Are you wondering whether you should go for a ready-made solution or rather invest in custom development? Our tips will help you make the right choice.
Although the availability of off-the-shelf software solutions in the cloud is significantly increasing, the software houses offering custom software development services cannot complain about the lack of work. Actually, quite the opposite – more and more customers across various industries are switching from general-purpose to custom software.
There are a few reasons for that. First – custom software development services are not as expensive as they used to be in the past. Second – companies are growing tired of SaaS solutions. They often promise flexibility while, in fact, the possibilities of customization and integrations are quite poor. And as they are not fully adjusted to the company’s needs, they do not always bring the expected results.
That doesn’t change the fact that custom application development requires more engagement from your part as well as more time and money. When is it worth to join forces with a custom development company?
#1 When you have very specific goals
Let’s say you are struggling with the quality assurance on your assembly line. As a result, the defective products get to the market, affecting your company’s reputation. You want to improve defect detection by at least X%. With off-the-shelf software that may be difficult. If you choose custom software development services, you will be able to pick the right model for solving a specific problem and train it with an appropriate dataset.
#2 You work in a niche
There are industries which require special approach, and the general-purpose development doesn’t work for them. If your company functions within one of those, it’s worth going for custom software development right away.
#3 When you want to integrate new software with the existing system
The integration with ready-made SaaS solutions is often difficult or even not possible to carry out. Before investing in a subscription, you may not even be fully conscious of that. If you’re working with a custom system already, going for custom software development may be a much safer option.
#4 You want to have full control over the shape of the software
Even if your off-the-shelf software provider is flexible, you are still dependent on them. You cannot experiment, testing new functionalities and changing the software according to your needs. Also in terms of updates and version changes, you fully depend on the provider. That’s not the case with custom software development. If you choose custom, you end up owning your source code. That means any change in functionalities, any update is only up to you.
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