Your business is undertaking many new and exciting initiatives to boost growth, including employee blogs, customer wikis, and implementation of a new time and attendance system. Time and attendance software is critical to the business because it can ensure you have the right employees, at the right place, at the right time, which can increase sales.

You never want to find yourself understaffed during busy times and overstaffed during slow times. Also, accurately accounting for employees' time is crucial to effectively analyzing labor expenses, which are the largest operating expense your business incurs. Conveniently, time and attendance solution providers, time clock manufacturers, and software development companies are developing highquality affordable products.

You have decided to replace the manual employee tracking system your grandfather implemented in the 1950s. You have a highly technical employee, Nick Zele, who has offered to build the system for you and ensures you it is a simple build. You could also purchase one of the many off-the-shelf applications and have an outsourcing firm customize the application for your business.

What are the pros and cons of using an employee to build you a custom system? What are the pros and cons of purchasing an off-the-shelf time and attendance application and outsourcing custom development?

How will your older employees feel about the new system and what can you do to ensure a smooth transition?