Custom software is intended for particular organizations and users. As opposed to software developed for mass market, custom software is made and used by only one company. Businesses build custom software solutions to meet their unique business requirements. Leading companies use custom solutions for supporting their new initiatives in order to keep on being a leader in the market and enhance their performance.
Benefits for organizations
When it comes to making a major investment in software, company has to decide between buying ‘off-the-shelf’ software and getting custom software developed. Since every business has different requirements, it is very difficult for packaged software to comply with all the needs. Custom business software is designed to cater to your exact needs, the way you want it to be, which can simplify and improve your business process and enhance return on investment.
How choosing the custom software development path can help your business:
• Custom software development makes it possible to incorporate into software all the features you need and want. You don’t have to wait for vendor’s release schedule to deliver new features. This surely quickens time-to-market and positively influences your return on investment.
• By building software tailored to your specifications you won’t put your business into difficulty in case the purchased software doesn’t prove to be suitable later. Bespoke software is developed taking into account the current as well as future business requirements.
• When you choose custom software development, no modifications are required as it is the best-fit application. In case of readymade software, you may have to bring changes to fit its functions, which usually turns out to be very costly.
• Before starting bespoke software development, the programmers have a very clear understanding of what your business needs to receive in the end. Your business objectives, requirements, needs and vision are understood and the software is created accordingly.
• When you are getting tailored software developed, you can pick the project management methodology that best fits your business and the development team will put you in the loop of the entire development process. This guarantees cost-efficiency and proper usage of your resources.
• Bespoke software can even be customized to integrate to your existing as well as future systems, thus automating and simplifying your business operations. They are flexible and scalable enough for improvements, changes and future growth.
Most important things to consider when choosing a custom software development company
• Understanding Your Needs
Before you choosing a company, identify your business needs, the problems you are facing and trying to solve and the kind of software that will help you to meet your objectives.
• Cost Factor
Cost is always one of the most important deciding factors. Analyze the cost that will be involved in the project and whether it fits your budget or not.
• Portfolio & Experience
It is crucial to consider the past projects undertaken by the company to know its efficiency and get an idea about the different kind of custom software developed by them. A company that has already worked on various custom projects have tried and tested methodologies to successfully complete the project.
• Client References
One of the best ways to know about the company is to get in touch with its clients. Get the clients’ references from the company and gather the feedback. You can know about the type of projects the company has handled, its ability to meet the deadlines and the quality of the applications it has delivered.
• Size of the Project
Not all software development companies take all the sizes of projects. Some companies are small and have the capacity to take up only small and medium projects. Some companies target large and multi-enterprise projects. Whereas some companies take multi-year projects. You need to determine which company will rightly fit your project.
• Team
A company should have professional and motivated teams to work on the development projects. The developers should show the readiness to work on your project and be ready to take suggestions and inputs for improvements.
• Technology-Expertise
You should know whether the company has an expertise in the technology, which is going to be used in building your software. Different companies have proficiency in different technologies. So consider the technology expertise of the company before finalizing the project.
• Timeline
A very important consideration is the timeline of your project. A software project may take months or years to get completed. You might have a deadline or would want the software, for quickly launching your product in the market. But you just can’t expect the software to be readily developed; it is always wise to trade features for time. A good custom software development company will work with you the way you want, ensure you on-time delivery and even help you make a wise trade-off between the features and time frame of the project, in case of tight deadlines.
• Technical Support
Make sure you have the information about the technical support services of the company. Your software might face issues after the delivery, bringing your work to standstill. So discuss about the after-development support services provided by the company.
Choosing the right custom software development company is the first stage of your development process. And if you choose a wrong path here, you have to face devastating results, leading to the failure of your project. So doing proper research and study, and capturing detailed information about the company is of high importance. The best company will be the one that delivers you custom software matching your business needs within the stipulated time and cost, without compromising with the quality.
What is your experience with custom software development? Would you prefer custom or off-the-shelf solutions for your business? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comment below 🙂
Yuliya Tolkach
Business Development Manager
I think it actually depends on customer’s current and future requirement. Full or partial customize both could be an option. It is always important to know what do you want before any development. Best practice and consulting service could help.
In Taiwan, most company skip the exploring process to save money and rely on the system integrator. Therefore, many IT systems are highly customized and difficult to maintain.
I preferred to use more configuration and less code on PaaS like Force.com or SaaS like Dynamics CRM. Move more budget on exploring what should be done.
Like someone said on LinkedIn too, it is an irony that you posted this on a WP site.
Thanks for a great post.
You haven’t mentioned solutions that provide you with 80% of your software needs, where you can easily pour your custom code into existing platform.
We at soiot.be provide IoT backend server out of the box, being even more than 80% of our customers’ server. They can add any additional business logic of their own.
I must say, as opposed to your claim, that using soiot.be saved our customers lots of time and money. In addition, they get the best IoT server in the world, as we are building IoT servers for 12 years.
Thanks,
James
soiot.be
I’d add a caveat to the point:
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Before starting bespoke software development, the programmers have a very clear understanding of what your business needs to receive in the end. Your business objectives, requirements, needs and vision are understood and the software is created accordingly.
“””
A business often learns a lot about it’s real needs through the software creation process; and many find that they need something quite different from their initial plan. The sooner you find this out the better.
There are methods of developing software which leverage that process of discovery. These methods tend to quickly deliver parts of your system that you can start using; and evolve the design according to what you learn by using those parts. The big requirement is a business’ willingness to continiously work with the software developers over time.
Very well written and I found this article very useful one. Though it is depends on user’s business requirement. Keep sharing more stuff like this.