Many modern companies, when starting their business or changing their internal processes, resolve to choose a commercial software package as the safest option. Those are the ready-made tools anyone can buy, download, and use as-is. While they remain an excellent choice, if you want to receive customizable software that can be custom-fitted to your needs, you might want to take it up a notch and choose a custom software development.
What is Custom Software Development
Even in the era of customizing every service and product available, there are still some who don’t fully comprehend what is custom software development. It’s a process of creating an application precisely tailored to the requirements of a specific company or organization as opposed to common from-the-box tech solutions.
With custom development, you don’t have to search the market for software that will ideally satisfy all your demands. You’re lucky if you can find that one application that meets all your company’s conditions. Possibly, a couple of tools, if your needs are too diversified.
Custom software contains a set of hand-picked programs that are designed to work specifically for your business process. The developers take into account your industry, your clientele, your employees, your strategy, or the plans for the route your company is going to take in the future.
Benefits of Custom Software Development
Custom software is a great option for companies whose requirements are much less mainstream to choose a standardized tool made for a broader audience. Here’s the list of some of the biggest benefits of custom software development:
- You can overlook the whole development process and testing, make numerous quick or more complex changes to it - add or exclude any features, customize the design, the layout, or any other software component;
- The development company doesn’t just sell you the software - it also helps deploy it and provides necessary scheduled or unexpected maintenance afterward;
- The quicker adjustment period and the smoother adoption of the software since the more familiar and tailored features and programs will require less training and disruption of the working process;
- More seamless integration with already existing applications and organizational infrastructure - no need for extra modifications, which saves you time and money. The new software’s language can also match your other programs.
- If paying a large sum of money at once is an issue, you can start with basic programs and then proceed with the layering - add more and more functionality over time, which will evenly distribute effort and costs.
How to Choose a Software Development Company
Here are our tips on how to choose a software development company.
- Expertise. Check all the certificates and credentials of the provider. Vet their background and industry qualifications - how many years of technical experience they have, the number of successful project implementations (in your domain), performance, and expansion history.
- Development process. Research what practices and project management styles the company follows - the most popular ones are Agile, DevOps, Scrum, Kanban, Hybrid, Lean, etc. Each of those has pros and cons, and may not correspond with your values.
- References. Many companies place their most cherished reviews on their websites - read those, but also go through the list of previous clients ( ask about if not already available) that had not left their testimonials. Call, email, or speak to them directly.
- Maintenance and support. Aside from a guaranteed quality of the finished product, the software provider must deliver post-purchase maintenance and support. Ask if the company can ensure security as well since they will be dealing with sensitive or confidential data.
- Flexible approach. Check if the company provider will be able to ensure a software integration with your programs that are already up and running. Refusing to adjust is a huge red flag.
Examples of Custom Software Development Companies
When selecting a custom software development company to partner with, there’s a lot of different software types directions to go, depending on the most suitable solutions for you at the moment. Here are some examples with a few helpful links:
- E-commerce platform - both desktop and mobile.
- Software-as-a-Service - cloud-hosted on a subscription basis.
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to manage most of the internal processes - accounting, PM, supply chains. The most popular systems are - Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage.
- CRM. Customer Relationship Management is essential when dealing with a customer database of any size.
- Cloud Applications for accessing a large number of programs through the cloud and decreasing the amount of physical data.
- Project Management Software type for better workflow automation.
Conclusion
Out of loads of custom software development companies currently on the market, choose the one that will understand your goals, as well as your employees’ and your clients’ needs. Use our tips above to make a list of pros, cons, and requirements.
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