Are you having a hard time deciding between custom software development and off-the-shelf software for one of the critical functions in your organization?

Choosing between the two options is, in fact, a very difficult decision to make for any manager or a leader.

Both custom software development and off-the-shelf software require a considerable investment in terms of time and cost, and also affects your company for many years to come.

You would not like to go wrong on this important decision.

If you are considering implementing new software, you may have the option of buying a readymade product instead of developing your own program. It may seem logical to choose an immediate off-the. Incentive is the main purpose of the pay for performance healthcare systems. As in every situation, there are disadvantages and advantages.

You need to understand the advantages of custom software over readily built solutions and vice-versa, and evaluate all pros and cons to make a wise decision.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Special Purpose Software. General purpose software normally refers to the types of software used by computer operators to perform simple tasks, including writing, data recording and presentations. This software is some of the most commonly used software. Software and its types and its advantages and disadvantages Slideshare uses cookies to improve functionality and performance, and to provide you with relevant advertising. If you continue browsing the site, you agree to the use of cookies on this website. Listening skill: to give practice in listening for attitude and purpose. Certainly, we’ve got advantages and disadvantages of computers, but we can’t.

Custom software can be a viable solution if you chose the right kind of people who provide you with highly customized flexible solutions that are easy to use and maintain.

On the other hand, a ready built solution saves a lot of your time and initial investment.

There are various factors that can help you decide on the right option for your organization.

This includes complexities of your work, the size of your organization, your future plans for growth and of course the most important, financial viability of the solution.

Before you make a final decision, it is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of each option in detail and cases where custom software may be better suited over off-the-shelf software and vice-versa.

Let’s first have a look at what are the advantages of custom software.

Advantages of Custom Software
Disadvantages of Using Custom Software

Advantages of Custom Software

Readily available solutions are built on the basis of generic requirements in the category for which it is built which may not fit the way your operations work.

Sometimes, businesses need unique solutions to solve problems specific to their organizations.

Custom Software Development is a popular option for all such companies.

Let’s look into some of the key benefits of Custom Software.

Tailor-made Solution

When you purchase off the shelf solutions, they may or may not be built around your business goals.

Developing a software solution specifically for your company ensures that it is tailored to suit your needs.

In fact, during the process of building custom software, you may find several opportunities to optimize your processes, which leads to higher productivity for your organization.

There are several outsourcing partners who would be willing to analyse the complete set of processes followed within the organization to give you highly optimized solutions for automation.

This will increase your productivity, which in turn makes it financially more rewarding in the long run.

Check out our portfolio page to find out what custom tailored solutions we have created for our customers.

Return on Investment

Custom software development may look like an expensive option at the beginning as a lot of investment is involved in software development but in the long run, they may get you higher returns.

On the other hand, readily built software packages also involve some cost.

At times you may need to purchase extra hardware, high-end servers (sometimes even with version updates) to run them effectively. The additional cost that you need to bear every year is annual license fees.

Custom software is high on investment at the beginning but the costs become almost negligible in the long run.

A detailed ROI needs to be done to find out paying huge sums for custom software development which will pay for itself in few years vis-à-vis license fees during the same period and other costs involved in buying off-the-shelf software.

Security Concerns

One of the benefits of custom written software is that security, as required by your organization, can be inbuilt in the software.

Hackers love the popular commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) and are more likely to find ways through vulnerable portions of such tools to enter your systems.

With custom software, chances on intrusion are considerably reduced as you use your own tool which is predominately used by your own team.

Flexibility

Scalability can be built into custom software easily.

This will ensure that the software addresses any changing needs of your organization. On the other hand, features of an off-the-shelf application remain constant more or less and cannot be manipulated easily.

With off-the-shelf software, you will have to wait for some other company to enhance their features to make your life easier.

This is not the case with custom software, you have a team in hand who can take up all your requests at any time and enhance the features for you.

In case you are outsourcing development to another company, it is always better to ensure maintenance is built into your contracts and they are flexible enough to incorporate any changes that you may need at any point of time.

An agile and flexible team is what you need.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Special Purpose Software Development

Compatibility

There may be several other tools that your organization may be using.

You may want that all the tools talk to each other and may need to build interfaces which makes it easy to transfer data from one application to other.

These functionalities are very difficult to obtain in an off-the-shelf tool.

This compatibility can, however, be built in a custom software. Off-the-shelf software may have some options to integrate with other software but this may not be too seamless as you may want it to be.

Easy to Operate

Another advantage of custom software is that they are easy to operate as they are not bulky and have just enough features required for your operations.

Off-the-shelf software may have a lot of functionalities based on a generic set of requirements.

You may not be needing many of these functionalities and may be using just some features. The tools become bulky and difficult to operate due to this.

The ease of use increases productivity and reduces costs by automating repetitive tasks. This will increase your profits and lower the cost involved further.

Long-term Risks

Many times, off- the- shelf companies release newer versions of their software and they stop all support for older versions.

Companies also go bankrupt and stop providing any support altogether.

You don’t run such risks if you go for custom software.

You can run your business without worrying about an off-the-shelf software that is being used to run your entire business or a critical function may be discontinued and no further updates or improvements can be received.

A custom software is always available and can be updated as many times as you may want.

Improved Software Support

You get better support from teams working on custom software than off-the-shelf software.

Most of the time, continuous support is built into your contracts with outsourcing partners which means there will be a dedicated team that they will provide you to maintain the software.

This provides better problem solving and defect fixing than the support provided by off-the-shelf software.

The response and resolution time are faster with cust