One of the key parts of running small businesses is trying to obtain a license to sell, or even better, an exclusivity agreement, for certain products. If you were the only retailer or supplier on the high street with an agreement to sell a popular product, it would be key to your business success.
Taking This Idea Online:
These days, the nature of business is changing. The physical high street presence is becoming less important for all but a handful of specialist retailers. More and more transactions now take place online, which means that you’ll almost certainly be relying on some kind of software to facilitate this process.
Whether it’s for creating client databases, mail send outs, or online ordering forms, unless you have the luxury of an in-house IT team (which is unlikely for most small businesses) the chances are you’ll have to purchase software from an independent supplier.
This can cause issues around the long-term use of the software that you need to protect against.
Software Issues:
Software suppliers are naturally reluctant to pass over the complete coding of their systems. This is, after all, the entire product so it’s understandable that they shouldn’t want to give it all away.
However, this causes a problem for small businesses in terms of the long-term use of any software. If a small business bases its online operation around specific software then what then happens if the provider goes bankrupt or stops supporting that particular system?
Software Escrow:
That’s why it’s a good idea to utilize the services of a software escrow service. This is a trusted third party that can store and look after the source code involved in any software licensing agreement.
A reputable software provider should have no problem with this, and it should provide peace of mind to small businesses to know that they can have access to their software investment should the above situations or others occur.
The source codes are well looked after, and stored carefully. An escrow agreement is put in place to eliminate any doubts either party may have about each other’s intent which is why choosing to use a software escrow service is such good practice for any small business that relies on software from external sources.
To find out how escrow services can be of benefit to you, you can learn more here.
About The Author
1 thought on “Software Escrow: Best Practice for Small Businesses”
Comments are closed.