Why Do Businesses Often opt for Bespoke Software Development?

Posted by Mike Kelvin on September 23rd, 2021

Commercial off-the-shelf software solutions are a great fit if they solve all or a big part of your business challenges. But if they don’t, it’s good to consider bespoke software development.

In this article, we’ll explore the nuts and bolts of custom software development and what makes it a worthwhile investment for businesses that do not want just any other product available in the market.

What is bespoke/custom software development

Custom software development is the process of designing and developing a better software/app solution to a business problem. While developing a software product, the assigned professionals or team will undergo multiple stages including requirement gathering from the stakeholders involved, choosing a methodology or technology or practice to build the app on, testing the app for bugs and improvements, and outsourcing the maintenance and management tasks to a third party, if needed.

Examples of custom software products may include a banking app that’s been designed to cater to the unique needs of a bank and its customers, or an entertainment app for a giant OTT (over the top media) services provider, or a healthcare app for a hospital or a chain of clinics.

Why it is important

Custom software development is important for the sheer volume of benefits it offers. Its major advantages include:

• Purpose built for the specific business challenges - Unlike commercial off-the-shelf software products, companies build bespoke software products to effectively and efficiently address their specific business challenges. Now, these challenges could be anything - automating a task or a complete business process or building a solution to unify their entire business processes. However, it is important that the company performs a detailed ‘build vs buy’ analysis before deciding to build the software in-house or hire a development company.
• Cost-effective - In many cases, custom development results in lesser costs and increased efficiency than getting into finding and purchasing a commercial solution, and then spending more to make it work with the company\'s legacy systems and infrastructure.
• Scalable - The team of professional designers and developers build apps on the basis of their requirement gathering from everyone involved. The use of the software in the future is also considered. This ensures that the app or software is built to be scalable and highly available without incurring any substantial cost.
• Integration - Since the custom software development is taken up to meet the unique or specific needs of the organization, they are designed to seamlessly integrate with the legacy systems or existing infrastructure of the organization.
• More Freedom - Custom software development offers more independence when compared to off-the-shelf software where the user business is always in control of the vendor.
  Development Methodologies and Technology - Agile, DevOps, and Cloud 

Leading bespoke software design companies in London or elsewhere often build on the transformative capabilities of Agile, DevOps, and Native Cloud. The development methodologies and cloud computing capabilities take the entire software development process to the next level and help development companies to meet and exceed their clients’ expectations.

• Agile - Agile is an approach to software development that emphasizes a more-than-ever client involvement in the entire software development process and smooth delivery of individual pieces rather than the entire application or software product. Before Agile, software development was largely based on the waterfall model which would make the entire development process a lot complicated and time-consuming.
• DevOps - DevOps grew out of Agile and adds new capabilities to the software development process by bringing together the development and IT operations teams rather than letting them work in silos. DevOps outlines a new and improved software development methodology that automates and integrates a lot of tasks done by the development and IT teams and empowers them to deliver higher quality apps or software that meets the business needs of their clients. 
• Cloud - Cloud computing infuses a world of capabilities in the entire software development process. By choosing to host development environments in the cloud, companies can set up and perform all their tasks, including coding, design, integration, testing, and deployment, in the safety and security of the cloud that also underpins benefits like cost-effectiveness, speed, and agility.

Conclusion

The importance of bespoke software development or custom software development can’t be overstated. Commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) without customization won’t help your business the best way. Whether it’s ERP, CRM, or some other software needs, businesses must reach out to professional software development companies (in case they don’t have the essential in-house expertise). Even if a business decides to build its software solutions in-house, it can consider outsourcing the maintenance and management of the app to a trusted third-party company.