Doing business in 2021 and beyond has become technologically more difficult than it ever has been before. In the past, buying off-the-shelf software solutions was all that was required for a business. But, in today’s climate, many of these solutions are considered ineffective for the specialty uses businesses need them for. In addition, the decrease in the costs of custom software development has made companies choose the latter because of its long-term cost savings, personalization, and stability.

In this blog, we’ll have a look at the differences between off-the-shelf and custom software solutions and also explore why custom software development is the best approach for running a business.

Custom Software Development refers to the development of custom software applications that are designed to meet the specific needs and requirements of an organization. These solutions are developed and designed to meet the business-specific needs of its clients. They’re able to provide in-depth, exclusive solutions for the clients to address their needs in a precise manner. In developing custom software solutions, developers make sure to narrow down to the precise requirements of the end-users. It thus provides in-depth solutions to more specific problems.

Commercial off-the-shelf software applications, on the other hand, are designed to cater to a broad audience with similar requirements. They’re not designed to solve the specific needs of any client’s organization and thus, may not be very suitable for the businesses with specific needs. An example of COTS would be a software application like Microsoft Office.

The development of custom products is possible through a third party or an in-house development team. Developing a custom software application often entails interactivity due to consistent changes that may arise throughout the development process.

For the people still wondering if custom software development is best suited for their business or not, it’s better to know the benefits it offers. Many companies hire top custom IT developers for handling projects.

Having known what custom software development is, key questions remain, “Do you find custom development fit for you?” Why choose custom software development? Here are the 6 huge reasons for choosing custom software development:

Scalability

As businesses grow the business processes become more complex and require advanced solutions. Purchasing commercial off-the-shelf software solutions will become a problem once it’s not able to support your business needs or becomes too expensive to license. These solutions may be a better fit for the small enterprises in their start-up phase. Because the operations are not yet stable and the focus is on making the company viable.

But with custom software development that’s not an issue, you can scale your software accordingly. You don’t want your capacity for growth to be limited by mere software. Developing a software solution that will enable the company to grow and scale your business processes is a savvy choice. If you can afford the investment, it will be worth it.

Cost-Effective

The productivity and proficiency gains that result from custom software development always surpass the initial costs, which is an excellent profit for the company or organization involved. With custom development, you can easily prepare a development plan to ensure the entire development process runs smoothly.

While it is true that commercial off-the-shelf solutions are initially cheaper than custom solutions, the additional costs of licensing, training, and finding alternatives add up to more than expected expenses. The efficiency and productivity gains that custom software development provides often offsets the initial costs.

Custom solutions allow the owners to plan out the entire development process, from the most important features, then depending on the budget, to adding more advanced features over the course of time. Breaking up the process into phases also enables you to test and acquire feedback on the product and improve it in subsequent upgrades.

Agility and Efficiency

The most significant advantage of custom software development is the overall flexibility and efficiency it provides. Clients can choose to add a feature depending on their requirements or opt to exclude a component that is likely to fail to serve a crucial need. With the ease of flexibility, the programmers and developers can quickly incorporate changes whenever they arise. There is repetitive task automation with custom applications, so, collaborating within the organization becomes much more manageable.

Custom software applications help with the automation of repetitive tasks and boost collaboration inside an organization. Which is one of the major reasons why custom software applications are needed to run a successful business. Most organizations prefer custom software development because of increased efficiency and productivity.

Business Security

Security is a top feature for every organization. Since every organization wants to secure its clients and other members, most prefer software that is only suitable for a specific company. Custom software solutions are far more secure than standard software. While commercial off-the-shelf software is more likely to be targeted by internet hackers, a custom software solution is designed for only one business.

When a hacker hacks into a mainstream application, they gain access to data for several businesses. If they choose to hack custom software, they’ll gain access to the data of only one business, which is not much rewarding for cybercriminals.

When a business owner hires a custom service, they are provided with complete control over the security technologies and protocols that are combined into the software. This allows them to choose what affordable technologies and security protocols best suit their business needs.

Unbottleneck Your Supply Chain

A bottlenecked supply chain is the biggest indication that your business needs a custom-made solution. It’s a result of not having effective systems that allow different teams to have constant communication and align statuses to fulfill overall goals. Bottlenecks created by this issue result in lost opportunities and lower customer satisfaction. To identify internal bottlenecks, a business must understand their causes and how they can be stopped.

A business that implements custom business process management software will find that supply chain management operations are vastly improved. Optimal management of a business supply chain requires custom software that helps properly guide all supply chain decisions.

Better Integration With Existing Systems

Many companies use multiple software systems across various departments. This can lead to capability and integration issues which minimize efficiency and lower productivity. With custom software development, however, the various processes handled by those different systems can be integrated into one major software program. It is one of the remarkable attributes making custom software popular.

On the other hand, with commercial off-the-shelf software, integration with other software packages is not always such a smooth process, it may lead to errors and end in a loss in productivity. You may have to struggle to come up with a working solution to incorporate various technologies.

A custom software can also be easily integrated with existing systems and can be designed to accommodate the skill level of the users. This will give you greater control over users at different access levels, and also cut the hassle of memorizing more passwords. This software can be used to extend the functionality of existing tools and they could be developed to look and function similar to the programs that the users are familiar with. With such software solutions, you can enhance the program functionality or even increase the usage of the system.

Custom software development is indeed a great approach for businesses with unique needs. But is it right for your business? Here are some things to consider before going down the custom route. Based on your software requirements, you can establish whether custom software development is a perfect fit for your business model. Considering custom software development is a good take, especially when running a unique business or organization.

Some of the crucial measures that should be established before choosing custom software development include the need for individual requirements not provided by off-the-shelf software products, the inability to find software products that meet your specific requirements, and the need for specific long-term goals. With those specific long-term goals, you can approach a team of development experts, share your needs and get your work done to serve your unique needs.

To sum it up, custom software that is designed to fully optimize the business objectives will improve its functionality in a way that on-the-shelf software development simply cannot. System Plus software developers work with businesses from scratch regarding their structure, work range, and volume. Do not waste time thinking about the necessity to implement such software, just do it. The results will impress you!