Investing in software for your business is an important move towards digitization. Firstly, you should understand the differences between customer software development and business application software.
When you get a commercial software, or business application software, it comes with a generic set of features. Upon further customizing these features, you can get it tailored for your needs. With custom software development the functionality is made specifically for one company, needless to say no other company can use this software. In other words, custom software remains dedicated solely to your business.
Evidently, custom software has some clear advantages over the generic ones. Here are some aspects, that will present the concept more clearly to you.
Features and time to deploy
With custom software development, a business develops the software to suit its needs. Such software is typically developed to not only make it suitable for the business needs of the company but also gain some sort of advantage over other businesses in the market place. Based on the features required the custom software development may take 1 month to 12 months to build and get ready for actual usage.
Business application software is developed by a software company at its own cost. In general, the business application software product should have a reliable need in the market by many organizations to be successful. They sell it to the customers as a product. This makes business application software ready to use, while custom software needs to be built from scratch and takes time.
Changes in current software functionality
The updates in a business application software package are to be made as per a particular plan. This plan is usually chalked out, as per the needs of the market. In business application software, features are added as future updates. In custom-built software, the updates to software are made only when the organization needs it. The requirement from the custom-built software can be fulfilled, whenever organizations order the changes to the custom-built software for it. Therefore, factors like budget, time to deploy, features needed as well as competitive needs are considered while choosing between developing custom-built software or business application software solution.
Control
The control over the process of development differentiates custom-built software from business application software. In generic software, a development agency controls the development process. Although the client would require a license to use this software, the owner or the development agency is entitled to the right to make changes in the tool or remove certain features, that might be useful for the respective clients. However, custom-built software remains under the control of the end-user organization. Only the end-user organization can decide the changes that are to be made in the software.
Cost of development
Custom software is often tailor-made, as per the needs of the company. Therefore, the cost of developing such software is also high. In the process, the company benefits from a unique product. Although the initial investments are high, the customer enjoys certain competitive advantages. On the other hand, a business application or generic software costs lower. These tools are more affordable, but the features are common. However, the development process may involve certain hidden costs at times. For instance, a company may have to pay extra to set up the software or implement it.
Custom software can deliver specific benefits to your business, as they come with all the desired functions. However, business application software may have certain features that the user never requires. These are more generic and less user-friendly.
To choose a custom-built software or use a readily available business application software is a choice that is made by the company management. This decision is majorly based on their budgets, their abilities to get work done, their business requirements and the time to deploy constraint.