By default, businesses tend to start with out-of-the-box solutions for their software development needs. The prevailing assumption is that non-customized software will be more economical and feasible to achieve their product innovation goals. But often, these businesses realize that out-of-the-box solutions have limits. Custom software development becomes the next logical step – and it can pay off in big ways. About two out of three companies that invest in custom software solutions will experience an average ROI of 200% within the first year, according to industry research by KO Marketing.
The reality is that custom software isn’t necessarily more expensive or impractical for businesses to implement over the long term. In fact, the purpose-fit design of custom software increases the odds that businesses will be able to build successful products and services that meet changing market conditions and customer expectations. Let’s explore five reasons why custom software is better-suited to help businesses meet their product innovation goals than out-of-the-box software:
Custom software can be optimally aligned to business needs and goals
Out-of-the-box software solutions encourage businesses to conform their workflows and services to the software’s best practices. As a result, it can be difficult to align out-of-the-box software to the business’s own needs and goals.
By contrast, custom software is wholly custom-designed around the needs and goals of the business. Custom solutions can be custom-designed to integrate seamlessly with the company’s existing systems and processes.
Moreover, businesses aren’t forced to compromise on the features and capabilities they want because the software cannot support it. What this means is that businesses can focus on implementing their product innovation goals in full – and gain everything they need to gain or maintain relevance and competitiveness in their marketplace.
Custom software is fully within the business’s control
With out-of-the-box software solutions, businesses may not be able to do everything that the business wants.
That’s because out-of-the-box software is rarely purpose-built around the needs of specific industry verticals. Additionally, businesses are bound by SLAs (service level agreements) that dictate every aspect of how the business can – and cannot – use, maintain and update their software. And if the business needs technical service and support, the business is typically at the mercy of the software vendor; in-house IT teams often cannot do this work.
By contrast, custom software is fully within the business’s control. Businesses retain full ownership and control, and they can develop and retain expertise and institutional knowledge in house. Custom software also guarantees that businesses can develop solutions that meet their unique security and regulatory compliance requirements.
Custom software ensures businesses can produce relevant, timely insights
Out-of-the-box software can be configured to collect and report on data-driven insights into performance and progress toward product innovation goals. But the options for configuring the software to generate the data are limited; businesses typically must adhere to templates and may generate data that aren’t relevant or accurate.
By contrast, custom software can be endlessly configured to retrieve and serve up exactly the high-quality data that businesses are looking for, in exactly the formats and at exactly the times that will resonate with the intended recipients of the data.
Custom software grows in the directions the business wants
To keep up with changing market conditions, business innovation needs to move at lightning speed. And the software that drives this innovation needs to move with it.
Custom software makes it feasible to keep businesses moving in the directions they want to go, at the pace they want to achieve it. If the business needs a very specific app or new feature to serve its customers, custom software guarantees that the business can roll it out – without compromise.
And if the business decides it needs to rapidly scale in a particular direction, custom software doesn’t put the business at the mercy – and the price tag – of a third-party software or cloud server vendor to develop a plan and a timeline.
Final thoughts
A business’s product innovation goals shouldn’t be held back and artificially constrained by a reliance on out-of-the-box software solutions. Custom software helps businesses do an end run around these limitations. Unlike out-of-the-box software, custom software can be optimally aligned to business needs and goals, is fully within the business’s control to maintain, ensures businesses can produce resonant, data-driven insights, and will grow in exactly the same directions as the business.
Outcode is highly experienced at helping businesses take advantage of custom software to meet all of their long- and short-term goals around product innovation. To learn more about how we help businesses move past the constraints and limitations of their legacy out-of-the-box software solutions, please reach out to us.
