I spent some 13 years working for a manufacturing firm writing custom management software for a similar sized manufacturing company. I now work for a SaSS firm in a different industry with a few hundred clients.
The thing that I learned from this is you either buy off the shelf software and run your company the way that the software company thinks you should run your business. You can, like some of our clients, fight the software and figure out all the janky work arounds you want, but ultimately you are bound by that software.
Or, you can write your own software and run your company the way you want it to run, with all the weird quirks of your business.
I get why smaller companies/firms buy software instead of rolling their own. It's a huge amount of overhead for little apparent benefit. It's worse when the software vendor isn't helpful or attentive to your needs.
My gut would be to say find a few software engineers you trust, hopefully with experience doing EDIFACT files (I've done this myself and the specs are a bear to dig through). I have this feeling mostly due to the unresponsive software vendor and your operating in a small niche.
For attracting talent, pay them well, and make them feel appreciated, and listened to. You'll be running a tight ship with very few points of failure (the bus factor), just one or two people leaving could paralyze your operation. You don't want the software people to start looking for jobs elsewhere in such a small department.
My previous employer did not do well in that department and lost 90% of their software staff in a 3 year time span. And when your department is 4-5 people that's devastating.
The thing that I learned from this is you either buy off the shelf software and run your company the way that the software company thinks you should run your business. You can, like some of our clients, fight the software and figure out all the janky work arounds you want, but ultimately you are bound by that software.
Or, you can write your own software and run your company the way you want it to run, with all the weird quirks of your business.
I get why smaller companies/firms buy software instead of rolling their own. It's a huge amount of overhead for little apparent benefit. It's worse when the software vendor isn't helpful or attentive to your needs.
My gut would be to say find a few software engineers you trust, hopefully with experience doing EDIFACT files (I've done this myself and the specs are a bear to dig through). I have this feeling mostly due to the unresponsive software vendor and your operating in a small niche.
For attracting talent, pay them well, and make them feel appreciated, and listened to. You'll be running a tight ship with very few points of failure (the bus factor), just one or two people leaving could paralyze your operation. You don't want the software people to start looking for jobs elsewhere in such a small department. My previous employer did not do well in that department and lost 90% of their software staff in a 3 year time span. And when your department is 4-5 people that's devastating.