Custom Software is essential in ensuring that an organization has the proper software to meet its needs and expectations. Just about every company runs on software in some crucial aspect, from communications to customer service. Sometimes off-the-shelf solutions don’t satisfy specific needs or capabilities. This is when businesses need a Custom Software Development Company to create solutions that are flexible and capable of changing, adapting and growing with the organization.
At InterSoft Associates, we work on perfecting the art of providing the best Custom Software to businesses and organizations. This starts with developing an understanding not just of technical objectives, but business goals. What are you trying to achieve? What is stopping you? What problems are you facing, and who in your company is struggling most, or has the most opportunity for improvement or success? We employ a collaborative and highly consultative process that gains information from all key stakeholders. Our robust review strives to identify your needs and your goals – both short-term and long-term – and your current processes – both manual and automated.
Having the right software for your company is essential in helping you grow your business and improve your profit. Many important factors come into play in order to be an effective Custom Software development company.
What is Custom Software Development?
Custom Software Development is the process of creating and maintaining software to meet an organization’s unique or specific needs. These needs are generally not being met by off-the-shelf software, creating a two-sided issue: On one side, off-the-shelf software isn’t robust enough to meet known challenges, so an organization is not as efficient or productive as it could be. On the other, new potential capabilities or improved outcomes cannot be realized because you don’t even know what might be possible were it not for the limitations of “stock” software. Custom Software solves both problems.
In many cases, an organization would not know it needs Custom Software – it will only know that it is frustrated with the status quo. This can lead to frustrating, time consuming research on the capabilities of existing systems or what alternative off-the-shelf software might be a better fit. At InterSoft Associates, this is the key to our collaborative process: Before we focus on the technical elements, we explore the human elements. Through active listening and guided discovery the right Custom Software Development Company will help steer your strategic direction.
Once it is determined that Custom Software is the best strategic direction for your organization, a team of software developers helps to create the vision that they see for the organization. These developers should work directly and collaboratively with key members of your organization to clearly define the features and goals of the software and then implement the software that is required.
Commercial Software vs Custom Software
There are generally three common types of software.
Commercial software is an application that provides tools for general work. A popular example of commercial software is Microsoft Office, which allows users to perform office and productivity tasks.
Off-the-shelf enterprise solutions like Netsuite or SAP are full-featured, integrated business systems, helping to manage everything from accounting to inventory to customer management.
Custom Software is software that helps your users perform very specific tasks that are unique to your organization in order to positively impact the business. When exploring if Custom Software development is right for you, a business or organization should typically seek out help from an experienced development team. As discussed, this should include a discovery process to better understand goals and objectives. Look for a Custom Software Development company that doesn’t just start writing code and flipping switches. You want a trusted advisor to guide you through what you might need, why, and how your Custom Software will address your specific opportunities and problems.
Benefits of Custom Software
There are a lot of situations where having Custom Software can be the ideal solution for a company.
Unique to a Company
Commercial Software is excellent for general office work, and off-the-shelf integrated software is designed with many different features. However, most businesses and organizations need access to software that is a little more unique and specific.
In determining that Custom Software is the right strategy, specific features can be developed to help a business with its particular needs, often helping them gain a competitive advantage. Trying to perform niche tasks on commercial software likely won’t get anyone very far and can be frustrating and inefficient; niche tasks just aren’t what off-the-shelf software is typically designed for. When there is a need, Custom Software Development and deployment is a great way to increase overall productivity and, ultimately, revenue.
Security
Security is an issue that many companies do not consider when using Commercial Software. Yet as technology grows, threats to manipulating the code in common software are more and more prevalent.
When a company utilizes Custom Software, the risk of a security breach lessens significantly. Developers will need to create a custom code to go along with the software. Because the code is new and not on the market for regular consumers to buy, there’s less exposure to security threats like hacking and ransomware. Of course, it’s imperative that Custom Software is developed with best security practices in mind.
Compatibility
Compatibility is another great benefit to having Custom Software, because part of the development process can include an understanding of how the software should integrate with other systems in use. Where many commercial software systems are limited in their capabilities to “talk” to other software, Custom Software should always be developed with this integration in mind.
Custom Software allows an organization to work efficiently and cohesively across entire systems. Increased efficiency leads to time, and ultimately cost savings.
The Importance of a Design and Development Process
Where software development allows a team of programmers to create and complete a series of tasks, the development only happens after a consultative design is achieved. This is why at InterSoft, our IsAware process starts with discovery, before development.
A robust and effective design and development process is essential to creating a software system that meets the needs of an organization for many years to come. The steps of a development process should involve interactions with stakeholders to explore objectives, understanding functional requirements, and implementation strategies. At InterSoft Associates, we have perfected our Custom Software development process and credit it with our continued success.
The InterSoft Associates’ Interview Process
Our first and most crucial step in our development process is properly identifying the requirements of a business. To accomplish this first step, we conduct thorough interviews with the organizations that we work with.
We interview stakeholders and conduct an in-depth review of all business processes within the organization. The analysis that we perform on an organization’s work processes allows us to pinpoint all business touch-points and then defines how Custom Software can help achieve business goals and opportunities as well as any other problems that may exist..
Development interviews extend to all of management, employees and project managers who will be using the software. Interviews can also extend to those who have helped create designs and developed similar Custom Software programs within our organization.
Not only do we need to gather information to develop software, but interviews also allow us to build healthy business relationships, learn more about the organization, and help us develop a common vocabulary for the project. After this discovery process we can then move to understanding functional requirements and building project plans.
Understanding the inner workings of a business on a professional and personal level is what helps us establish our long-term clients.
The Importance of Long-Term Partnerships
At InterSoft Associates, we view every client as a new partnership. By establishing a partnership, we can do our jobs better and serve you better as well.
Close communication with a business or organization means that we can respond to any issues quickly, and we can stay current to our clients’ upcoming projects. A trusted long-term partnership also lets us innovate and adapt to emerging trends or needs that will shape the evolution of how Custom Software continues to be meaningful to you, our client. This helps companies avoid the struggles of legacy or outdated software, and it ensures that custom systems will continue to integrate with new software solutions a company adopts.
Software Testing Process
To provide high-quality software, a developer team must put their software through a rigorous testing process. The process is to ensure that there are no flaws in the end product. Implementing Custom Software successfully is only possible with a robust testing process.
The Process
At InterSoft Associates, we continuously work on perfecting our Custom Software testing process. Our testing and review processes aren’t just designed for flawless technical performance, but to make refinements with a client’s feedback. The software is reviewed, demonstrated and revised as it is being developed. This iterative process helps to ensure that all objectives are being met as the software development project moves forward. In the rare case of issues arising, these can be dealt with and resolved quickly, with minimum impact on project timing and cost. We also have our developers perform tests on the software during development and production. Every part of our team is a link in a chain of high-quality assurance for our Custom Software. A thorough testing process helps us develop software to perform as expected while revealing any situations we didn’t expect so they can be accounted for in continued development.
Teamwork
At InterSoft Associates we prioritize our personal and business connections with our clients. We involve our clients in the process of designing and in the testing process for their Custom Software, including in creating a testing plan and in conducting their own internal reviews. We compare our clients’ experiences with our own development team’s.
Collaborating with our clients is one of the countless ways we at InterSoft Associates maintain our long-term clients. Allowing our clients to take part in the process builds trust and educates everyone involved, including us.
Development Strategies
For a Custom Software Development Company, strategies are essential in creating a Custom Software product. To develop our Custom Software, InterSoft Associates uses a step-by-step system to create the best software solutions possible. After a thorough Discovery process and developing an understanding of functional requirements, we begin Design.
Design
A Design Document provides details about the requirements and goals of the new software, in response to what we’ve learned in the Discovery process. This may include business rules, key data elements, processes, and workflow definitions. We align with clients on operational, managerial, and decision support information and reports. The Design Document is shared with all key stakeholders, reviewed, and modified accordingly until it is approved.
Create a Final Project Plan
The creation of a development strategy and plan is vital for providing a framework for successful system development and implementation. In our case, our Final Project Plan also details the Custom Software development projects plan and analysis of expected benefits to the client. Major milestones and project timing help keep everybody accountable to delivery dates and positive forward progress.
Development
If you’re keeping score, it’s only now – five steps into our Custom Software Development process, that we actually start development. Everything to this point has been about listening, aligning, and creating a development strategy.
As we develop your Custom Software, we use an iterative methodology that demonstrates work-in-process and allows users to “take it for a ride.”
This approach has two major benefits: it ensures that users’ expectations are aligned, and this approach often fosters new ideas based on what was demonstrated.
The development process naturally helps us iterate any scope or timing changes as a result of in-process reviews. After rigorous testing and once we’re all confident in the outcomes, we move to System Implementation and deploy the Custom Software throughout the organization, ready to deliver on key objectives.
Ongoing Review
After deploying the software, regular review meetings should be scheduled within the first 90 days to review issues and any new requirements or capabilities that can help the organization. After this initial period, meetings, usually quarterly, should be scheduled to answer questions, address issues, and discuss opportunities for improvement.
More About InterSoft Associates
InterSoft Associates has been in the game for over 20 years now. We work endlessly to improve our techniques and help develop and create the best Custom Software to help our clients. Whether a business is big or small, we treat each client in the same friendly and professional manner.
Our goal is to work with our clients to help them achieve what they need to accomplish. We don’t merely provide a service, we provide our clients with an engaging experience.
InterSoft Associates brings a spirit of innovation and collaboration to Custom Software development. We understand that the world of technology is changing. Mobile applications, social media, and the overall internet are changing the way we handle our office work. At InterSoft Associates, we use emerging capabilities and evolutions in technology to your advantage.
Conclusion
To be a good Custom Software development company, the company must have a process and a strategy. The company must also show support for its clients, long-term or short-term.
InterSoft Associates has been working for the past 20 years to provide support and satisfaction to our clients. Each client is a potential long-term business partner in our eyes, and we treat them as such.
