Partner Article

Bespoke software can save your business money

According to respected tech news website ZDNet, surveys strongly indicate that a majority of businesses in the UK and Germany are paying good money for software that they don’t use. 76% of survey respondents admitted that ‘Shelfware’ or purchased software that doesn’t make it onto desktops or networks wastes up to a staggering 40% of annual software budgets.

The scale of this lack of requirements ‘fit’ highlights what many would argue is a key benefit of commissioning a tailored, bespoke software solution. A bespoke solution avoids the trap of having to purchase ‘bundles’ of products in order to obtain a single product that delivers the required functionality. Even then the required functionality may only be provided by part of the purchased product resulting in further waste. A bespoke solution is designed and built to exactly fit the requirements resulting in no wastage on functionality or products that will never be used. The relatively low prices of off–the-shelf software mean that competitors in the same market sector have access to the same software. It’s possible to gain a competitive advantage by avoiding using the same off-the shelf product and building into a bespoke solution those unique processes that will deliver that advantage.

Bespoke solutions are ideal for interfacing between other systems be they off-the-shelf or bespoke. For example such an interface could format and validate data gathered by BI systems prior to loading into an enterprise class financials system. The solution, built exactly to the client’s specification, could quickly and efficiently perform processes previously carried out manually thus saving time and therefore money. This can avoid drastic and sometimes costly alterations in business processes to suit a ‘one size fits all’ off-the-shelf package.

Bespoke solutions are not exclusively the domain of those organisations with lavish software budgets. Modern development methodologies with skilled and experienced development staff allow bespoke solutions to be developed and delivered on time and to budget.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Russ Gallagher .