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Software Development Companies Buyer's Guide
Table of Contents
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What is custom software development?
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What services do custom software development companies provide?
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How to determine whether you need customized software for your business?
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Why you should outsource custom software development?
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What to do before you start looking for a custom software development company?
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Everything you need to know about choosing the best custom software development company for your business
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Where you can find the best custom software development company?
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Questions to ask before you hire a custom software development company
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Factors on which you should shortlist custom software development company
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How to determine the appropriate features for your custom software?
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What is the average cost and time taken by a custom software development company?
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What factors affect the cost of developing custom software for your business?
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Things to consider before closing the deal
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What to do once you hire a custom software development company?
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Tips to integrate your customized software with your business
Innovation is the bread and butter of the business world. Organizations innovate to create new products and special services that provide an out of the world experience to their target customers. However, if your products are unique and your startup creates an experience like no other, buying a commercial off-the-shelf-software from a software development company that knows nothing about your business is a grave mistake.Whether your MNC is trying to enter a new untapped market or your small-scale business is aiming at digitalizing, a custom software, developed just right for your customer with a comprehensive understanding of the experience you want to offer is the way to go ahead.
With the tedious number of options available for choosing the top software development companies in the world, here is everything you need to know about the process.
What is custom software development?
Custom software, also known as the bespoke software is an alternative to the famous commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) for organizations that care about offering the best experience to their customers.
Developers keep the needs of the organization in mind while designing the software making it highly desirable in the market of software development services. Thus, custom software development is based on the needs of the specific organization while the COTS cater to a wider spectrum of requirements. This process of creating, designing, customizing, launching, and maintaining software for a specific bunch of users within an organization is called custom software development.
What services do custom software development companies provide?
There is no running away from the fact that every organization can reach great heights with expert assistance and developing custom software is not everyone’s cup of tea. Hence, the need for the best custom software development companies remains paramount. Custom software development companies besides the basic services of creating, designing, and maintaining the software, offers the following software development services
- Efficient IT consulting
- Deploying the right and advanced technologies suitable for the business environment.
- Designing a user-specific interface
- Dynamic testing services before the solution goes live and post-launch support
How to determine whether you need customized software for your business?
The rumour is in the air that custom software development is an expensive process. However, in reality, as compared to commercial off-the-shelf software, custom software solutions are extremely profitable and cost-effective in the long run. Being a one-time investment, organizations should ask themselves the one golden question: “do I need customized software?”
In order to answer this question always consider the following issues-
- Does your company need a way to handle the chaos bought by new orders?
If your employees are juggling between spreadsheets and manual processes, making Monday morning hell for them, then custom software solution is your ultimate saviour. Moreover, start-ups face the problems of wanting to cover everything at a go, hence face a blizzard of appointments and emails. Custom software can be tailor-made to improve the coordination between your teams and help your organization function smoothly
- Can’t stretch your arms enough to reach your customers?
Custom software development is your one-stop solution to improve customer engagement. Custom software development services can provide fool-proof methods to use digital solutions to automize a wide range of functions, offer business-specific services and improve employee productivity, leaving your employees enough time to get back to that customer.
- Is your business expanding?
Expanding business means increased workflow and workload in different locations. In order to cope up with the added speed and organize your workflow and workforce, custom software development is a must. Best software developers can make this expansion less chaotic for both you and your customers.
Why you should outsource custom software development?
‘Buy it or build it’ is a common dilemma faced by companies. Here are a few pointers that will surely clear your head-
- Cost slicers: We all know about myths surrounding heavy costs in outsourcing custom software development. However, the truth is the, in-house team of developers comes with escalating overhead costs involving high salaries of IT professionals. Moreover, it is much more than just salaries as it includes tools, licenses. Insurance, hiring, on-boarding, and the list goes on.
- Timesavers: Outsourcing custom software development offers a team of prolific developers working 24*7 and offering their expertise anywhere and anytime. Outsourcing software development definitely brings your software to the market a lot more seamlessly. This leverages productivity and adds to the competitive advantage of the business.
- Ocean of opportunities and talent: Outsourcing custom software development immediately fetches you a pool of the brightest group of IT professionals who optimize your resources, keep your needs in mind and develop revolutionary software for your organization.
- Focus on core business: Let go the burden of recruiting and training employees, off the shoulders of your employees so that they can concentrate on more important aspects of the business namely marketing, business development, sales, and more.
What to do before you start looking for a custom software development company?
- Assess your needs: Before jumping into any conclusion, conduct a valid survey of the various pain-points and needs of the business. This will give a clear idea as to what you would want in your software for seamless work performance
- Referrals are the key: Once you have made up your mind, ask around for potential custom software development companies and their feedbacks. It speeds up the process.
- Time sensitivity: Figure out the right budget and the time period of launching the software that will earn you maximum revenue.
- End-result: Custom software development is a serious commitment and it is advised to undertake a valid study of whether the software is worth the resources. Moreover, also consider whether your customers will appreciate and adapt to technological improvement.
Everything you need to know about choosing the best custom software development company for your business
7 stages of Software Development Life Cycle:
- Planning: This stage is also known as the brainstorming or ‘feasibility study’ stage. During this period developers assess the scope of the project they intend to work on. Identification of a system of development, project plan development, and feasibility analysis are the main motto of this phase.
- Requirements: This phase is a phase that bridges the gap of communication between the team of developers and the business. During this period, stakeholders, CEO, and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) explain their requirements to the experts. These requirements are documented for future reference.
- Design and prototyping: This is the starting point of the actual development of the software. Application architects and developers start designing the software by using design patterns to solve algorithmic problems. Moreover, extensive prototyping is a part of this stage to compare solutions in order to achieve the best results.
- Development: Once the software is designed, the working model of the application is prepared in this stage. The phase requires continuous involvement of the customer so as to meet their expectations without affecting the cost of the software solution.
- Testing: This stage, if conducted efficiently, is the golden ticket to a successful launch. During this period the software developed has gone through myriad tests like unit testing, security testing, code testing, performance testing, and more. This ensures the quality and longevity of the software.
- Deployment: After the software successfully completes the testing process, it is ready for deployment. Generally, the Application-Release Automation (ARA) tools are used by medium to large organizations to launch the software in the market.
- Support and Maintenance: Even though this stage defines the end of the life cycle, yet it marks the beginning of the real game. The software must be continuously monitored and checked for bugs and other issues that are detrimental to the growth of the software.
Software development strategies
Different organizations adopt different methodologies of creating software namely-
- Waterfall: This traditional linear consists of sequential phases and each phase need to be completed before moving to the next one. It is the most convenient strategy.
- DevOps: This strategy enhances organizational culture by collaborating with different segments of the development life cycle. This strategy is famous for minimizing failures and maximizing reliability, shortening lead times between fixes and releases.
- Agile: This strategy works on developing software in iterations whereby new functionalities are added in small installments. This strategy is the best for risk minimization.
- RAD: Rapid Application Development strategy involves undertaking a compressed development process by designing a high-quality solution at lower investment cost. Medium-sized businesses benefit the most out of them.
The Hiring Process:
Where you can find the best custom software development company?
Finding the best custom software development company will depend on what is the vision and goal of your business. Custom software development companies are located globally and can be as per location, broadly categorized as follows
- Onshore companies: These companies sail with you on the same boat. They are present in your city and you can meet face to face with the developer team. These types of companies are best suited for growing companies that continuously vary in size, ideas, and timing. Moreover, large companies depend on these companies. Onshore companies are known for their higher cost yet dynamic quality and customer service.
- Offshore companies: These companies are comparatively cheaper than on-shore companies and are located outside your country. Customers who have well-defined projects and tight budgets opt for these companies because they require specific details of product requirements and project management.
- Nearshore companies: These companies are typically located in the neighboring countries present in the same time zone. Companies that are already working on a project and require assistance from a few additional developers opt for these companies. In short, this is a productive option for a staff augmentation model that is characterized by larger project timelines. They are pricier than offshore companies but worth the extra penny.
- Hybrid companies: These companies give the benefit of an onshore location and cost-benefit of that of an offshore software development company. Generally, companies opt for these companies to boost their MVP.
There is an exhausting list of custom software development companies in each of these categories. However, these lists are meaningless if they are not based on well-researched factors like expertise, price, user ratings, features offered, reliability, security, and similar other metrics. The above list has been curated on the foundation of data analysis of hundreds of expert reviews and on-ground experiences to ensure that you don’t waste your valuable time surfing through websites. End your probing here with a well-defined list of software development service providers.
Questions to ask before you hire a custom software development company
- How well aware are you of my requirements?
This is the most basic question that will decide whether you choose or reject the company. You would not want your developer to be clueless about the project or go off track. The developer’s understating of the project must match your idea of how your desired software looks like. This forms the foundation of a dynamic custom software development.
- Can we communicate with a few of your previous clients?
If you are on the hunt of the best custom software development companies, then customer reviews are the most credible source of information that you could ever ask for. This small survey will give a powerful insight into the company’s quality of work, management, areas of improvement, and other factors that will help you in better decision making.
- What is your software development process?
It is imperative to ask your developer on how he plans to go about the project. Ask him to describe the strategy adopted in terms of agile or waterfall or DevOps? You may also ask if the team ever faced a ‘Black Swan’ situation and what measures were taken to overcome the same. This will enable you to understand the competency of the team and whether they are matching your industry needs.
- What are your timeline and communication policy?
Ask your potential software development service provider about a complete timeline with an estimated time of delivery. This will save you from delayed deliveries and bugged software. Ensure you are clear with the channel of communication that you need to follow for a transparent flow of information between the developer and you.
- What are your post-launch maintenance policies?
The real task after the software is developed is to ensure that the company offers post-development support. This includes feature increment, de-budding, updates, and more. Moreover, ensure that the company is clear of the additional costs that follow the post-development process.
- What shall be our role in the development process?
Every project requires a considerable amount of time investment from the customer. However, do not forget to ask, how the company plans to involve you throughout the project. This will ensure that the project is run smoothly without you having to attend to puny issues every now and then.
More Questions to ask to hire the best custom software development company
- How much time have you spent in the industry?
2. Could you tell me about the industry verticals you have worked with earlier? Have you also built a software solution in my niche?
3. Where can I browse through your portfolio?
4. Do you work for all company sizes?
5. What makes you, as a custom software development company, ahead of others in the market?
6. Could you enlighten me about your team and their strengths?
7. How do you go about a project?
8. Do you work on multiple projects at a time? If yes, can I expect your complete attention to my project without any trouble?
9. How do we find if there is a gap in our requirements and the way the project is progressing?
10. Can you shed some light on the process you follow for software designing?
11. Do you have a separate QA team?
12. Will you be taking charge of the entire lifecycle of software development?
13. What if the software fails in the testing phase?
14. How much time would each phase of the development take?
15. On an average, how long does it take to correct a glitch?
16. What kind of security practices do you follow?
17. Who would be responsible for any privacy/security breach?
18. Do you employ risk identification and mitigation methods?
19. How do you prioritize processes and tasks?
20. What do we do if the quality doesn’t meet our expectations and your promised deliverables?
21. How frequently would you be updating the software? Do I have to pay extra for those updates?
22. Will I get a dedicated support team after deployment? How can I reach them?
23. What would be the procedure to end the contract?
Factors on which you should shortlist custom software development company
The process of analysis, evaluation, and negotiation that is shortlisting the best custom software development company is a tedious and nerve-racking task. Here are a few points that should guide your decisions so that you do not end up with a poor deal-
- Portfolio and experience: Undoubtedly, the company portfolio will give you powerful insight into what you are likely to experience in the entire journey of the development life cycle. Industry recognition is one of the most important factors that you should consider before you say yes to the team. The best way to judge the reliability is to read reviews and ranking of the companies which can be found above.
- Pricing: This is the crossroad where many companies are ruled out from the list. It is important to keep in mind, to shortlist those companies that have transparent pricing models so that you do not end up paying through your nose in the future. The pricing model should be parallel to your pre-determined budget.
- Agility: This is another factor that decides your choice of software development company. The company should not be rigid in its approach and should readily adapt to the changing business environment as it grows in the future.
- Technology and testing: This factor decides the quality of your software and no one likes to tamper with quality. It is important to assess the advanced technologies used by the team of developers and whether they maximize productivity for the business or not. In addition to this, you do not want to launch a product infected with bugs; hence the company should have dynamic bug testing policies.
- Data security: Custom software service providers deal with an ocean of sensitive and personal data and data leak is an absolute nightmare for any organization. Hence, ensure that the dollars you invest are in safe hands and the end-product is free from any intrusions.
Planning and Development:
How to determine the appropriate features for your custom software?
Custom software development, as already explained, refers to the process of creating software solutions for a particular organization or company. Therefore, there are no strict rules to determine the appropriate features for the particular software. The business environment is complex and unique from one organization to another. Similarly, the issues and solutions to those issues vary from one enterprise to another. Therefore, the best way to determine the appropriate features for your custom software is to first understand what and why you need it. If these questions are clear, the features will float up to the surface as your potential developer company will help channelize your requirement into the required features. Howsoever, there are certain features that all types of custom software should possess-
- Easy user-interface: If the software is difficult to operate it will never be successful in the market and your heap of investment will go down the drain. Be it mobile application software or accounting software, convenience is a prime requirement.
- Security: Regulator-approved security policies are of immense importance as a software that cannot offer security defeats the purpose of its very existence.
- Automation: Software solutions are developed to remove time taking manual tasks out of the way. Hence this feature is a key attribute of any custom software solution.
- Branding: Custom software is the best way to increase your brand value. Hence, custom software should possess branding features to leverage the competitive advantage of companies.
- Flexibility: Custom software must be resilient enough to face diverse types of the business environment as dealing with rapid changes is necessary to achieve business growth.
- Data migration and Seamless integration: Custom software should easily transfer records from an existing solution and also integrate with other platforms to improve usability.
Discussion and Discovery:
What is the average cost and time taken by a custom software development company?
Unfortunately, one just cannot use a calculator to calculate the price of custom software since there are various factors that rule its cost and it varies from company to company and from customer to customer. However, credible research revealed the following stats
› Complexity - Simple
- Price - $20,000-$25,000
• Time - 1-2 months
› Complexity - Medium
- Price - $40,000- $80000
• Time - 2-5 months
› Complexity - Complex
- Price - $100,000+
• Time - 6 months+
Moreover, each stage of the development life cycle comprise of a typical time frame of completion -
› Stage of life cycle - Planning
- Time taken (in weeks) - 2-3
› Stage of life cycle - Requirements
- Time taken (in weeks) - 2-4
› Stage of life cycle - Design and prototyping
- Time taken (in weeks) - 5-6
› Stage of life cycle - Development
- Time taken (in weeks) - 3-4
› Stage of life cycle - Testing
- Time taken (in weeks) - 3-6
› Stage of life cycle - Deployment
- Time taken (in weeks) - 1-2
All data collected are based on assumptions since custom software development cost and time frame depends on when what and you want from your developer and what your developer is ready to offer.
What factors affect the cost of developing custom software for your business?
No-man is quite a fan of escalating costs and thus companies prefer to keep them in control. Hence, here are a few factors that drive custom software development cost-
- Size of the software: The number of pages in a software solution depends on the size of the developed software. Generally, small ones consist of 10-15 pages, mid-sized consist of 10-20, and the larger ones above 40 pages. Higher is the number of screens/pages, the higher is the cost, since big software demand more time and human resources.
- Developers: Often you will notice that junior developers are assigned to the team. While the senior developers take charge of the complex tasks, a good amount of work is done by junior developers that speed up the process. therefore, higher the number of experienced heads, higher will be the cost of the custom software.
- Software complexity and design: Custom software development is customer-centric. The features tailored to the software vary between the choices of one customer to another. The higher the number of features, the higher will be the price. In addition to this, design complexity is another major cost driver.
- Timeline and budget: Time is the most significant cost escalator. The lesser desired time of delivery, the higher will be the price of the solution. Moreover, a project that demands developers to spend hours coding and prototyping definitely cost more than those built quickly. Along with time, you would want your software to fit into the budget no matter how lucrative the offer sounds.
- Seamless integration: Third-party integrations are always a boon to the software’s efficiency. However, everything comes with a price so do they. The complex integrations increase cost since they are quite difficult to process. Almost every solution requires a certain amount of data migration that itself drives the cost to a greater extent.
Things to consider before closing the deal
Before you sign the contract and bind yourself with the team for the next few months here are a few pointers that you would not want to miss-
- Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA): NDA is an essential document that proves that the company’s compliance to keep all information related to the project, private. This secures the company from theft and data fraud. Therefore, before closing the deal do not forget to mention this important document.
- Statement of Work (SOW): This piece of document keeps your Intellectual Property safe. It basically means that the coding and all other rights remain with you only. Therefore, if a company does not sign this, it is definitely a red flag and you should not agree to the deal.
- Exit plan: It is better to be prepared for the uneventful than regret. Critical situations such as bad quality, unsatisfactory service, budget failures, and more can never be ruled out completely. Therefore, it is better to discuss with your developer about all potential options to change the agreement if the need arises.
- Fixed price: Finalize the pricing model with your potential developer. Discuss if additional charges would be levied at any stage so that you don’t end up with the longest bill of your life.
- Post-development support: The development life cycle does not end after the creation of the product rather the big picture starts thereafter. Ensure that you are clear about the maintenance services including bug fixing, updates, and more. These tiny details should not be overlooked as they prove fatal to the business’s health.
Closing the deal:
What to do once you hire a custom software development company?
Successfully hiring a software developer who best understands the needs of the business, is experienced and can work within your timeline and budget, is only winning half the war. It is important to ask for regular updates from your developer, keep a track of the costs, and match the progress with your initial plan to ensure that you don’t go off-track. Further, do not be afraid to make development-time changes that can improve your product after consultation with your developer. This is a great time to start any legal paperwork required to launch the software and ensure that administrative issues don’t delay the launch.
Tips to integrate your customized software with your business
Software solutions are designed to relieve your pain points and not to create new ones. However, if you do not integrate your new custom software with the existing system, prepare yourself for an unavoidable disaster. Moreover, implementing a new solution in the workforce often faces resistance and other issues. Here are a few tips that will help you sail through the integration process smoothly
- Train your employees: It is your employees who will finally handle the new custom software. Hence, it is wise to train the ‘Power User’ of your team who in-turn will train the rest of the employees. Moreover, conduct a User Acceptance Test to ensure the new system has integrated well with the existing ones.
- Data Mapping: Data integration plans and designs should be created and deeply analyzed. This prevents issues of data truncation whereby one system’s fields are longer than the other’s.
- Risk management: Overlooking potential risks in the plan is the worst mistake that your project manager can make. Ensure that all risks and threats are predicted, and the risk mitigation, as well as avoidance strategy, is planned.
- Tracking: Tracking your new custom software integration will reveal whether your investment was worth it or not. Measuring improvement and an increase in the efficiency of the business process is a key task that will help your business grow.