As everyone is aware of the growth of technologies today, it is getting difficult for any business owner to compete with others. Among the leading strategies for overcoming noise and setting your business apart is through custom software development. As opposed to utilizing software that is ‘out of the box’ that cannot address all needs of your company, custom software has been developed specifically to address the opportunities and threats of your organization. In this blog, I’ll share my thoughts about why every business owner should think about custom software development and what competitive advantage is associated with it.
Solutions that can fit any Business requirement and demand
All businesses are individual and differentiate themselves by their features, work experience, aims and objectives. Software applications that are readily available on the market are created to suit a wide variety of needs making it very difficult for a business to find a package that suits their needs to the letter. On the other hand custom software is exclusive software development that is created to meet your unique needs. It eliminates your paper works and automates procedures thereby complementing your business strategy and model with the right technology tools.
For instance, if you are operating a firm that deals in real estate, then it is possible that the custom software will accommodate listing of properties, the CRM and the financial management tools in one package. This can save your time and help you avoid dealing with different independent systems that are dispersed all around. Such level of integration is not easily doable with pre-built solutions on the market.
1. Greater The Efficiency and Productivity
Outsourcing of custom software entails efficient management of repetitive activities in the functioning of a team. From creating invoices, tracking stock or even interacting with customers, customized software is developed for the purpose of doing these tasks in your business. This can take a lot of time out of your employees hence the time shall be used more on other more strategic activities.
For instance: Take a logistics company. Route planning for delivery is automated while shipping is tracked in real time and predictive maintenance alerts can be generated for fleet management and other departments. This insurance of automation will help employees spend more of their time building up your business and on customer service instead of fighting with technology.
2. Scalability and Flexibility
The more your business grows, the more your software should grow too. Off the shelf solutions have one big drawback, they may not be flexible enough to grow with your changing needs. If you are running out of capability you may end up having to purchase new licenses, or deal with feature limitations and costly upgrades. However, custom software is scalable enough to grow to meet the growth path of your business.
Consider you have a fintech firm, doing the business of financial solutions. Now as your customer base grows, your application will be expected to help handle more data, more complicated transaction, and more stringent regulatory needs. No need to switch platforms, to change software; custom built software can scale to the new demands.
3. Improved Security
So it’s important to be safe when using data because, it’s a main concern for any business, especially in the finance, healthcare, and e-com industry where sensitive customer’s data handled on daily basis. Most off the shelf software comes with some built in security features, but these may not be enough protection from sophisticated cyber threats. In addition, since there are many companies that commonly use the same off the shelf product, hackers can find common vulnerabilities with popular software.
Custom software is built around your very own security requirements. With Bitwarden you can use advanced encryption methods, add multi factor authentication and even customize your access controls according to your needs. This is one more layer of protection and security that you have on your divine data.
4. Long-Term Cost Savings
While developing custom software costs a lot initially, it’s the smart longterm investment. Subscription fees, hard upgrades, and licensing requirements coming over time is quite common with off the shelf software. In addition, the absence of tailored functionality may force you to own more software tools to meet your requirements and therefore add to your expenses.
Custom software however, is built from scratch to solve your very specific problems. This means you may have to invest more upfront, but it’ll save you the long-term costs of needing more tools, being less efficient, and scaling as you grow. And further, you will own the software, no ongoing license fees, and no vendor lock-in.
5. Better Customer Experience
For today’s business, customer experience is everything. Custom software lets you offer your customers a completely unique and personalized experience unlike any other customer. Custom software can ensure that your customers interact with your business via a user friendly, easy to navigate, mobile app, e-commerce platform or sophisticated CRM system.
Say, for example, you are running an online store and custom software might enhance the user experience with tailor made product recommendations, simplified checkout process and real time customer support. In addition, these features can actually encourage sales and customer loyalty.
Conclusion
In a world marred by technology influenced the suffering of business, custom software development is no longer a need to indulge in; it is a must. Tailored software solutions lead to increased efficiency, scalability, enhanced security, long term cost savings, better customer experience. Custom software is the way to go as business owners can future proof their operations, streamline work flows to help grow their company long term.
If you haven’t yet considered custom software development, now is the time to explore how it can transform your business.