If you are an experienced business manager, you must also have some experience with paying for commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) that did not work very well for your business. Such generic software often makes business managers change their internal processes with increased overhead costs to make the software work. Besides being a hassle for the staff who need to change the way they work frequently; these process modifications often cause alignment issues between departments and result in unintended consequences. It is very common for business owners and managers to buy and launch a software package, only to end up with bigger problems than the initial one that sparked the idea of buying a new software. After a few attempts for changing such off-the-shelf software, in many cases, business managers decide to reverse back to the old way of doing things or try something different. This loop can get repeated multiple times within a company and result in wasting months and years of their time only to get back to square one. Unless a COTS program operates and works exactly as you need it, your business will probably benefit from custom-coded software that is designed and developed to your liking and internal working procedures.

What is custom software?

Custom software by definition is a software solution package designed, developed, launched, and serviced with a special set of functions for a specific organization and group of users. Custom software is typically supported by a team of developers who can make any changes or modifications that the organization requests as it grows or starts new business ventures. This contrasts with commercial off-the-shelf software packages which are developed for the mass market and do not come with high-level support.

Pros and cons of custom software

When compared to off-the-shelf packages, custom software provides several benefits to the organization and end users:

1. Custom-built: Custom software is tailor-made to your company’s way of working and is adapted to your requirements to provide the highest level of efficiency and effectiveness. In contrast, a COTS package is pre-built and your company will need to adapt to it.
2. Expansion: Custom software is created to be scalable as your company grows and adds more functionalities, departments, or employees. In many cases, business owners realize so many benefits from well-developed custom software that they decide to expand the software project to the other departments of the company. Moreover, future expansion plans in the software can be predicted in the initial plans to save on future costs. On the other hand, off-the-shelf software is created within a rigid work frame and cannot be changed or scaled up to your liking.
3. Competitive edge: Custom software gives your business an advantage over the competition that may be using a COTS package by automating and simplifying your processes and lowering your business’s overhead cost.
4. Lower long-term cost: Just like any other custom-built product, custom software comes with a higher upfront cost than an off-the-shelf program. However, custom software is more cost-effective in the long run when its time-saving benefits are factored in.
5. Support: Commercial off-the-shelf software only comes with minimal support that may help with user issues or implementation problems. Contrarily, custom software that is created by reputable companies comes with support from their development team who can actually make changes in the software and fix any issues. A strong support team is a key factor in the success of a custom software project and should be one of the main factors to consider when ordering custom software.
6. Higher security: Custom software provides much higher security for your information when compared to COTS packages. These programs are typically created by small development teams and very few people have information on their architecture and structure. In addition, in most cases, they are implemented on private or dedicated servers with prevented access from unwanted users.
7. Professional and specialty functions: Custom software provides the best solutions for businesses that work in niche markets and need specialty computational needs. Commercial off-the-shelf software packages are typically made for applications with very high demands, and they include many features that your organization might not need. With custom software, any computational functionality can be incorporated no matter how unique and specialized they are.
8. Full integration: Custom software integration with existing and legacy programs with your business can be planned ahead and during the design phase and built into the software by the development team. However, COTS packages very rarely can be integrated with existing software without running into major issues and making big compromises. In such cases, the organization will need to make additional investments for system integration which can increase the setup cost drastically, even more than the cost of developing a custom software program.
9. Mobile and web compatibility: when a full package of PC, web, and mobile-based software is needed, custom software solutions offer much higher flexibility. You can design your mobile app to have certain functionalities that are not needed on the web version and vice versa. In a COTS, however, all versions of the software are fixed and do not come with modifications support.
10.  Efficiency: Custom software is designed and created only for your specific requirements. On the contrary, commercial off-the-shelf software tries to include several applications to be appealing to a larger market, and carry a lot of functionalities that you will never use. In fact, 80% of users of COTS packages only use less than half of their software capabilities while paying the full price for licensing, subscription, and maintenance of those programs.
11.  Profitable: Depending on the type of contract that your organization has with your custom software development company, you might be able to package the software to be introduced to the market for general sales, or license it to other organizations and generate a new revenue stream for your business from software development.

When companies try to make a decision about launching a custom software project, the biggest hurdles that they face are the higher upfront cost and the time that it takes to develop and deploy the software. Although custom software can be more economical in the long run with all the benefits that they bring to an organization, the higher upfront investment is discouraging to many management teams; particularly if they are not quite certain that they really need a software program. On the other side, COTS are offered at lower upfront licensing or subscription costs and are readily available for implementation or trial.

Custom software solution examples

The strongest suit of custom software is in its flexibility. The domain of custom software solutions is virtually anything that can be done with computers. Nonetheless, custom software solutions are more common with organizations that want to offer unique services and stand out from their competition by changing the way things are done. Some examples of custom software solutions are:

1.  Admin Process Automation: Many companies can benefit from automating their administrative processes to reduce overhead costs and eliminate human errors. With custom software, you can add and modify features as the company grows and incorporate your specialized services into the software.
2. Content Management Systems (CMS): This popular type of customized software helps organizations to manage the creation, modification, and organization of their digital content. A modern CMS typically works on a cloud system with multiple users and is capable of connecting different parts of the organization.
3. E-commerce Solutions: A customized E-commerce package provides businesses with endless possibilities to make revenue online. Depending on the business type, an E-commerce solution can include a customized website, mobile application, order processing automation, customer support, online services, rewards programs, marketing and promotion features, product customization capabilities, and many other features.
4. Specialty and Engineering: Many industrial applications that require a unique set of specialty analysis and calculations, or require a mechanical system control can only be accomplished with a fully custom software solution. In such projects, the software quality is so important that can be the main distinguishing factor for the products and services against their competition.
5. Online Services: Many organizations are providing their clients with the option to receive services online. This has made customized online service applications very popular to communicate with clients, schedule appointments, connect with experts such as healthcare providers and lawyers to exchange content.
6.  Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): Customized ERP systems are very popular amongst businesses that seek automation of their internal process management. A customized ERP software is designed to match the company’s specific process flow and be expandable as the company grows. Customized ERP systems can help companies tremendously in cutting their overhead cost and providing a better service to their customers.
7.  Web Portal: With the right customizations, a web portal is a strong tool that helps businesses with sales growth and customer retention. In the form of a website or a mobile app, a web portal works as a self-service platform for customers to receive information, manage their accounts and subscriptions, and do many more tasks. Moreover, a web portal can be company-facing in which the employees of a company can communicate with an automated processing system or other team members.
8.  Paperless Office: Another popular customized software that facilitates a paperless office by automating paperwork, recording images from receiving and shipping items, and communicating with the inventory system.

LogicAide’s advantage in custom software solutions

The success of your custom software solution to a great extent depends on the design and development team that you work with. Here at LogicAide, we employed our experience in several custom software projects at different scales. We have built a team and development process that ensures the success of our projects by meeting all the requirements on the schedule and within the predicted budget. Well-developed custom software will deliver your business value and quick return on your investment, and LogicAide can accomplish that by:

• Powerful custom software designed and built around your company’s unique requirements and customer needs
• Knowledgeable development team capable of utilizing several programming technologies for better results and higher efficiency
• Software programs are fully designed and developed in the United States with long-term support for improvements and expansions
• Developed to the latest security standards and on the most advanced technological platforms.
• Friendly support and development teams to talk to

LogicAide software Services