Companies that look to deploy a software application, internally or for customers, are often presented with a major decision from the outset. Should we use some off-the-shelf package and hope we can configure it for our needs, or should we construct something ourselves from scratch? When the choice is the latter, there are considerable benefits, particularly if your needs are highly specialized.
Features built for you and your customers
When building your own application, whether it’s outsourced or constructed in-house, the most fundamental benefit is complete control over the feature set that will be pursued. There are, of course, major trade-offs of time and cost, but you will never hear, “well, it doesn’t do that.” It is critical to establish this scope for development up front to properly set expectations and have visibility into the delivery time and expense.
Manage the expense
Building your own application also means you have control over the budget to be spent. If outsourcing is your approach as well, the opportunity to shop around for providers that offer the best price is very worthwhile. However, you need a solid description of your requirements for a provider to estimate expense. With a baseline budget in place, the development effort can be modified as needed should features need to be added or removed to manage expense.
Ease of integration
Another critical component of custom-built software is the ability to make it work closely with other systems within your organization. While many packaged or software as a service offerings tout their flexibility to integrate, always explore what their claims really mean.. Doing it yourself means an integration will take into consideration any custom pieces of that other system.
We’ve just scratched the surface of the benefits of custom application development. To learn more about the application development process or how a custom application could help your business, contact Superior Technology online at www.superiortechnology.com or by phone at (845) 735-3555.
Comments are closed.