The problem I have with products like Asana has always been context. It’s just too much hassle for businesses with very unique processes, often requiring something more custom built, and of course, a deep introspection of data.
I still think a properly configured JIRA instance is the best framework for a growing software company to build upon. It's very easy to misconfigure or mess up JIRA but done correctly, it's one of the best pieces of software for getting things done at a larger company (50+ people).
It’s just not possible to have a good generic app to serve all of them. There’s just too much variety in workflows and edge cases to capture them all, and few companies will change the way they work to accommodate the opinionated workflow of some productivity vendor.
The best solution is still to build custom applications for each company, molded around the way they work, and owned by them 100%, so they can feel fully confident that the product will not disappear or change in ways they don’t like.
ERP products lack flexibility and generally have very poor user experience (since the buyers are not the users). I think there is a separate place for both these products and it depends on the organization when the switch from one domain to another.
Isn't this a take on Conway's law?
As for your Jira point, so many people abused it to build bad process that it's flexibility is a negative point these days.
Why can't people just make nicer themes for it lmao
There’s plenty of issues like JIRASERVER-1330
(Full disclosure: I work with a competitor of Asana, https://tasksinabox.com )