Introduction
While the cost of custom development can be expensive, it is sometimes more expensive to find all the necessary technology solutions to meet a business’s needs.
For instance, customers have called us to manipulate a pre-packaged software solution to work for their business. One, in particular, had purchased five different software solutions. They were a manufacturer of racing engines, and they built those engines on an assembly line. They bought a Point-of-Sale application, an inventory tracking application, a vendor management application, a project management application, and a merchant services application.
Troubles with Pre-Packaged Software
As you can imagine, having all these applications individually meant re-entering information repeatedly, aggregating data from each system to see progress, and reporting on each system separately. This slowed their processes to where they decided to continue doing things the old way (on paper).
In this scenario, and many scenarios like this, a custom solution was the better option. The ability of each system to talk to each other and have data normalized across the business process is priceless. The cost of building such a system ran into the $70k to $80k range. However, all the pre-packaged solutions had cost them over $100k in licensing fees that were recurring year after year.
This example didn’t consider the opportunity costs of losing business due to inefficiencies, errors during production because of communication breakdown, etc. So, it was more expensive to NOT go after a more customized solution in their case.
Conclusion
In the end, the word expensive becomes relative. The costs of not having a custom solution can be huge for some businesses yet meaningless to others. At my company, we work with businesses to determine these options. I’ve witnessed small and mid-size companies grow and succeed due to the custom solutions that we’ve built.
However, we’ve built some custom solutions that have sat on a shelf until the business goes under. In conclusion, you need to weigh the value of a custom solution to the result. If the answer makes a business more efficient and reduces costs, and increases a company’s profit, then it’s a viable solution. A custom solution is the best option as long as your ROI (Return on Investment) is positive and significant.
Lastly – one of the biggest reasons you should pay attention to a custom solution is that it adds intellectual property value to the business, making it more unique and valuable.
Grata Software offers the highest quality custom software developed in-house by real professionals. If you’re looking to invest in custom software for your business, give us a call today.
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Rey Ortega
I'm a passionate creator of technologies for businesses. After years of leading software teams & delivering products to market, I founded Grata Software, a software consultancy, that helps businesses innovate and build disruptive products on cloud platforms. At Grata, I am the CEO & Head Solutions Architect.
