Why Bespoke Software Development Can Be A Better Long-term Solution

There are thousands of software applications on the market with prices ranging from a few pounds to, well, the sky is the limit. Some firms invest £Millions in developing and rolling out software that meets their needs. Others browse and select software that is commonly used by many thousands of other businesses.

If bespoke software is regarded as more expensive, by comparison to off the shelf popular software packages, then why do successful companies often get software solutions specially built for them rather than chose packaged software?

The answer is usually a mix of three main reasons:

1) They are cutting edge, innovative companies so there is no software currently available to suit their needs, so they have to develop their own.

2) They are highly competitive and have developed competitive business processes that they cannot simply slot into a “me too” existing package software solution.

3) They are looking to the future and they know that the initial investment in a highly streamlined, business focused bespoke software application will be more cost effective to operate and maintain over the long term.

Pre-written software packages are bought easily and implemented easily and can provide an instant solution to get staff working. However it can be argued that the initial low investment is very often offset by long term costs of staff training, software licenses, maintenance and support.

Off the shelf software is often crammed with features and options that may appeal to as wide a market as possible. They contain many features to cater for a very wide range of business sectors. Features and options will require to be switched on and off and every new release/version brings more and more features with each upgrade - whether you want them or not.

This means that someone in the company or organisation has to specify, select, set up and control the feature options that the organisation needs. By doing this, they are effectively building up a specification of needs that could be used to design and build a streamlined and fit-for-business bespoke application. These streamlined applications require less powerful servers and network systems to operate at super-fast speeds. They are the ‘greyhounds’ of business software. With no superfluous coding, they run quickly and efficiently, especially across the world’s most powerful modern marketplace: The Internet.

Bespoke Software Examples

Three very good examples of bespoke software that cutting edge businesses developed themselves, from a standing start, are: Amazon, eBay and Facebook. Of course these are (now) huge businesses however small businesses will often prefer to develop their own applications, even from a start-up situation, so they are fast and fit for business from the very beginning, giving themselves a really powerful competitive edge.

Another reason businesses choose bespoke software is that they are always developing innovative ways to win market share and need their software to be malleable and adaptable to change so they can develop their evolving processes to keep winning and staying ahead of competition.

This is very hard to achieve with packaged software, for two reasons:

A) The packaged software developer will have a ‘road map’ of features they are developing and will add these in future releases. This is driven by customer demand. The more customers that want the feature, the higher up the feature development road map it goes. Heaven help you if you want a new software feature that is a low priority for everyone else but you!

B) You may get the option to have that feature especially developed by the packaged software company. This is the worst of all worlds as you will then have a hybrid ‘off piste’ version of packaged software. Often the prices to develop these are astronomical, because they are a packaged software company by nature, taking staff away from the ‘road map’ to do one off projects doesn’t fit well with them. Or they will suddenly stop supporting your hybrid version as it doesn’t fit their business model. Or they will simply refuse and you then have to find internal process work-arounds to fit the software, not your business. You start losing your competitive edge.

Tight Fit Solutions

Often the driver for bespoke software is simple economics. It is usually less costly to run and operate bespoke software in the long term. Also, you will be far more likely to have developed a close business relationship with the software company as a ‘meeting of minds’ is what creates great software fit for business.

Once the bespoke software is developed and is a tight fit for your business, you can capitalize on the business advantages you’ve created for your business, winning more market share. Streamlined processes are easier to learn and create standards your staff can easily learn and follow. Also, you are not held to ransom with repeating, costly annual licence fees and unpredictable support costs as you are with packaged software. Finally, packaged software is often very low cost to start with but, as you add users and features, the costs escalate and draw you in with ever increasing fees.

When your business depends on its software, you need to trust your software vendor whether packaged or bespoke. Anyway, when you think about it….ALL software started out as a bespoke written application. So early adopters (often years previously) were business leaders during the bespoke phase whilst others followed when it became packaged.

What are you?

A leader in business? A follower? Bespoke or off-the-shelf?

Our Code Red team have been developing bespoke solutions for business for 30 years and there's nothing much we haven't already done. We can help you to put a solution together that will make a tangible difference to your business.

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