Made to Order:

Understanding the Advantages of Custom Software for Your company

In today's day and age, it's virtually impossible to run any company without some software system. While many off-the-shelf software options are available to business owners of all sizes, no two businesses are alike, so it's hard to imagine how a cookie-cutter tool could be the right choice for that many companies. Often, companies only benefit from a small percentage of the functions and features that open market software has to offer. At the same time, those companies yearn for features that are not available to them. The answer lies not in adding additional software products or APIs but in investing in high-quality custom software that is tailor-made to meet your company's needs.

A More Productive Team

Every piece of software you introduce into your company's workflow means a significant amount of time your team will need to spend learning to use it. Imagine all the hours your employees waste on software training and troubleshooting when they could be focusing on their roles within the company and keeping your clients happy. Just as important is that your team members don't want to be bogged down by complex software or extraneous workflows; all they want is to do their jobs effectively.

Lower Cost of Maintenance

If we're being fully transparent, as we are wont to do at Zelifcam, we'll admit that custom software is not cheap, and more often than not, that is doubly true of high-quality custom software. However, "you get what you pay for" also applies.

At Zelifcam, we view custom software solutions as investments in your company's future. While the upfront cost may be substantial compared to off-the-shelf options, custom software is a long game, not a short one. Consider the long-term investment; by employing skilled developers to make tools that meet your needs, maintenance costs only decrease over time. Your developers understand your business and what you need your software to do, so making adjustments is easy. The upfront cost pales in comparison to the long-term savings.

A Competitive Edge

If we had to venture a guess, we'd say that most of your competitors use the same off-the-shelf software tools. How can anybody lead the pack if everyone uses the same generic tools? Software determining workflows and strategies instead of the other way around is a surefire way to achieve mediocre performance.

Custom software delivers a competitive edge. The ability to think out of the box and develop creative approaches to growth is the advantage you get by investing in tailor-made tools. The limitations of software have the potential to limit your business, but leave that concern to your competitors while you work with developers to build the tools your company needs to flourish.

If the goal is to stand out, custom software dramatically improves your business's capacity to outshine your competition.

Improved Privacy and Security

When companies purchase pre-made software, the tradeoff for ease and lower cost is increased insecurity. Popular software often poses a greater risk of a data breach; third parties regularly manage all of your information and that of your clients. Thanks to APIs accessible to the public, potential hackers understand the vulnerability of off-the-shelf software and target companies using those products for cyber attacks.

Investing in tailor-made software means investing in more robust security systems with greater privacy for your data. At Zelifcam, our developers create coordinated connections, data input, and output. Potential hackers will have to work much harder to breach our security measures, and quite frankly, they would have a much easier time tapping into systems that use off-the-shelf software.

Compatible Systems

Many businesses fall victim to having multiple software systems operating in their own individual vacuums. Having programs that don't communicate with one another is frustrating and wildly inefficient. Even worse is when developers claim that they can integrate these different programs only to make your entire system more complex and virtually impossible to use. You will always be fighting an uphill battle without compatibility between your software and your operating system.

Alternatively, custom software creates seamless compatibility between every aspect of your business and your operating system. Our developers will ensure that your systems are fully integrated from the ground up and that you don't spend more time trying to get your software to communicate with one another than you do performing your job responsibilities. Our software solutions will simplify your business processes and help avoid countless issues.

Infinite Control

While it's true that software you purchase off the shelf allows for some degree of customization, the possibilities are most certainly limited. This leaves you with a few choices: be restricted in your business based on the shortcomings of your software, implement new APIs that solve the issue at hand but create an increasingly complex workflow, or bring in expert software developers to build a program custom-tailored to meet all of your needs and give you endless control. We don't know about you, but as far as our team at Zelifcam is concerned, the third option sounds like the best. We can create a system that allows you to customize every aspect of your software to best suit your business. We'll build all of the functionality and security protocols with your company's workflow in mind to deliver a tailor-made solution that works in tandem with your business's goals instead of against them.

Increased Reliability

No matter the size of your company, as a business owner, you depend on your software tools to keep your business running smoothly. If you opt for off-the-shelf software, you are at the mercy of the developer when it comes to pricing, user, agreements, terms and conditions, and updates. If the developer goes out of business, you can be sure your company will experience the ramifications and be forced to find a replacement without time on your side. When you employ skilled developers to create a custom solution, that piece of software is yours for life to modify, update, and adjust at your will. At Zelifcam, we always create documentation for the products we build, so if we are not there in the future to provide maintenance or updates, your new developers will be prepared to pick up right where we left off.

Limitless Scalability

The ultimate goal for every business is growing, and by implementing custom software, you are acquiring tools that can scale infinitely alongside your company. Off-the-shelf solutions may be an excellent fit for your business of today, but at Zelifcam, we like to think of the big picture; we imagine the needs of your business of tomorrow, too. Tailor-made solutions are built to grow as you grow and evolve with the ever-changing needs of your business. When you think about the future of your business, you do so with no limitations, and your software should operate in the same way.