Technology( custom software application) has played a decisive role in taking passionate entrepreneurs to new heights of success. Today, technology is embedded in every modern business and plays an integral role in their transformation.
Whether investing in website development services to acquire a solid online presence or building an application software to streamline business operations, investing in the RIGHT technology has always been highly rewarding.
This blog will highlight the significance of custom software applications in the business industry. It will cover everything from what custom software applications are to why businesses need them now more than ever.
Let’s begin!
What is a Custom Software?
Custom software is a tailor-made software application designed to fulfill the particular needs of a business. It can be a mobile application for a startup business or a full-fledged software for corporate enterprises.
Types of Custom Software
Custom software applications can be divided into the following three categories:
- Industrial software
- Content management system
- Mobile applications
Industrial Software
Industrial software helps businesses in a number of different ways. It can help them convert their data into actionable insights, track manufacturing and production, maintain their inventory, and much more.
Content Management System
Content management is a type of software application that enables businesses to create, edit, delete, update, and store digital content.
Mobile Application
A mobile application is a custom software application that helps businesses provide a dedicated platform for their audience to interact with them.
Mobile applications are divided into the following categories:
On-demands apps
On-demand apps connect users with different vendors and business owners to order products or services online. Uber, Airbnb, Lime, Lyft, etc., are a few examples of successful on-demand mobile apps transforming how we do business today.
Ecommerce apps
Ecommerce apps empower conventional businesses to sell online to a broader audience. Most consumer businesses opt for ecommerce app solutions to boost their sales and streamline their business operations.
Healthcare & Lifestyle apps
Healthcare and lifestyle apps help people take charge of their healthcare routines. These apps enable people to track their overall health, save their medical records, discover information about nearby hospitals, and connect with healthcare experts effectively.
Entertainment apps
It include music and video streaming to games and social applications. it help users kick the boredom, connect with their friends and colleagues, and stream movies and TV shows on the go.
Building a mobile app requires a lot of consideration and investment. Plus, it is a complex process revolving around complex technologies and frameworks. Thus, hiring an app development company is better than hiring app developers for iPhone and Android separately.
The Pressing Needs for Building Custom Software
Future-oriented, innovation-led businesses are progressively shifting from general commercial software to custom software. Here’s why:
Personalized Features
Every business is different and has particular needs and objectives. And general commercial software often fails to help address them all. In contrast, custom software applications enable businesses to instigate a personal touch in their operations and direct them accordingly.
With custom software, stakeholders and C-suite executives can plan the functionality of their software according to their business requirements.
Faster & More Efficient
Unlike general commercial software, custom software applications are faster and more efficient. They are planned, designed, developed, and deployed to perform some particular operations. Thus, they are generally faster and more reliable by nature.
In this fast-paced technology world, every second matters. Businesses can not bear the costs of freezing operations due to technical faults. Thus, they are progressively investing in updating their tech stacks.
Advanced Privacy Features
Advanced security and privacy are the most crucial benefits of building custom software applications. Since these applications are built specifically for the private use of an organization, it’s nearly impossible to access them. This is handy for businesses involving large chunks of datasets and confidential information.
Easy Integrations
Custom software applications are easy to integrate with the existing software and other products. It saves considerable time required in building data warehouses and transferring the current data into the new software system.
Incredible Performance
Custom software applications help improve the overall performance of the business. They are built to cut the clutter and streamline operations. With custom software, businesses can focus on essential things like becoming more innovative and multiplying production rates instead of wasting time on complicated processes of commercial software.
Custom Software Development Process
The primary steps involved in custom software development are as follows:
Planning & Requirement Gathering
The first step is to determine the need for building the software. Stakeholders and senior executives conduct regular meetings with different heads of departments to determine the areas where their existing software is lacking and why it needs to be resolved.
After gathering requirements from every department, the stakeholders and C-suite devise plans with the development team to quickly overcome the challenges.
Architect Design
The design team gets involved once the objectives behind the development are clearly defined. They start building wireframes and prototypes to complete the software’s architecture.
The design team regularly meets with the stakeholders and project managers to ensure the development process is perfectly streamlined.
Software Development
Once the design and prototypes are finalized, the development team takes charge of the project. The development team ensures adding all the features and functionalities needed. The development part consumes most of the time and can take between 2 – 8 months to complete.
Testing & Deployment
Once the software development is completed, the development team handover the project to the quality assurance team to check for bugs and errors. The software then goes through a series of manual and automated testing processes before deployment.
Wrapping Up…
Future-oriented businesses plan their software upgrades accordingly. And those who fail to do it find it overwhelming to go for custom software development. Thus, they wind up sacrificing their productivity and privacy by purchasing subscriptions to commercial software.
Custom software development should thus be your first choice if you are a business owner trying to simplify your business operations, especially if your company is vulnerable to cyberattacks and productivity issues.
