The future of small business is not dumbed-down big business

Small and Mid-size Enterprises (SMEs) are at disadvantage against large corporations in part because they lack efficient management software.

Collections of spreadsheets, disconnected apps, and manual processes are wasteful. Upgrading to a subscription software purveyor with their endless line-up of modules and user fees can be confusing and expensive.

But the common assumption that SME solutions should be like dumbed-down big data solutions holds back simpler SME development.

Clearly most program designers have never actually run a small or mid-size business. If they had, they would know that SME managers are experts in their field. SME managers already model their business with forms and reports, and they can represent their entire business data flow in spreadsheets.

So SMEs do not need to ape big business by tasking programmers with analysing data structures and designing form and report interfaces. SME managers have already done that.

A simpler and far less expensive solution is

enable business managers to capture their existing knowledge so they can build their own integrated management systems.

Sumer can do this. No knowledge of IT required. Probably not good news for business software purveyors, but it is certainly good news for owners and managers of SMEs.

Ignoring the obvious

Why are Big Tech subscriptions, modules, and user fee solutions so complex when simpler solutions are available?

Probably because it is easy to be so intimidated by authority and flashy displays that we forget our own common sense.

Business activities like

have been routine for thousands of years. They have patterns.

So seriously, with all our advances in technology—including now AI—we cannot create a tool to convert these basic patterns into a coordinated management platform?

Of course we can. Big Tech could have delivered something like Sumer 20 years ago.

The essential technology is the relational database*. Programmers know how to build them, SME managers don't. The inequality creates a cartel.

* (Relational databases are essential, but unless you are a programmer the details should not be important. 'Relational database' just means a way to store data as a collection of data tables—price lists, inventory, sales invoices, accounting, etc.—all logically linked. Sumer does it automatically, no need for users to get involved.)

Current business software delivers unnecessary complexity at premium prices to SMEs that would be capable of assembling a complete management system, including the underlying relational database, for themselves—if they had a tool like Sumer.

The Big Tech promise... 'never do simple again'

When Microsoft realized in the 1990s that they had made a terrible mistake with Excel and Word by improving them to the point that customers no longer needed yearly upgrades, they rescued their cash flow by converting Office 365 into a subscription service. The modern Big Tech strategy was born, and no one would ever do simple again.

From social media to business management programs, high-tech solutions are designed to

1. push subscription and advertising revenue,
2. split off features as proprietary up-sale modules,
3. ensure customers stay reliant on the software provider,
4. keep customers' hands off the controls.

The technology behind business data, however, is low tech. In fact that is why this is called 'Sumer', because the Sumerians were doing it 6000 years ago.

The problem with a low-tech solution in a high-tech market is that it violates the goals of Big Tech, but if you don't have an issue with that, you should look at Sumer.

Opportunity in simplicity

Advantages for Sumer stand out when comparing modules with templates, because why buy modules if templates are free?

Modules are a marketing, not a technical, invention. Modules are intended to split and repackage your data as forms and reports to sell back to you separately.

Sumer allows SMEs to create their own forms and reports. Spreadsheet-style setup forms are almost intuitive, and Sumer has a library of existing templates that can be easily customized.

This Price List demonstrates how Sumer templates work. The template behind the Price List is almost self-explanatory.

• Column names across the top, parameters down the left side. You probably recognize most of them.
• Add new columns—anything you want—with the 'AddColumn' button.
• Set DataType, Width, Alignment and so on. You can even add Filters and Formulas.

This price list can be recalled and used automatically in sales entry forms and reports.

Other forms for purchasing, production, sales, scheduling, and more have additional parameters, but all work the same way.