Why do you want to hire a company to design software according to your own requirements? While almost all the software you need is available and easy to buy at a cost of several million to several hundred million. We provide some information to help you decide when to hire custom software design.

1. What is custom software design?

Custom software design is when company A hires software company B to write software to solve the problem that company A poses. Usually in the profession it is called software outsourcing. The business model and business processes are all defined by party A. Party B will design the software, interface design and the entire software architecture to ensure that it meets the requirements of company A

Whether or not Party A owns the source code will depend on the contract and the cost, usually about 20% more cost, Party A will own the entire source code and Party B will transfer the technology.

To make it easier to understand, it is like hiring a construction company to build a hotel building. The construction company builds this house completely according to the homeowner’s wishes and the construction company does not participate in the hotel’s business operations.

2. Software design company and software business company

These are two types of companies that are easily confused because they are called by the same name, software company. Fast Company is a software business company, they build and sell FAST accounting software, they do not accept to write software for any party.

Maytech Company is a software outsourcing company, they do not have their own software to sell, they have a team of programmers who design software on demand for other companies. You cannot buy Maytech’s accounting software unless you hire Maytech to write your own accounting software.

3. When you need to hire custom software design.

When the software for your business is not available on the market, or if it is available, it only meets a maximum of 50% of your requirements.

You should not hire custom software design when there are many software on the market that meet 80-90% of your requirements. For example, never ask to write accounting software, human resource management software or timekeeping software… There are many suppliers on the market and their services have been standardized for decades. If they do not meet your business’s needs, then you should probably review your business, or your business is very, very special.

4. Hire custom software design or write your own software

Advantages of hiring custom software design:

• Quickly get a team of experienced software engineers.
• The cost is many times cheaper than building it yourself.
• No need to manage a team of software engineers when your expertise is not information technology.

Advantages of writing your own software:

• Maximum control of the software system.
• Have a team of engineers who continuously develop and upgrade the software according to the changes of the business.
• Suitable for businesses where software and technology are the backbone of the business, for example, online sales companies, freight forwarding companies, etc.

5. Misunderstandings when deciding to hire custom software design

• Buying software for 10 million, then designing a similar software will probably cost only 15 million.
• When you buy software, you only buy the copyright to use that software, you are not the owner of the software. Therefore, software owners have sold hundreds or even thousands of software licenses for 10 million. So the price of owning the software must be from 1 billion to 10 billion.
• A website with only 5 million must write software on demand for only about 10 million. With a website, you are the sole owner of the website’s content, but the software running underneath that manages the content for you (CMS) is not yours to own. You only have the right to use it or pay for it or for free (if it is an open source CMS like WordPress for example).
• Consulting: The software writing company advises on how to do better business with the software. We often encounter this request during the consulting process with customers. It’s like those who have experience in software must advise us on how to apply it to make it better for business. If the software writing company can advise you on how to apply the software well for your business, that company is a consulting company or a software business company. You can only ask Fast company to advise you on how to apply accounting software best for your business, you cannot ask Maytech software company to advise you on how to sell more products with software.
• You must have your dream. You tell the software company about that dream and they will make it come true. You cannot pay to have a dream.

6. Conclusion

Hiring custom software design (software outsourcing) is a trend, more and more companies are focusing on the core values ​​of the business (core value) to focus on business to improve efficiency. Software is a pioneer in the outsourcing movement because of its specificity. That is because building software requires highly qualified human resources, short implementation time from 6 months to 1 year.

If you need custom software writing, please refer to the custom software writing service at Maytech.