the time to make the right choice regarding new tools is a crucial and necessary investment.

Database technology is one of the primary advancements upon which business solutions are based. Database technology is likely at the core of whatever solution you will invest in. Companies such as Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft have developed database technology which allows developers to create applications for any industry. FileMaker®, an Apple subsidiary, offers it’s namesake database creation suite to serve a broad range of skill levels tasked with identifying, selecting, developing and using custom database applications. FileMaker focuses on the accessibility and flexibility of their tool set, to help organizations meet their database technology needs.

A thorough systems analysis process should put you in a good position to evaluate solutions to fit your needs.  If your search does not identify a suitable ‘off the shelf’ or customizable solution, and if you are able to commit human and financial resources towards specifying your needs and having a solution created, my services as a custom database developer may be of value. When developing a custom solution is your chosen option, the criteria for selection that resulted from the Analysis process becomes the foundation for specifications guiding the creation of a database that will suit your specific needs.

I develop custom databases tailored to my clients’ specific needs. My database development tools of choice are the FileMaker® Pro family of products. I’ll describe the options and capabilities of  the FileMaker Pro family of products and why I choose them shortly, but first I want to address how a custom database might be your best option for modeling your business practices and meeting your goals.

It’s your goals I want to focus on, and your challenges, and your business processes. Understanding these, then modeling a database tool to support and/or improve them, can help you conduct your business in a more productive and efficient manner, contributing to your competitive advantage.

The foundation of the database design process are entities, the unique ‘things’ that you must track and process in your business. Modeling the relationships between these entities is also a crucial component of building a custom database that conforms to your needs. Defining your step-by-step process informs the structure of your user interface as well as the required input and output of the tool.

A database application, designed correctly, is an extremely flexible and powerful tool to collect, store, manipulate and transform the ‘data’ at the core of your business. However, if an existing database product you are considering does not collect the data you need, or does not offer a process that matches yours, or fails to process or output the data it collects in the manner useful to you, the power of database technology is not being effectively applied to your needs. Your needs will best be served if you can find a database product that meets 90+% of your ‘requirements,’ including matching your business processes. If you can adapt your process to the tool as it exists without losing your unique value proposition, or if the tool is flexible enough to adjust to your process, you may deem the cost benefit of a particular offering to be in your best interest. If you determine that existing offerings do no adequately match your requirements, then having a custom database solution built is going to be your best option.