In the digital age in which we live, software plays a fundamental role in any company.
Today's market is full of standard software. Ready-made, tested, inexpensive solutions. They work for many companies, but not for others. Today, companies can choose to have customised software that can be adapted to their specific needs.
Building custom software is not like buying a product. It is deciding to solve a problem in a way that no standard software could do.
Standard vs custom software
Standard software solves common problems. But your problem may not be common.
You may have specific processes that no standard software covers. You may operate in a regulated industry where flexibility is limited. Or you may have built a competitive advantage on a unique way of working.
In these cases, adapting your processes to standard software means losing what makes you different. Or spending hours on manual workarounds that cancel out any initial savings.
Standard software may seem like the ideal solution due to its low initial cost. However, in the long run, this may no longer be an advantage due to licences that increase with the number of users, limited customisation, and dependence on a vendor that may raise prices, change conditions, or even disappear.
Building custom software is a choice that brings tangible benefits, but also challenges that need to be evaluated.
The advantages of software custom
Ownership and total control
The code is yours. If the supplier closes down or changes strategy, you can continue to operate. You are not held hostage by licences, renewals or changing commercial policies. You decide when and how to evolve the software, without depending on a vendor's roadmaps.
Integration without compromise
It integrates with your systems because it is designed with your architecture in mind. There are no manual exports or imports, no duplicate data, and no fragile synchronisations.
Customised scalability
It grows when you need it, how you need it. You don't pay for users or features you don't use. You don't get stuck because the vendor doesn't implement what you need.
Safety inspection
You decide how to manage sensitive data. Where it resides, who accesses it, how it is protected. You don't have to trust the policies of a vendor who can change them.
Real efficiency
Un software costruito sui tuoi processi elimina passaggi inutili, automazioni forzate, campi obbligatori che non servono. Ogni funzionalità è pensata per come lavori davvero.
Competitive advantage
If your way of working is what sets you apart, software becomes part of your competitive advantage. Competitors can buy the same standard software you use. They cannot replicate a system built to your specific requirements.
The challenges of software custom
High initial investment
Building custom software requires significant budget, time and specialised skills. The initial cost is always higher than that of standard software, often by a considerable amount.
Long development times
Unlike off-the-shelf solutions, custom development takes months. The more complex the requirements, the longer it takes. And while you're developing, your business keeps moving forward — sometimes with changing needs.
Need for clarity
If you don't know what to solve, the software will be expensive to build and useless to use. If requirements change constantly, the project drags on and the budget explodes. You need clarity from the outset and to maintain it throughout the development phase.
Continuous maintenance
Custom software is not something you build and then forget about. It needs to be maintained, updated and adapted. You need a stable partner for ongoing collaboration.
Risk of failure
The biggest risk isn't technical. It's building software that works perfectly but doesn't solve the problem it was made for. You can have a clean interface, solid code, everything working — and nobody uses it. Or it gets used but doesn't improve anything.
This happens when you focus more on what you want to build rather than what you want to achieve. When you measure success by software delivery rather than business results. Software is the means, not the end. If you lose sight of what you want to achieve, you are just spending money to create expensive software that you may not need.
Conclusions
The choice between standard and custom is not a matter of preference, but of strategy.
Building makes sense when the alternative costs more in terms of inefficiencies, in people hired to do manually what software could automate, in missed opportunities because the system does not adapt to your way of working.
The competitive advantage you gain must be worth the investment. This is not always the case. But when it is, building becomes the only rational option.
Do not develop custom software if the problem is generic and already well solved by other existing solutions, or if you do not have the resources to manage it over time. Above all, do not do it just because ‘we want something of our own’ or ‘we do not like software X’.
Build it if it's the only way to truly get your company where it needs to go.