10 symptoms that your business needs custom-made software

Companies address various issues with the help of technologies. Workflow automation, optimization of operating costs, on-time cargo delivery, information security, increased sales, enhanced brand loyalty are those goals they reach by using them.

In our highly competitive environment, businesses are striving to fill a market niche, improve performance, and generate profit. However, what to choose—off-the-shelf or tailor-made software? When do you actually need a custom solution? We’ve got the answers!

When do you need tailor-made software?

Before deciding whether your business requires a technological boost or not, analyze your current processes and understand a problem. We’ve collected 10 symptoms indicating that you’ll take a competitive advantage employing custom-made software.

Table of contents

1. Your firm suffers from tons of documents kept in different places

When data is kept in different places (e.g., Excel spreadsheets, files, reports, archives, online sources), corporate knowledge is dispersed, there is no safe storage, it takes time to find the required data.

By integrating a platform and transferring all data to it, you dramatically simplify document management. With established role-based permissions, each team member will have access only to certain information.

Here at Arateg, we created an enterprise content management system for Zorka.Mobi , a global market leader in influencer and performance marketing. With fast access, data centralization, and simple user authorization, employees focused on more important and creative tasks.

2. A high-security level is needed to protect user/business data

When an organization keeps a lot of sensitive information—personal, customer, banking, payment, confidential, enterprise,—it must provide a high-security level. No vulnerabilities, no leaks, no fraud are the key purpose.

Pretty often businesses have to meet security standards or industrial/financial regulations to successfully operate on the market. When everything is protected, there is no risk of hacker attacks which in another case could cost you millions of dollars and credibility loss.

Strong safeguards will let you avert various things involving:

1. Hacker attacks
2. Malware
3. Information distortion
4. Unauthorized access
5. Ransomware viruses

There are many ways to ensure a high-security level. If your platform is built on top of the legacy technology stack, migrate it to new technologies. You can divide a hard-to-maintain monolithic architecture into microservices, each responsible for a separate feature. If something goes wrong with one part, it won’t affect the entire functionality. So, the resolution of emerging issues will go faster.

With cryptographic algorithms under the hood, blockchain offers the security of transactions and information exchange operations. Each activity is recorded on a decentralized distributed ledger as nothing cannot be changed or deleted from it.

3. Plenty of manual operations lead to efficiency decrease

With cryptographic algorithms under the hood, blockchain offers the security of transactions and information exchange operations. Each activity is recorded on a decentralized distributed ledger as nothing cannot be changed or deleted from it.

Strong safeguards will let you avert various things involving:

1. Filling out spreadsheets
2. Price comparison
3. Invoice issue
4. Calculations (e.g., of retirement/insurance/financial plans)
5. Lead scoring.
6. Request processing
7. Answering frequently asked questions (FAQ)
8. Many others

There are many digital solutions for workflow automation. For instance, a web portal will help ensure 24/7 customer support, simultaneously review multiple requests, get reminders, and manage content via an administrator panel.

A chatbot will instantly answer FAQ, assign tasks, communicate via chats/emails, etc. Hence, your organization will generate income and increase client satisfaction.

CRM integration is another useful solution. Through marketing automation, it contributes to sales growth by 29%, sales productivity by 34%, and accuracy of sales forecasting—by 42% (statistics by Salesforce). Learn more about CRM advantages in our article.

4. You’re going to expand

Business expansion is especially difficult when you’re opening a new branch(es), developing new products, or globalizing services. This means an increasing number of tasks, operations, workers, sites, and more.

Depending on purposes, various types of systems may come in handy: ERP, CRM, LMS (learning management system), e-commerce website, blockchain-based platform, loyalty program, etc. The same application is frequently delivered across different countries but with customization to local users’ preferences.

5. You want to build high customer loyalty

The level of loyalty directly impacts sales volume. “The truth about customer loyalty” survey conducted by KPMG in 2019, found that 86% of satisfied consumers would recommend a company while 66% are likely to leave a positive online review.

This research also revealed that 46% would remain loyal even after having a bad experience. 74% of respondents said product quality inspired their loyalty, 66% value for money, 56% appreciate service. Thus, the more people enjoy service, the higher the revenue is.

You can build a mobile application—a rewarding program for collecting points, changing them for real bonuses, viewing special offers, shares, discounts, and receiving relevant notifications.

Another way is to improve internal operations, for example, adopt an AI-based chatbot to partially replace humans in communications with users. People enjoy having instant answers on their questions 24/7 and don’t like waiting.

CRM perfectly suits for increasing user satisfaction. There are plenty of CRM use cases: audience segmentation, setting up email marketing/advertising campaigns, lead generation. However, the goal is the same—enhance engagement, streamline workflow, and boost sales.

6. There are numerous reports requiring efficient management

It’s quite difficult to manage a wide range of reports: sales, marketing, financial, accounting, KPI. With accelerated reporting, all calculations are made faster with embedded formulas, data is visualized in real-time on dashboards, reports are signed with a digital signature, docs are edited via any device.

A tailor-made solution allows downloading reports in any format as well as seamlessly exporting/importing them. Thanks to an integrated RPA (robotic process automation) bot, workers won’t waste time comparing information in different sources.

7. Time-consuming staff onboarding and training trigger project stagnation

Highly qualified specialists are the most important resource for any firm. Established operations, accumulated knowledge, industry specifics, integrated platforms, existing projects may require thoughtful training of new people.

Here a learning management system will perfectly fit your objectives. So, build custom software to rapidly teach staff to perform certain tasks, monitor their progress, and guide them throughout the entire training process.

8. Predictive analytics is required to prevent troubles and avoid risks

Predictive analytics is applied across a variety of sectors: banking, financial, logistics, civil engineering, insurance, transportation, manufacturing, etc. It has crucial importance for:

1. Predictive monitoring & maintenance (e.g., of machinery, equipment)
2. Remote asset monitoring
3. Traffic optimization
4. Risk management
5. Anomaly detection
6. Root cause investigation
7. Decision-making
8. Marketing strategy development

Analyzing behavior patterns, organizations can anticipate risks, failures, and anomalies before they arise. With clear insights into real-time reports, you’ll make more informed decisions much faster.

9. Lack of supply chain traceability causes a risk of theft, losses, counterfeit

Even a single-day cargo delay may trigger a loss of millions of dollars. Sometimes cargo passes through over 150-200 intermediary stages from production to retail store, which complicates coordination and results in the huge document flow. In addition, goods may be stolen, lost, or falsified.

That’s why it’s so important to enable full supply chain traceability: track cargo status, location, conditions, drivers’ activities. IoT-connected devices are irreplaceable for monitoring such things: sensors transmit relevant information to the central system for further analysis/visualization in real-time. Tracking each supply chain aspect, you’ll prevent cargo delays and losses.

10. Automated inventory tracking is necessary to avoid oversupply/losses

To prevent stock discrepancies, each inventory item must be checked and counted. Employees must verify that the right product has been received in the requested form, amount, conditions as well as moved to the right place.

With an efficient inventory tracking system, workers will order the necessary materials, raw stuff, and equipment on time. Push notifications will automatically alert them about expiration dates. This will help avoid losses, reduce human handling, and minimize human errors.

If at least one of ten symptoms has matched with your situation, a technological boost is required. Although off-the-shelf software is generally less expensive and can partially cover the above-mentioned problems, custom products have many cool benefits. See them below.

Top 5 advantages of custom software

1. Full match — tailor-made software solutions are intended to fully meet business-specific needs, processes, security standards, industrial regulations. A turnkey product can’t offer such a high customization level.
2. Improved efficiency — as a developed application totally suits specific requirements, it is likely to better perform necessary tasks. Therefore, the overall efficiency raises.
3. Scalability — your platform should be scalable enough to comply with existing requirements with the ability to swiftly add new features. Turnkey solutions generally don’t provide this facility.
4. Flexibility — while market-ready products often release updates which may be quite expensive and you may not even need them at the moment, with custom ones there is the freedom of implementing changes whenever you want.
5. Security — since there is no the same solution on the market, security increases. Focusing on it from the very beginning, you’ll protect against hacker attacks, malware, viruses.