The Pros and Cons of Custom Business Software

Businesses of all sizes use custom business software to support their commercial activities, benefiting from the tailor-made solutions it can provide. Here we explain more about the pros and cons of custom business software to see how it could help your organisation.

Pros

It’s customised

The most obvious advantage of custom business software is that it will be tailored to the needs of your business. During the development stage there will be a lot of discussion about the software features and its overall functionality, which can be optimised to help you achieve the kind of outcomes and results you want, while also being scalable and made to be compatible with other software you use.

Return on investment

While ready-built software is cheaper there are often a variety of unexpected costs that have to be added on to ensure it runs effectively, such as extra hardware or software to complement it. Before investing in customised business software take some time to assess the potential ROI to ensure you are making the right decision, looking at initial costs and how it can save you money in the long run.

Strong security measures

What you see is what you get with off-the-shelf packages, which is often good news for hackers who know what to expect and can quickly find workarounds to attack any vulnerabilities that may exist. With customised business software you can create specific security measures that are embedded into the code of your site, which can give you more protection against cyber threats. You can also build in an alert system, so you are warned when an attack is taking place, allowing you to take the necessary steps to protect your data.

Cons

Longer to develop

If you do not have the right software development team in place, you could run into several serious issues that end up delaying the project. As it’s a carefully designed process it can take weeks and months to complete, depending on the scale of the project, while an off-the-shelf product is ready to use straight away. However, it is important to remember that customised software will ultimately produce more targeted and unique results for your business.

Higher upfront costs

You should take a long-term view with custom business software, as while the upfront costs are higher, over time you stand a much better chance of enjoying a stronger return on investment. This can sometimes be a difficult hurdle for smaller businesses working with tight budget restrictions to overcome, although if you can work out a staged payment plan, it could make things more manageable.