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Published on:
Apr 3rd, 2020

Successful Businesses Build Custom Software


Custom software is not new or the trendy thing in any way, but companies who jump on the bandwagon of off-the-shelf product X often end up regretting the decision and wishing they had spent their money and time on developing a solution that effectively fits their workflow and business model.

Sometimes it's the smallest of margins that provides a business with the competitive edge that it needs to succeed. All too often companies fail to notice the advantages of software customized to their business model. Customizing off-the-shelf software is always a mixed bag. The more "custom" you make off-the-shelf the more complex its use cases are and the more time is spent working with it. This makes it hard to scale and grow with, inevitably leading business teams to look for new off-the-shelf solutions, which, in turn slow down processes due to a high turn-around of off-the-shelf products.

There are numerous benefits of custom software for companies and organizations but they come at a cost. There is no arguing that upfront costs are significantly higher than off-the-shelf tools. However, having a solution that is fine tuned to your company's needs can reduce long term expenses and stresses. The ability to continuously adjust and update the software to be more effective at its role has its own advantages. Adding and expanding on integrations with third-party or internal tools also has numerous benefits, the least of which is having less tools and platforms to manage.

Most companies are paying out monthly fees for several software-as-a-service products all of which handle bits and pieces of a workflow, and all too often these parts are haphazardly joined together, if at all. This either leads to more work for your staff or more work and costs to keep them all paid and updated. As mentioned, it may be more costly to develop a custom platform for your business, but overall the reduction of inefficiencies more often than not justifies the cost of the custom software.