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Top 4 Ways Outsourcing Custom Software Development Improves Your Business Outcomes

Just over 10 years after Marc Andreessen published his now famous op-ed, ”Why software is eating the world,” it’s clear that every business is now a software business. With software, companies are upending industries and displacing even large incumbents. They’re discovering untapped revenue streams and innovating business models. Edging out competitors. Running their businesses more efficiently and cost-effectively. 

In fact, software has become so business-critical that spending on it continues to increase year over year, even with increasing economic headwinds. Spurred on by the rapid uptick in cloud adoption in the last several years, and the emergence of technologies like AI and ML, enterprise software spending is expected to exceed $400B by the end of 2023 (Forrester) as companies invest in the technologies they need to compete and thrive in a digital-first world.

What is custom software?

Organizations have several options to acquire software, including off-the-shelf or commercial, SaaS and custom. Off-the-shelf and SaaS options make it simple and fast to install and implement technology that delivers business results. 

While convenient, ready-made solutions that are built to meet the needs of a majority of users often don’t meet the unique needs of an individual business. For example, companies may need clearer differentiation from competitors. They may need software that works in their unique, complex environment. They may need software that integrates seamlessly with other apps. 

For these companies, building custom software, sometimes also called bespoke software, makes good business sense. Just like custom-made clothing that is designed to a specific individual’s measurements, style and materials preferences, and budget constraints, custom software is designed and built to meet a specific organization’s unique requirements. With custom software development, organizations achieve more targeted solutions, greater scalability, and increased reliability, in a much more cost-effective way than alternative software solutions.

What are the types of custom software development?

Custom software development is as varied and versatile as the needs of a business. You can custom-develop just about any application for any industry. Here are just a few examples of custom software development.

Custom enterprise web applications 

Whether leveraging an on-premises or hybrid multi-cloud environment, custom enterprise web applications help an organization manage business operations, whether internally or externally. By leveraging responsive and extensible web technologies to deliver business functionality, companies can significantly reduce costs and the time required to develop and deploy the solution. They can also make the solution more accessible to more users, wherever they may be.

Examples include an online shopping and payment processing application, an enterprise content management system, a customer relationship management (CRM) system, an internal project management system, or a supply chain application.

Custom mobile applications

Mobile has become the primary way people access the internet, with mobile devices accounting for nearly 60% of global website traffic. The expansion of the 5g network globally will fuel mobile app growth, too, with faster speeds and lower latency improving the responsiveness of smartphone and tablet applications. Whether for iOS, Android, or something else like wearables, mobile apps are versatile, enabling companies to integrate their enterprise applications with the customers, employees, and partners they do business with every day. Custom mobile apps can enable e-commerce and remote work options so people are able to conveniently transact from anywhere they have cellular service or Internet access. They can deliver new ways for people to interact with and control IoT devices. They can be used for on-demand training. The possibilities are endless. 

Custom e-commerce applications

With e-commerce reaching nearly 25% market share by 2025, many companies see significant opportunities in expanding their online sales. A custom e-commerce application can be crucial when you want or need complete control and flexibility in how you design and implement an end-to-end customer experience that creates delighted customers and passionate brand advocates who keep coming back for more. A custom e-commerce application also gives you more control over integration with your enterprise applications in a way that works best for your business, including optimizing how backend users work with the system. 

Custom data-driven applications

Many companies today are struggling to harness the untapped power of all the data that is coming from the surge in cloud solutions, mobile applications, and IoT devices. Custom data-driven applications can provide a way for you to collect, extract, transform, and load your data into a consolidated data lake in the cloud or on-prem so that you can use predictive analytics and machine learning to obtain actionable insights that improve business outcomes. 

Custom IoT applications

We live in a world full of smart devices, clothing and accessories, smart homes, smart cars, and smart cities. As with mobile apps, the growth of 5g is expected to spur IoT app development. In an Internet of Things (IoT) world powered by billions of interconnected sensors that can be used to collect data on and control lighting, heat regulation, fuel efficiency optimization, medical treatment, and just about anything you can imagine. Whether you need to track data and control devices in a manufacturing environment or combine IoT with big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) capabilities to create a smart, connected enterprise, custom IoT applications can help you build new business models, generate more revenue, and deliver more engaging tailored customer experiences.

Why outsource custom software development?

Outsourcing custom software development services gives companies a way to build exactly what they need so that they can:

  • Innovate faster by getting access to a wider talent pool
  • Get more value from technology investments by building integration with existing products
  • Scale up or down as needed to meet evolving business needs
  • Stay focused on core competencies
  • Reduce risk and improve outcomes 

Innovate faster: Access the best tech talent with a custom software services provider

With technology advancing rapidly and the increasingly urgent push for digitalization across so many aspects of business, your in-house development team may struggle to keep pace. Gartner® estimates, “one in three skills in an average 2017 job posting in IT, finance or sales are already obsolete.”[1] The ongoing shortage of developers further complicates matters. Tech jobs consistently rank at the top of the list of the biggest challenges for recruiters, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the shortage of engineers will exceed 1.2 million by 2026. 

The downstream impacts of the tech skills and tech talent shortages are enormous. The U.S. could miss out on over $160 billion of annual revenues by 2030 if more developers aren’t added to the market (Korn Ferry). The resulting job market squeeze pushes developer salaries higher, making them among the most highly compensated jobs in IT. When companies can’t get the skills they need, the burden often shifts to current employees, which, in turn, contributes to lower morale, lower productivity, and costly turnover.

Building your custom software with an outsourced team in nearby Latin American countries, also called nearshoring, significantly expands the pool of developer talent and skills you can access. Countries such as Costa Rica, Colombia, and Mexico, where Gorilla Logic has dedicated hubs, invest heavily in developing highly skilled workers, host some of the most vibrant and active developer communities in the world, and cultivate global centers of innovation. In addition, Gorilla Logic developers bring fresh ideas to your projects, work in your time zone, speak English fluently, and can quickly become an extension of your existing team.

Scale as needed: Meet surges and drops in demand with a proven custom software services partner

Surges in demand, up or down, further complicate how companies staff for custom software development. For example, your new mobile app might need a team of 100 highly-skilled React developers through launch, but only 10 for ongoing development after the launch. Or, a company acquisition may suddenly require a rebrand and rebuild of your corporate website, straining resources that are already maximized.

With a custom software development services partner, you can eliminate all the headaches of recruiting, hiring, and onboarding talent upfront, as well as all the challenges of re-deploying, reskilling, or upskilling when you no longer need those skills. With Gorilla Logic’s nearshoring approach, you can engage a single development team or a complete Scaled Agile organization. You can keep them working for a few months, or for a few years. You get exactly what you need when you need it.

Optimize for continuous value delivery: Partner with a proven custom software services provider 

When you are building business-critical software products, you need to ensure frequent and consistent delivery of value to the business, from the initial hypothesis to building, releasing, and improving the product over time. In the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®), this is called the continuous delivery pipeline. With a high-functioning continuous delivery pipeline, you can experiment with new ideas faster, reduce the mean time to resolve (MTTR) issues in production, reduce downtime for customers, and more. But building and maintaining a continuous delivery pipeline that delivers high-quality products predictably, reliably, and on a timeline that meets business demands is complex. A custom software services provider can provide the skills, experience, and coaching you need to recommend the tools most appropriate for your team and product, map your existing workflows to the pipeline, identify opportunities for improvements, and monitor delivery through your pipeline so that you can keep the business updated about the value you’re delivering. 

Reduce risk, improve ROI: Trust an Agile custom software services provider

Custom software builds can be complex, and successful business outcomes aren’t guaranteed.  Common failures include overly ambitious or unclear scopes, inaccurate estimates, miscommunication and misalignment between teams and stakeholders, lack of access to sufficiently skilled and experienced staff, budget and timeline overruns, and poor implementation. 

By partnering with a custom software services provider experienced in Agile methodologies, companies can better manage the risks and ensure optimal return on investment (ROI). As a proven custom software development partner to thousands of companies since 2002, Gorilla Logic uses a proven, distributed Agile approach. Our deep Agile expertise, dedicated Agile specialists, and Agile-trained developers make it easy to get all the risk-management benefits of Agile development—prioritization, transparent project management, and smaller iterations at a much faster pace. We start at the beginning, with concept and design, and extend all the way through delivery, deployment, and ongoing maintenance. We use your tools, platforms, and processes, so there’s less disruption with your team. You can be confident of timely, effective communication with your team, because we are staffed with vetted, English-fluent developers who work in or very near your time zone. 

Choosing the best custom software partner: How Gorilla Logic can help you build custom software with less risk and better ROI

Building custom, enterprise-grade software is a unique and complex challenge. That’s why it’s essential that you find the right custom software development partner. When you’re evaluating potential companies, finding the best skills and experience is important. But even more important is a partner that will listen to your unique needs and guide you to the best solution so that you can deliver the business value you need.

As a proven nearshoring partner for your most critical custom software builds, we provide services that are customized to your specific project requirements. We hand-select a team with just the skills you need, drawing from our extensive full-stack mobile and web development capabilities, including UI/UX and front-end development, backend development, DevOps and cloud services, QA testing, and more. We work with your tools and processes, applying a pragmatic Agile process that is customized to your team. From the first sprint to the last, we help you deliver higher-quality products faster, with less risk and better ROI. 

Ready to start your custom software build?

[1] Gartner Press Release, “Gartner HR Research Finds 58% of the Workforce Will Need New Skill Sets to Do Their Jobs Successfully”, 4 February 2021. (https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2021-02-03-gartner-hr-research-finds-fifty-eight-percent-of-the-workforce-will-need-new-skill-sets-to-do-their-jobs-successfully) GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission.

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