Ensuring Growth and Success for Small Businesses with Custom Software

Every small business requires an array of software to run its operations smoothly and successfully. When starting a new business, it may seem like your off-the-shelf software would suffice all your needs. As your business grows, your business management software should scale to meet your team’s evolving needs, boost the efficiency of your workflows, and be flexible to support new use cases. Custom software or a software application tailor-made to address your specific business requirements helps improve your market competency and realize ROI at a faster pace.

How will you determine if custom software is the right fit for your small business?

Read on this post to learn more about custom software for small businesses.

Top Signs Indicating Why Your Small Business Needs Custom Software

The classic “build vs. buy” decision is a pertinent question that every small business faces when addressing their software needs. Considering the cost, time, energy, and resources dedicated to custom software development, many SMEs adopt packaged software in a haste. Look out for these warning signs before deciding whether to build or buy.

1. Employee Discontent

Find out if your employees are satisfied with your existing off-the-shelf software. Do they still stick to old-school tricks or find manual methods faster and more convenient? Are your employees forced to discover alternative workarounds to use the software? Do they still rely on spreadsheets and how-to guides for using the software? All these signs indicate that your off-the-shelf software lacks employee approval and can fail your business eventually.

2. Existing Tech Isn’t User-friendly

Rolling out enterprise-wide canned software that commands an advanced level of technical expertise will inflict more harm. It will complicate the processes for your employees and incur heavy training costs. Complex shelf software will fail the very purpose of technological innovation, that is, to simplify human efforts. If only less than 20% of your employees find the software workable, it’s better to build a customized solution.

View Infographic: Custom Software vs. Commercial Off-the-shelf Solutions

3. Wasting Time on Mundane Tasks

Is your software forcing your employees to spend their valuable time on routine activities that don’t require human thought and creativity? If your software isn’t allowing you to leverage the potential of automation, it can minimize your employees’ productivity and workplace efficiency. Automation of mundane tasks with minimal or adequate supervision is a must for small business growth and success.

4. Software Spend Drains Your Wallet

Adapting a rigid off-the-shelf solution for your small business needs requires you to subscribe to third-party apps and pay multiple licensing fees. Most biz owners end up paying full price for unwanted features. Some companies would want to integrate estranged business applications to increase the usability of their shelf software. All these challenges lead to increased software spending.

5. Unable to Make Data-backed Decisions

Your business data comes from multiple sources such as your website, emails, social profiles, chat, and conversation histories, helpdesk, and so on. How far is your canned software allowing you to make use of this data? Are your decisions driven by live data? If your dashboards aren’t getting updated in real-time and reports throw only past information, it’s time to consider custom software. Integrating multiple business systems and exporting all the useful data insights onto a centralized, user-friendly platform in real-time will empower small businesses to make rightful decisions.

Watch Video: Why Your Business Requires Custom Software

How Can Your Small Business Benefit from Custom Software?

Small business competition has intensified in recent years. Thanks to the increasing democratization of digital innovation! Access to technological advancements is no longer limited to large enterprises. With a custom-built software, your small business can stay relevant and competitive.

1. Own Purpose-built Software

Custom software development guarantees 100% alignment with specific business needs. You can rest assured that no crucial operations are left unsupported and there aren’t any wasted features. Share your unique requirements with a trusted custom software development company like Fingent and get exactly the features you would require on a long-term.

2. Uncompromised Security

Ready-to-use software is highly vulnerable to cyberattacks due to the widespread availability of code and proliferation of users. Owning custom code places your small business under lock and key and keeps your sensitive information hack-proof. Customized solutions offer built-in security with a specialized approach to development. Better compliance and data governance improves your organization’s reputation and trust.

3. Improve Workflows and Efficiency

Attaining profitability amid stiff competition needs your employees to put in their best performance. Experienced custom software companies like Fingent can help you identify the workflows or business functions that can be improved with the right technology. This makes your business more efficient and maximizes the productivity of your employees.

4. Keep Costs Under Control

Improved business efficiency transforms to lower operational costs. Technologies like automation enable your employees to complete more tasks in less time, without feeling monotonous. Custom software actually costs lesser than off-the-shelf solutions, considering the extra dollars you would spend on subscriptions, licenses, third-party integrations, software upgrades and maintenance, and other overheads required to make the shelf software workable.

5. Round-the-clock Support

Modern business might come to a standstill if technology stops working. A typical readymade software provider puts you into a long wait with back-to-back support tickets and repeated calls, whereas a dedicated custom software development partner offers access to a direct line of technical support to resolve your issues immediately.

Tips to Choose the Right Software Development Partner

Hiring the services of an experienced custom software development agency will help you focus on developing a sustainable business model. How can you identify the right software development partner for your small business? Here’re a few tips we recommend:

Identify your needs. Decide what you expect the software to do. List out your objectives. Use an application specification template to fill out your needs. This improves your communication with the software development vendor. It helps the vendor understand your expectations clearly. This can go a long way in finalizing the project’s scope.
Check the partner’s technical skills, expertise, and experience. Have they handled projects related to your domain? Read up their case studies and analyze their portfolios. Arrange catch-up sessions to learn more about their software development approaches and project management methodologies.
Ask for references. It helps you understand their reputation and trustworthiness. Use top B2B review platforms like Clutch and GoodFirms to evaluate their performance. Connect with the company’s past clients for more candid reviews.
Cost is as important as the experience and reputation of the software development partner. Bestow your project only if you’re confident of guaranteed ROI.
Is your development vendor passionate about your project? Figure it out over the initial meetings before the formal kick-off. Do they come up with unique ideas that improve your application’s value in the future? Make sure that their ideas are backed with convincing use cases or POCs.
Choosing a software development partner also depends on the quality of after-sales service and technical support. Do they provide cloud-based updates, software upgrades and maintenance, and other troubleshooting services when you need them?

Selecting the right custom software development partner is a meticulous job. Check out our earlier post covering these and more crucial tips in detail.

Also read: How to Choose the Right Custom Software Development Firm

Why Choose Fingent as Your Custom Software Development Partner?

Over the past two decades, Fingent has been serving as a reliable and capable tech partner for many leading global brands, including Fortune 500 companies. With an impeccable track record as a successful custom software development partner, we’ve helped improve cash flow and business efficiency for many clients. If hiring in-house developers is costing you a fortune, extend your development team with our dedicated talent pool at reasonable rates.

We’re in track of the latest tech development trends and help our clients explore new and emerging tech such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Internet of Things (IoT), 3D Web Configurator, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and so on. If you’re an aspiring small biz owner trying to make the most of technology without burning a deep hole in your pocket, connect with our team and get started. Let’s help you build scalable and robust small business software.

Stay up to date on what's new

About the Author

Tony Joseph

Tony believes in building technology around processes, rather than building processes around technology. He specializes in custom software development, especially in analyzing processes, refining it and then building technology around it.He works with clients on a daily basis to understand and analyze their operational structure, discover (and not invent) key improvement areas and come up with technology solutions to deliver an efficient process.