Every day, businesses of all types depend on custom software solutions to get things done. They use dedicated apps to not only communicate and collaborate among employees, but to firmly establish relationships with clients as well.
These aren’t necessarily results that you can achieve with off-the-shelf software options. Not only will the user experience (UX/UI) suffer, but you’ll also be forcing your entire team into a “one size fits all” box that doesn’t really exist.
That, in essence, is why custom software development services are critically important. Not only will a dedicated web application development company work hard to understand your unique business needs and goals, but they’ll be able to write your software requirements document, handle everything -from prototyping to frameworks to mobile app development and more - all to make sure that you end up with exactly what you need, nothing more, nothing less.
But what is a custom software application development company, and how can it benefit your organization? In answering these questions, you should keep a few key concepts in mind.
What is a Custom Software Development Company?
At its core, a custom business software development company is one that can customize and optimize software to meet the unique needs of an organization. That includes not only desktop applications but also web and mobile applications as well.
Every business has its own unique processes that it uses to succeed. Any software product that you give to your team needs to be able to support, empower, and automate business processes. This is especially true in the case of startups who need to leverage any opportunity they have to stand out in a crowd.
This is why off-the-shelf software simply won’t cut it in the modern era. Oftentimes these programs are a “Jack of All Trades, Master of None.” They force all companies using their software to do things in the same way which may get the job done in a technical sense, but it doesn’t do so particularly well. It certainly doesn’t allow a business to stand out in a crowd.
This is why outsourcing custom software development services is always the right move to make. They’ll make the effort to fully understand your business, your employees, and your processes. During the software development process they’ll learn what you have and what you need to do better.
The end result will be a high-quality application that meets all of these needs and more. One that leverages the full power of the DevOps process to your advantage.
The Benefits of a Custom Software Development Company
There are a number of core benefits to custom ASP.NET Software Development Outsourcing that are definitely worth a closer look.
Chief among them is the fact that they can help your organization rid itself of that older legacy software that is ultimately holding you back. Older applications (meaning those that were developed 20 or even 30 years ago) simply aren’t up to modern demands in terms of elements like functionality.
For starters, they weren’t built to work together - meaning they make it almost impossible to share data. That hinders workflow operations management systems because data gets trapped in silos and is unable to freely move across an organization.
Likewise, they lack the responsiveness of modern software systems. Everything takes longer than it should, and people are forced to “do more with less,” so to speak.
All of this changes when you work with an outsourced product development team. Not only do you wind up with dedicated web applications that support and empower your processes, but you also have a technology stack that is designed to work together.
That means that information that was formerly trapped in silos is able to flow freely across your organization, likely for the first time. At that point, communication and collaboration are easier than ever. Not only that, but your business processes are stronger and more efficient as well.
5 Signs That Your Organization Needs Custom Software
- Lots of manual tasks in the current process. The first major sign that you are in need of custom software has to do with if your team relies on a great deal of manual work to get tasks done. Manual processes had their time - but that time is officially over. Instead, what you need to be doing is embracing business process automation. You need to automate a lot of those manual tasks that eat up so much time so that your team members can focus on other more important matters. Only a team of software engineers and custom software designers can help you do that.
- Repetitive process problems. Another major sign that your organization needs custom software is if you are seeing the same problem happen over and over again. If your older software is constantly breaking, it doesn’t matter if you can fix it. It shouldn’t be breaking in the first place.
That’s why a dedicated software team is always recommended. They can make sure that your backend and your front-end are where they need to be to stop these issues from happening at all. The back end refers to technologies that run on the web server, like ASP.NET Core, PHP, SQL Server, MySQL, FileMaker Pro, and cloud application development with Microsoft Azure. Whereas the front-end technologies run in your web browser, like HTML, JavaScript, React & ReactJS, and Angular. - Reporting. One issue that a lot of businesses face has to do with the fact that they’re spending so much time collecting data that they’re not extracting value from it. They need to be able to act on it and their current life cycle simply does not allow that. Custom web development, on the other hand, can. That’s why outsourcing your IT needs is important. It can help you take full advantage of everything that big data has to offer. Web-based reporting will allow key individuals in your organization to get the information they need to do their jobs better.
- Digital experience for your clients. If you are finding it difficult (or even impossible) to reach your client base, you’re also likely in need of custom software development. The digital experience that you need to offer to be able to connect with these people simply isn’t there. If your competitors offer a better digital experience, your potential customers will go to them instead - make no mistake about it.
- Scaling your business. Finally, if you’re planning on continuing to grow as a business (and you should be), you’re in need of custom ASP.NET development services. You need a project management process that scales up with your business - not one that holds you back. You need to implement things like SaaS (software as a service) and the IoT (Internet of Things). You can’t do that with older legacy applications. You need custom software written for how you do business.
9 Advantages of Working with a Custom Software Development Company
Once you’ve acknowledged the benefits of custom software development services in general, it’s important to also understand why working with a custom web applications software company is critical.
Building something on the scale of what is being discussed isn’t something that you should attempt to do on your own. This is true for a wide range of different reasons.
- Cost. For starters, it’s simply cost prohibitive to do so. It’s very unlikely that you’ll find any one person that you can bring in-house with all of the skills necessary to build your custom web app.
- Expertise. Technology solutions require a great deal of expertise in not only things like custom software design, agile methodology but also artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain development, and more. What you need is a dedicated web application development team of people with software development expertise who can fill in the skill gaps to bring your custom software application to life.
- Competitive Advantage. Another major benefit of working with a custom software development company comes by way of the personalization they offer. Again - you’re talking about something that will be built with your organization alone in mind instead of being built for the masses. You’re not being forced to use something that is available to every company, which is how you carve out a true competitive advantage for yourself.
- Expert Software Design. A custom business software development company will also help assist you in your larger digital transformation efforts. They can develop a software roadmap that will bring your enterprise software to life in a way that supports everything else that you’re doing, making sure that it all gels together into something that will propel your business forward. Great software starts with great software design and great database design.
- Cross-platform support. Working with a custom business software development company can also help bring about cross-platform solutions, particularly in terms of web apps. You can count on them to develop both Android apps and iOS apps that will work equally well and get the UX design right the first time.
- Security. Outsourcing software development to a web app development service provider can also help your custom software development project in other ways, too. This is especially true in terms of higher security and reliability. Remember that a dedicated team of people will be bringing years of experience to the table - experience that your own people may not have. This know-how will help them create software that is equipped to fend off the dangers of the modern digital world that we’re now living in. Think about how devastating a data breach can be in something like the healthcare industry, for example. Confidential patient information could easily be exposed, putting a lot of people in harm’s way. If an eCommerce business were to be breached, everything from credit card data to other personally identifying information could be exposed for the world to see. If a manufacturer’s ERP system were breached, proprietary manufacturing information could be gleaned from the data. This would cause an untold amount of damage to your reputation, which is exactly what a custom software development company can help you avoid.
- One major benefit that working with such a company will bring with it comes by way of the aforementioned seamless integration via APIs. Again, all of your older legacy applications were never designed to work together - making data sharing almost impossible. If the marketing team has important insight into a client, the sales team may be lacking that information - making it impossible for them to act on it. Everyone would have to go out of their way to make sure that all parties have all information, which is very unlikely to actually happen. With a custom software development team, you’ll end up with something akin to a CRM platform but designed specifically for your company’s unique needs. Every piece of insight will be stored in one centralized location so that people in your organization spend less time searching for information and more time putting it to good use.
- Speed of development. Working with an outsourced custom web application development company will also decrease the time to deliver significantly. For the sake of argument, let’s say that you do find a person or even a small team of people who will work in-house on your custom application or web application. They’re probably a part of your traditional IT team. Unfortunately, their attention is always going to be divided. They’ll be working part of the time (and a small part, at that) on your custom application and will be spending the majority of their time on routine software maintenance and problem-solving in other areas.The latter is important, yes - but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the former.
With a custom software team, on the other hand, you don’t have to worry about it. They can devote all of their attention towards making sure that your application is getting created in exactly the right way as quickly as humanly possible. At that point, your own in-house IT people are free to focus on other strategic business goals of the company. - Quality Assurance. Finally quality assurance isn’t always the first thing an internal software developer is concerned with. IT consulting firms often have staff members dedicated to QA and testing.
Any one of these advantages on their own would be enough to make custom development and working with a web developer agency worth the investment. When taken together, they form the type of business opportunity that you (and your CTO) simply cannot afford to ignore.
Get Started with a Custom Software Development Company
In the end, it’s clear that custom software development services are the way of the future. This is true regardless of the type of business you’re running or even the industry that you’re operating in. Not only does it allow your employees to work “smarter, not harder” as it were, but it also gives you the ability to forge deeper and more effective relationships with your clients.
But this is certainly a road that you do not want to travel alone, especially when it comes to ASP.NET software development outsourcing. Only an ASP.NET developer can bring you the experience necessary to put open source Microsoft ASP.NET Core, ASP.NET with MVP, Microsoft SQL Server and similar technologies to good use.
So, if you’d like to find out more information about why working with a custom software development company is so important, or if you have any additional questions you’d like to go over with someone in a bit more detail for your next project, or to get answers to any other important questions you might have, please contact Keene Systems today. You can also download our new eBook - Why ASP.NET Development Services Fuels Business Growth - to learn more about this essential topic.
