Sunday, March 27, 2011

Is Custom Development Software Worth Investing In?


What's the key resource for most businesses in the world today? Information Technology. And what is one key area of an underperforming business that is widely overlooked? The software that a company uses - it really is essential to have the right software systems in place for your business in this ever competitive age of industry, if you're a small paper shop or a large paper merchant. 

Off the shelf software packages can work for some companies but they can also be complicated and troublesome to use if they don't fully suit the business needs of your company. Conversely, you don't want to house software within your company that contains functions and features that you will never use. What is the point in wasting your networks' speed and memory to accustom programmes that won't help your business? 

That is exactly why custom development software is becoming increasingly popular with business of all shapes and sizes. An efficient, easy to use way of working can only benefit a company's business practice. Custom development software is readily available today, with many programming companies specialising in designing and creating user specific, bespoke software packages. 

So what is custom development all about then? Well, the process begins by a development company looking at your company by establishing what the aims of the business are and what are the vital business needs of your company. Then the company needs to tell the programmer exactly what they want the software to do. 

In order to function efficiently, a company's software will need to do exactly what you want it to do. Many companies that switch to custom development software experience a substantial increase in performance as tasks are organised and dealt with quickly and efficiently, saving time, which in turn saves the business money. 

Custom development software can give a company that vital competitive edge at a time where companies are scrambling to secure as much business as they can during this time of recession. Custom development software can also end up costing less than on the shelf software as apart from determining exactly which software will suit your business, custom development software also eliminates software that will not benefit your business. 

Companies may not be willing to speculate to accumulate in terms of investing in new software during these difficult times, but if it is clear that your company has issues with its software then that needs addressing if possible. By cutting out problematic areas within your workforces' day to day tasks, time can be freed up for other areas of business activity and business operations will run with freedom which can only improve business efficiency, and will do so almost instantaneously, which in the long term would benefit the key parts of your business. 

It may be a financial stretch for you to renew your systems via custom development software, but if your software is weighing your business down and stalling its capacity to function to its full potential, then it's surely time to take a calculated punt and look into finding more suitable software for your business. 

If this is the case then I would recommend using a specialist company and to check references to see how reliable they are. But if you believe that your software packages are not quite meeting your business needs, or if you have surplus software that never gets used then custom development software could be best for your company.

1 comment:

  1. there is a market for both custom solutions and off the shelf packages, custom solutions hold a great penetration in niche areas where traditional product implementation can take a longer time. However it needs to be noted that it is the same set of small to mid sized system integration firms offering these customized solutions, unless and until they follow international delivery standards the success of such implementations may keep varying. Customer expectations also needs to be adjusted by these system integration firms who sometimes deliver exactly what the customer wants and leaving other futuristic scenarios unaddressed.

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