What is the difference between all-in-one and best-of-breed software?

Suppose your organisation needs new business software. Do you go for a traditional all-in-one software package or for multiple ‘best-of-breed’ solutions? And what actually is best-of-breed? Read more about it below.

All-in-one software

With all-in-one software, also known as ERP systems, a deliberate choice is made to include as many processes as possible in a single package. This might include a CRM, time tracking, project management, invoicing, stock management and even accounting. All these features are brought together in a single solution. Good examples of this are Exact, AFAs and Accountview, which contain all the above processes. These processes are often sold separately in separate modules.

The advantage of all-in-one software is that your employees have only to log in once and to get to know one package. The disadvantages are high prices and often poor user-friendliness. In addition, while all modules often work well, they are not always developed further because the focus is on several components, rather than one specific one.

Best-of-breed

You many not yet be familiar with the term ‘best-of-breed‘, but its use is growing at the moment. Recently, there has been a huge growth in SaaS solutions (software offered as an online service). This growth has created many solutions that each focus on a single business process. As a result, best-of-breed software is cutting-edge for a single process and is often better developed than the same business process within an ERP solution.

Best-of-breed solutions are often packages that are at the same time less complex with better user experience. Thanks to new technology, it is now very easy to connect to other packages (for example, by means of APIs or Zapier) and these integrations continue to be developed. An example of this is the ease of creating an invoice from TimeChimp in WeFact.

Therefore, the advantages of a best-of-breed solution are excellent user experience, cutting-edge for a particular business process, low costs per software package and easy and quick use.

What should I choose?

Best-of-breed solutions are popping up increasingly often and are expected to expand further in the future. As stated above, their disadvantages are that you end up with multiple packages and have to log in several times over. However, packages such as SecureLogin or Single Sign-On (SSO) have made this much easier. On the other hand, the solutions are frequently much better for the business process concerned and often at a lower cost too. The choice is yours!

Would you like to see for yourself how easy our time tracking is and how it connects to other packages? Try TimeChimp for 14 days free-of-charge.  Do you have any questions? Please contact us on +31-20-7640860, at info@timechimp.com or via our contact form. We would be only too happy to help.