What to Know About Outsourcing Software Development Services
Outsourcing is a fairly common business practice these days. Many companies outsource certain functions to a third party so they can focus on their...
4 min read
Rubens Perdomo : Apr 14, 2021 7:30:00 AM
Every business has different needs. Sometimes, to meet these needs, a company decides to hire a software engineer or development team to produce a custom software solution just for them. In fact, Statista projected that, in 2021, global spending on enterprise software would reach $517 billion.
What is software development and how does it work? Are custom software development costs worth the payoff? What factors affect the cost of software dev? When would you really need a customized enterprise app or software platform, anyways?
Custom software development is the act of creating a new piece of software (or modifying an existing one) to address a specific client or business need.
This is inherently different from the use of stock or ready-made software that is designed to be broadly applicable for a large audience regardless of their preferred operating systems, hardware, and software assets.
Think of it like buying a car from a dealership “as-is” versus putting in an order for a custom car. Both cars do the same thing—carrying you from point A to point B. However, the custom car has a lot of extra features specialized for your specific wants like a higher horsepower engine, better brakes, back up cameras, collision avoidance systems, and a paint job in whatever color you like.
The car at the dealership is ready-to-go right away as soon as you sign, but may not be entirely to your tastes or may lack a feature you wanted or needed. Meanwhile, the custom car has everything you want (and nothing you don’t), but may cost more and it will take time to build that customized car and deliver it to you.
Different custom software providers may work in different ways. Additionally, different clients or business processes might have different requirements and existing IT assets that the software needs to be designed around.
Because of these differences, there isn’t necessarily a “one-size-fits-all” process for custom software development—after all, it’s custom!
However, there are a few “broad strokes” steps in the custom software development life cycle that tend to remain largely consistent:
One of the most common questions about custom software is: “How much does it cost?”
The answer is: “It depends.” Why? Because, there are a lot of variables that can affect software development costs.
Some software developers cite costs ranging from $50,000 to $450,000 for initial development—though some large-scale IT projects can be even more expensive than that.
There are a ton of factors that affect the cost of building custom software, including:
So, what are the pros of hiring a software engineer or MSP team to build a custom piece of software vs simply using an “out-of-the-box” software solution?
While every business may have unique needs, not every company actually needs a custom software solution. As time goes on and more new software platforms and solutions emerge, it becomes easier to find an existing software solution that will meet your most pressing needs.
However, custom software development services can be worthwhile for certain organizations. You might want to hire a custom software development engineer or team if you:
If time is of the essence, the ROI for custom software dev wouldn’t be in your favor, or you simply don’t have the budget for building and maintaining your own software from scratch, you may be better off with a ready-made software solution that’s “good enough.”
Do you need help and advice with building a custom piece of software (or finding and adapting an existing software solution for your business)? Reach out to the Systems X team to get started!
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