The benefits of buying bespoke software over off-the-shelf solutions

Customers who need software for a specific purpose can either buy off-the-shelf solutions or have bespoke software developed.

Off-the shelf solutions may not be suitable for the customer’s needs and cannot be adapted exactly to what is required, while bespoke software development is tailored directly to the individual circumstances of each customer within Bradford.

Bespoke software development provides many advantages over off-the shelf solutions:

1. The software will be designed around the customer’s specific business processes and data and so it will meet their requirements exactly and operate most effectively making them most productive. It is also likely that they will want to integrate with other existing systems used by their organisation based in Bradford, particularly if part of a wider group, so the software they receive will be fully interoperable.
2. The bespoke nature of the development process ensures that recommendations from industry experts are incorporated into the design and so it is likely to be more flexible and future-proofed than off-the shelf solutions which have to target a wide range of potential customers.
3. The developer’s expertise in customising software for specific purposes means that they can save their customer time by providing them with a package that has already been built once, rather than requiring them to build it themselves or hire another company to do it for them. This saves costs and speeds up implementation by not having to go through a lengthy trial & error cycle involving multiple developers who need being brought at various stages in the process, which often leads to mistakes being repeated.
4. As the software is developed specifically for each individual customer, once built it can be continually improved upon so that it continues to meet their changing needs without having to scrap it and start again from scratch with a completely new system. Off-the shelf solutions are not suitable for every situation, particularly where there is some degree of complexity involved in the operation of the business or where specific industry knowledge is required. Software development companies offer bespoke solutions which are based on extensive experience of developing customised packages tailored precisely to each individual customer’s requirements rather than on existing off-the-shelf products designed for someone else who had different needs.

Every business around Yorkshire area has unique aspects which require customised solutions in order to fully exploit their potential.

In many other situations however, particularly when there is no need for extensive integration with existing systems or industry specific functionality, off-the-shelf solutions can be an effective means of obtaining cost effective (partly) customised solutions while still maintaining some flexibility and avoiding bespoke software being developed unnecessarily.

However, when the Yorkshire business processes and data involved are complex, off-the-shelf software simply cannot deliver the required results because it is not designed specifically for that purpose. In such cases it makes good sense to have bespoke software developed in order to get a competitive edge.

Contact Bradford Apps for more info about having a bespoke software solution developed for your business.