Choosing Business Application Software: SAAS vs. Custom Software

While selecting software for any business process, basically you have two choices Customized software and Saas (Software as a Service) Solution.

Questions may be arising in your mind as to which one would better solve your purpose and whether the software is flexible enough to change according to the growth of the business? To get the answers of above questions, you need to first know the difference between Customized Software and SaaS Solution.

Customized Software – The custom/bespoke software is an application that can be customized as per the business logic and whenever there are any changes in the processes of the organization.

SaaS Solution – It is a solution which is hosted on cloud and accessed through internet. Basically it meets most of the needs of an organization but necessarily not all the needs are met.

Here are some distinguishing factors, which differentiate both of them and will help you in choosing the one which best suits your business

1. Degree of Customization

This one of the primary advantages of choosing bespoke software development. You can get customized software built as per your requirements.

All the businesses are not same and thus, to fulfill your specific requirements, customized software can only help.

Creating new fields, rules and making it compatible as per your business logic may seem to be impossible if you are using a SaaS solution.

2. Reporting and Analysis

Using a commercial off-the-shelf solution, you have access to very limited reports. It is a challenging task to access reports tailored to your specific requirements from a SaaS solution. While such solutions provide standard reports based on their functionalities, you may not obtain the information you truly need.

On the contrary, with a bespoke application, a Reporting And Analytics tool can be integrated, allowing reporting to be done through third-party tools. This enables a detailed analysis of the current business situation.

3. Functionalities

Because of limited customization, a SaaS based solution cannot give you all the functionalities you require.

Whereas, using customized software would give you the benefit of getting the functionalities as per your business logic and requirements.

4. Training

If you are getting customized software developed, the company would provide you with in-depth training of the complete application as part of their services.

Whereas, for SaaS application, you get online training that too on demand. Organization-specific training is always preferred over generic training for most of the companies.

5. Pricing

It is a fact that the price of customized software is much higher than a SaaS software.

But, the chances of the failure of a custom application are much lower than SaaS software and that has encouraged most of the organizations to get customized software developed for their business purposes.

We Can Help You!

If you are still confused with the decision of whether to build or to buy the software, just get in touch with us.

Our consultants would help you in understanding the pros and cons of customized and SaaS solutions as per your business requirements.

We have the expertise of developing customized multi-channel management software that empowers online retailers to grow their online business.