How to Decide if Your Business Needs Custom Software Development

June 19, 2017 | Technology

Being part of a software development industry calls for high competitive spirit all the time. You will want to sell to your customers whatever’s trending, mostly ‘The Digital Advantage’ these days. It might work for a one-time sale but customer retention and recommendation requires more than that. You need to put across only what will benefit the customer’s business, even in the long run. So, one of our major deliberations is suggesting between a custom development solution or an off the shelf option to prospects.

Apart from meeting targets, there is another responsibility I demand from my team. Selling only the most applicable solution. Hence, we brainstorm the client’s requirements on the following aspects, before making the final pitch.

• Will it help the end users?

Most clients these days are interested in going for customized solutions, the idea itself is quite alluring. In most cases, especially eCommerce and CRMs customizations can be helpful, considering who the end users are. If you are looking for a CRM for lead management for sales teams spread in different geographies, you will need customization. But if it is a simple ERP tool that you need, then picking something from the available options is an intelligent decision.
In the past few years, we have convinced most customers that going for an innovative solution won’t help if you are looking only to outdo your competitors. In the process, you might end up creating a complex application that will confuse your end-users instead of helping them.

• Is it in sync with the customer’s business model?

As mentioned earlier, clients want to be guaranteed that their solution is an innovative one. But what is not definite is how will this solution make their employees’ life easier? Before crafting a customized solution, it is important to determine the pain-points and work on them. If you are looking to decrease your overhead by replacing a traditional software or improve the team’s communication and performance with a better license or subscription, then customization is an ideal choice.

• Does it meet the customer’s goal?

Customization is a time-consuming process, the more innovative you want your solution to be the more expensive it gets. Creating a solution from scratch requires working on the architecture, the SDLC process and including the testing requirements in it. While customers are ready to invest the money they are often skeptical about the time. Hence, we always include the details in our RFP so that the client is able to make a decision best-suited to their business goals.

Takeaways

Your choice of software development should be user-centric and not competition-centric. While there are ample off the shelf options and they are credible too; a customized software is tailored for your business needs only. Understanding the SDLC and testing processes of your software development partner will also help in judging which method will help you get timely ROI.