Businesses of all types rely on technology for a variety of needs—project management, payroll, finance, compliance, retail, communications—and the list goes on.

However, technology is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Every industry and business will look to different software to power their business. By choosing the right technology, companies can focus on running the business and leave the backend work to their SaaS (software as a service) provider.

When developing or updating your software, you must consider what will make your platform successful in the long term and ultimately reduce churn. To do this, consider these four key attributes.

specific industry

Every industry works differently – you wouldn’t want to use the same software for a logistics company as a university. The needs of each department and business vary widely.

Your customers and prospects will need software that fits the logic of your industry, understands the nuances of that industry, and answers the common questions faced by these specific types of businesses.

When it comes to cannabis, staying compliant is tied to business success and survival. Laws vary widely across markets, complicating compliance operations. Non-compliance with cannabis compliance laws is an everyday risk that operators face with potential business termination impacts in the most severe cases.

To keep up with different regulations, cannabis businesses often look to software products that prioritize compliance checks to guarantee the safety of the products they bring to market. To meet the unique and critical needs of the cannabis industry for compliance, we have prioritized our compliance gateway and ensured that all other products in our possession are relevant to it.

Our software is designed by the cannabis industry for the cannabis industry.

Scalability

When designing software, you also need to consider the longevity of the product.

When looking to expand, companies will Quickly Realize that the spreadsheet solutions and simple tools they use to run their business won’t support them as their team, revenue, and customers scale by 2x to 200x.

For example, the cannabis industry in which we operate is rapidly consolidating. Many carriers and affiliate brands are making mergers and acquisitions and as a result see their teams and customers or customer bases grow exponentially. To meet growth needs, we have built our business to provide a complete portfolio of leading tax and finance, applicable to being an MSO (Multi-State Operator) from the day the cannabis business opens.

To support businesses in all growth cycles, provide tools to meet the needs of different levels of business growth. By providing an ecosystem of ranging workers that simplifies business of any size, you’ll simplify the scaling process for your customers and make it harder for them to leave the platform.

educate

Every industry and job requires a certain level of education. Whether it’s learning how to cook a specific dish in a restaurant, building a house, or operating software, it takes a certain level of preparation before an employee can be considered trained and ready.

My colleague Ray Thompson, COO of Akerna, recently wrote a Dive into software education and share three important tips:

1. Offers a variety of integrated learning
2. Evaluate platform usage to optimize education
3. Ensuring consumer-facing employees feel confident

By providing various forms of training to educate every part of your business, you will experience a ripple effect from senior management all the way to the customer.

In cannabis, education is crucial. Marijuana is now legal medicinally and/or recreationally in 36 states and various countries, but there is still stigma and confusion surrounding the plant and its medical benefits. Suppose your consumer-facing staff cannot confidently describe products and dosages. In this case, you risk losing consumer interest in your product or even your entire industry.

By educating every part of the industry, you will inform the people who drive sales – customers, clients and consumers.

ecosystem

While your software may meet the primary needs of your industry, each unique customer may require specific add-ons to benefit their business. To meet customer needs, provide products and an integrated ecosystem. Let your customers decide what tools they need to run their unique businesses.

To meet the unique needs of each customer, an open application programming interface (API) is provided. An API is a set of rules and requirements that determine how different applications interact with each other. By providing an open API, you can open up your platform to all tools from different providers that integrate into a single entry point. This eliminates the need to re-write the code, a lengthy process that can be costly and error-prone.

We chose to provide open APIs for the cannabis industry because we understand the various specific needs of each operator as well as different state regulations. Many states will have the required tracking solutions and we have built our software to complement these requirements.

When you open an API, you create an ecosystem that allows your customers to choose the specific products and integrations they need to run their unique businesses, while minimizing back-end coding.

go through Optimize your SaaS platform To meet the unique needs of your industry and customers, you will make yourself sticky and ultimately reduce churn.