When should you decide to buy custom software? It’s something that will make your everyday work easier, but it’s pretty normal to have doubts before settling on this kind of decision. Luckily, there are tools that let you estimate the costs of an IT system and the risk of your investment.
Custom software is a perfect fit for your taste and needs. Technological solutions designed especially for individual clients aim to optimize their everyday work, automate repeated processes and improve communication. Very often custom software substitutes Excel sheets, which makes the access to the company’s files much easier. It’s a natural consequence of the company’s growth when analog tools stop being enough. The processes’ automation can take the organization to another level, making the workflow quicker and more effective.
It’s worth attending workshops run by a software house before the start of your project. Not only will you spend some time learning about the possibilities of your product, but also you’ll end up with exact requirements.
Sometimes during this encounter clients realize that they should change some processes in their workflow. This moment is enlighting and important for your product development strategy.
A good way to make a proper cost’s estimate is to conduct a pre-implementation analysis. This way the designers get to know how the client works and what their needs are, while the client realises what is technically possible. It also allows the client to save a lot of money, because it prevents major changes in later phases of the project. The workshop ends with specifications needed for the implementation.
You can read more about the pre-implementation analysis here:
https://programa.pl/en/2018/07/Pre-implementation_analysis,_or,_implement_your_IT_project_smartly._5_proofs_of_win-win
ROI (return on investment) is a metric that lets you estimate the return of your investment. To calculate it you can use our calculator or the following formula:
ROI % = (Income – Cost of investment) / Cost of investment x 100%
Thus, making your decision will be easier. Thanks to ROI you can find out how much time you can save or how much more effective your company can become. However it’s a simplification because there are factors that you can’t calculate.
Your investment can cause some intangible benefits, that are difficult to estimate, but you shouldn’t ignore them. Customer experience is a factor that makes a person decide whether to come back to you or not. Maybe, if they’re happy with your product or service, they will become your ambassadors naturally. While desigining a system, remember to take care of its functionality.
Customer experience is one of the pillars of the “economy of experience”. The term economy of experience has been coined by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore in 1998. The authors noticed that the economy has changed: the goods were replaced with products, products changed to services. Now the client is interested in something even more: the experience. When a person goes to a coffee shop they don’t care about buying coffee beans nor about being served, now it’s the general experience of being in a nice place that matters.
You have to think big. What happens after the software house delivers your system? Working with Programa™ you can expect outreach and support. Your system has to be well-maintained, absent from error or malfunctions and constantly updated. This will ensure that your system will work for several years.
If you choose the software house that created the system to maintain it, you save money and time that would be otherwise spent on teaching a new team. Creators can adjust software easily, knowing how they made it.
You can read here about system maintenance.
If you consider implementing custom software, take some time to design it well. To make it serve your needs, it has to match target users. This is why you shouldn’t avoid the first project phases such as pre-implementation analysis.
To estimate the investment’s costs and its return, you can use ROI. It answers the question of when you can expect your investment’s return. However, you shouldn’t neglect the intangible effects of the new system’s implementation such us the general customer’s satisfaction which may lead to bigger loyalty.
Working with a professional team, you can be sure about keeping in touch even after the project is done. The support related to the application’s maintenance will be invaluable.
ROI in IT projects: How to measure efficiency of an investment in IT systems