In the digital age, many of our everyday problems have been solved with a simple "click". The app revolution, especially custom apps, has served to bring anyone closer to a world in which new technologies are developing by leaps and bounds.

Now you are thinking of starting a custom application for your company. Great! But you still need to be careful and weigh the pros and cons. Every project is different, priorities are different from each other. While it may be advantageous to embark on the development of a custom application for a project, you may not want to this does not necessarily mean that it is advantageous for another.

In this article, we are going to take a tour of the subject to see the advantages and disadvantages of a tailor-made application, although it is most of the time beneficial for your business. After reading this article, you will be able to make a clear headed decision.

First, what is a tailor-made application?

There are two types of application: on the one hand the web application and on the other hand a native mobile application. Often confused, these applications are very different. Not only are there differences for the user, they are also developed and deployed differently.

A native mobile application is designed for a specific platform, such as iOS for the iPhone or Android for a Samsung device. They are downloaded and installed via an app store and have access to system resources, such as GPS and camera functionality.

A web application, on the other hand, is accessible via an internet browser such as Google Chrome. Unlike a mobile application, it adapts to any type of device. They are not native to a particular system and do not need to be downloaded or installed.

Therefore, an application is said to be customized when it meets by definition a specific need for which no IT solution exists yet. The goal is to create a set of IT processes aimed at simplifying your daily work and optimizing your team's performance.

Tailor-made applications: what are the advantages?

Compared to standard applications, tailor-made applications can offer significant advantages particularly when it comes to a business management application (ERP) or to digital transformation.

Advantage n°1: Automation of your processes

With a custom application, you can perform repetitive tasks in an automatic way. The application will be developed to adapt to your processes and not the other way around. In other words, you won't have to change how you operate, but rather create a tool that will maximize your efficiency.

As its name suggests, a tailor-made application is customizable. It is the application that will give you the functionality responding to the specificity of your profession. Without doubt one of the greatest advantages of digital transformation.

Advantage n°2: Facilitate collaboration

A standard application may not allow optimal integration with your other IT tools, this may have an impact on your efficiency and that of your business.

Fortunately, with tailor-made IT development you can be sure ofa personalized adaptation with the tools you are currently using. Yes, the tools you already use can be optimized and tasks can be automated so that you don't waste your manpower unnecessarily.

This allows your employees to focus on other critical tasks and communicate in real time by creating connections between different software to facilitate collaboration. This results in increased productivity for your teams.

Advantage n°3: Safe application

Opting for a specific and customized application will will expose less to the risks presented by a standard market application.

As you know, the solutions on the market are currently defending themselves against many attacks every month. If a hacker manages to crack this solution, he will be able to easily access your customer data. Which may harm your business even if you are not personally affected.

Advantage n°4: Remain competitive and innovate

To stay in the race against your competitors, you certainly have to go through innovation. This is also the only way to remain competitive. Your business will die if nothing changes or if you stagnate.

Being on the lookout for innovative tools is one option to stay competitive. If your competition is slow to adopt new tools, you can quickly get a head start and gain competitiveness.

In addition, you have to take your competitors into account. If everyone uses the same tools to perform the same tasks, it is going to be difficult to differentiate themselves and this will lead to a loss of competitiveness.

If your project is essential for your business to remain competitive, do a tailor-made web application will make it possible to maintain this competitiveness and even improve it.

Be careful to make good use of it though. If opting for innovative tools is a guarantee to remain competitive, know that making the wrong choice will be fatal and temporary. If it's a good app, everyone will adopt it quickly.

This is why having a tailor-made application is recommended. You have all the freedom to make the necessary integrations for good user efficiency and essential to the proper functioning of your business, and to the realization of your project.

Advantage n°5: Scalable application with rapid technical support

One of the biggest advantages of a tailor-made application is its ease of adaptation to a change in the business. Because beyond the native functions, you will have the possibility of adding functionalities. A new user for example or new processes.

The development of a tailor-made application may adapt the application according to the evolution of your activity, in an agile manner.

The tailor-made application development service provider must have technical support for your web and mobile applications.

This is the case of LANE Digital Consulting, we provide you with a team to meet your technical needs. By knowing your needs and how the application works, we can therefore offer a quick corrective maintenance when you encounter a problem.

Customized applications: what are the drawbacks?

Although we can only have advantages for a tailor-made application. This can still have some drawbacks.

Indeed, design a personalized solution for a project, a gigantic project on which certain points deserve reflection.

Disadvantage n°1: The delay

To set up a tailor-made solution, you will have to devote a little time to:

Recruit developers or find an agency.
Then for a quality work, it will be necessary establish specifications and clearly define the priorities before development.
As for development, it could take a few weeks or even months depending on the size and the scope of the work to complete the project.
Once the application is finished, the transition as for all digital transformation.

Of course, if your project has a short-term deadline, having a tailor-made application may not be the ideal solution. On the other hand, if it is long term, it is really worth giving some thought to the development of a tailor-made application.

Disadvantage n°2: An estimate that is not always obvious

Adding to the delay, accurately estimating the volume of work that will be involved is difficult. Like many things, it's impossible to think of everything in great detail even before development begins. Estimate that you make yourself or with an agency with which you will work will not be exact.

Very rarely it will take less time than expected, otherwise in most cases, this will exceed the time initially planned.

There will always be technical challenges and even with anticipation, this will never be true. In order to reduce this uncertainty, it is best to call on professionals, such as LANE Digital Consulting for example, they will have the skills to take the time when estimating each feature, and get to the bottom of it on the functional and technical side.

Disadvantage n°3: User experience

Although this can be a great advantage of a personalized application insofar as it meets a very specific need: accessibility or readability for people who have a sight problem for example. In this case, the user experience can also become a disadvantage.

Indeed, as it is a tool that does not exist anywhere else, it requires expertise that you may not find in-house.

The situation where you want a tailor-made web application precisely to have an experience adapted to its users and where you end up with average quality is quite common. We must therefore be careful on this point and be sure that if it is an important criterion in the choice of tailor-made, find competent people on this topic will be essential.

Disadvantage n°4: Security

Just like the user experience, for the security of your application you need to surround yourself with the right people.

For an already existing application, for example, the security is solid and the flaws are corrected quickly. You therefore need the same level of security for your application. You can't have broken security under penalty of being impacted extremely negatively if a flaw is one day exploited.

Disadvantage n°5: Resources

Finally, the problems that users encounter usually come from a lack of resources. An existing solution will have a much larger team, as it only deals with one application for several customers.

Developing a tailor-made ERP is a gigantic task. Corn next to other ERPs with considerably more resources than yours, it will be almost impossible to stand out.

On the other hand, if you bring real added value very specific to your business, then tailor-made is possible, as said above.

To conclude...

Today, the software market is led by CRM vendors such as Hubspot. Although very powerful, this software in SaaS mode (Software as a Service) meets a general and not customized need.

At a time when the choice is already immense, it is normal to wonder why develop a tailor-made application?

However, the development of a custom application will really depend on each project.

There are a few things you need to think about before you start designing a custom application.

The deadline : will you have enough time for quality development? In other words, if this is not the case, resorting to a custom application is not necessarily a good solution.
The users do they really have the specific need whether in terms of process, integrations or GUI?
How big is the project compared to competitiveness and competition?
Are there any security obligations incompatible with already existing solutions?

We hope that these questions will help you in your decision making, whether you should opt for a tailor-made solution or a ready-to-use application for your project.

Should we then hire an agency to develop a tailor-made application?

The effectiveness of your actions will have a direct impact on the image of your company. So, you might as well get it right.

Agencies specializing in custom application development, such as LANE Digital Consulting, for example, are professional structures specialized in all the quality procedures involved in the creation of an application.

You will have :

A professional team attentive to your needs
Varied and complementary skills in the design and development of tailor-made applications.
Tailor-made development costs adapted to the size of any project.

Unlike an application developed by an online publisher, un agency always takes into consideration the expectations of the users. Not only from a technical point of view, but also from an emotional and relational point of view. This is where their expertise comes in.

At LANE Digital Consulting, we are halfway between human and technology, we execute our projects with your expectations and quality standards in mind.

We provide maintenance and monitoring of your throughout the product life cycle. In order to regularly refresh the features of the application.

The tailor-made application in summary

What are the advantages of a custom application?

The first goal of developing a tailor-made application is to make operations profitable and meet a specific need. An application is unique and allows one or more tasks to be carried out. It should therefore be easier and faster to use than the manual process carried out previously.

However, if the handling is too complex, then the software will not be adopted by the whole team. This would be a considerable loss in view of the time spent establishing specifications, comparing existing applications, and deploying the chosen solution.

So, it can be beneficial for your business as it:

Contributes to‏‏‎ ‎the automation of your process
Provides you with both innovative and personalized tools, which meet a specific user need.
Reduce your costs and optimizes the use in relation to your business. A return on investment beyond standard market solutions.

Finally, the biggest advantage of a custom application is that you are its creator. Once the application is developed, your company owns it. You therefore do not suffer the updates of the various CRMs as well as the consequent cost of the operating licenses.

Conversely, what are the disadvantages?

The idea of designing a tailor-made application is not given to all projects. It can become an inconvenience and a waste of time if you don't pay attention to certain details.

As we have seen above, designing a personalized solution is a gigantic construction site. If you are considering a short-term project, a bespoke application is probably not the best solution.

In addition, there will always be technical challenges and even with anticipation, the estimate will never be exact.

Having a tailor-made application also requires expertise that you won't necessarily find internally.

Is your project suitable?

The design of a custom application depends on the project. The best solution to know if your project is adapted is to call a specialized agency.

CRMs, and more generally ready-to-use software, will always have their place because they allow processes to be grouped into a functional platform that meets common needs. However, to meet specific needs there is no need to compromise. Feedback from our customers on the use of the tools we have developed with them convinced us that it is preferable to opt for an innovative solution. Choosing to develop a tailor-made application means choosing to make the digitization of its activity profitable.

Our experts can help you estimate your development project. Book your time slot for a 30-minute discovery meeting.

Need advice before you start?

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Tailor-made application: the top 5 advantages and disadvantages

First, what is a tailor-made application?

Tailor-made applications: what are the advantages?

Advantage n°1: Automation of your processes

Advantage n°2: Facilitate collaboration

Advantage n°3: Safe application

Advantage n°4: Remain competitive and innovate

Advantage n°5: Scalable application with rapid technical support

Customized applications: what are the drawbacks?

Disadvantage n°1: The delay

Disadvantage n°2: An estimate that is not always obvious

Disadvantage n°3: User experience

Disadvantage n°4: Security

Disadvantage n°5: Resources

To conclude...

Should we then hire an agency to develop a tailor-made application?

The tailor-made application in summary

What are the advantages of a custom application?

Conversely, what are the disadvantages?

Is your project suitable?

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