Tired of paying for applications with complex features and functions that your users have to wade through to get to the finish line? Do you wish you had the tools to do exactly what you want and need them to do?
Welcome to the world of custom application development, a discipline focused on creating tailor-made applications that meet the specific needs and requirements of your business and your customers.
In recent years, demand for custom application development has grown significantly as many companies reassess their investments in costly Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions with features they don’t need or use. While a new investment is necessary to acquire a custom developed application, the investment ensures that the resulting solution will be adapted to your needs for the foreseeable future.
Whether part of a website, designed for mobile devices, or created as a single mission-critical application, there are several reasons why your organization might benefit from custom application development.
A beneficial investment
Custom application development, specifically designed for your business processes, allows you to assume full control of an application’s functions. Off-the-shelf products can be exhaustingly time-consuming as you try to adapt your processes to the functions of the application.
Custom application development doesn’t bind you to any specific technology, but rather allows you to explore the best possible technologies for meeting your objectives. Developers can even seamlessly incorporate your application into an existing cloud strategy and can ensure compatibility with your entire IT ecosystem.
Additionally, a custom application can be an eco-friendly solution capable of providing you with exactly what you need, yet still be devoid of unused source code and other resources that consume energy for nothing. It can also be cost-efficient in terms of reusability, where certain tried and verified components from a development team’s past projects can serve as ready-to-deploy, durable, and easily maintained pieces of the puzzle.
Last, but certainly not least, custom application development can enhance user experiences with quicker, more efficient, and more direct accessibility and functionality.
The process
Custom application development begins with establishing your priorities. By building a roadmap at the very beginning, you can help identify potential pain points and enable a broad overview of the entire process.
Above all, think big, but start small. Remember, the shortcomings of off-the-shelf products can be blamed on manufacturers, but custom developed apps are your babies. By enabling proof of concept early on in the process, you can gradually increase the scope and functionality of the application throughout the custom development life cycle, while ensuring that all of its individual parts are feasible and functioning. In the long run, that scalability approach will position you well for addressing future needs, with minimal maintenance or alterations required to adapt your solution to a new reality.
Rather than being confined to the rigid restraints of a Software as a Service (SaaS) product, a Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution for custom application development allows for shared resources to be spread across multiple servers, while also enabling modifications to be made on the fly. SaaS limits those capabilities and can sacrifice scope coverage due to the use of a universal code base.
Custom applications can also be developed using previously compiled language packages, such as Java or C#, or can rely on just-in-time code (PHP, JavaScript) read by a processor at the time of an event.
The test of time
It can’t be understated that you don’t want to change your IT ecosystem to accommodate a single application. When you begin a custom application development project, it should be conceived as a solution that will last for the foreseeable future. One way to help ensure that your product will endure the test of time is to automate your testing strategy as much as possible. Doing so will allow for modifications to be introduced and tested instantly and automatically, without requiring time-consuming manual testing for each new iteration.
Additionally, there are currently two main mobile operating systems on the digital landscape - Android and iOS. Rather than choosing a single code base and language to deploy your custom applications, hybrid language can be used to operate as a codebase on both platforms. However, hybrid language has its limitations and can result in blocked access to device functionalities that are designed and governed by language editors such as React Native, Flutter, or Kotlin Multiplatform. Therefore, when beginning the development process, it’s important to convey all of the application’s desired features to the developer to gauge whether or not hybrid language will be suitable.
The benefits of an experienced team
Custom applications development teams can help your company to design responsive, eco-responsible, and cost-efficient applications that leverage a full gamut of technology options. Skilled professionals are trained to provide concrete, effective, and accessible solutions that align with client visions, drawing on best practices developed through years of experience and acquired know-how.
Beginning with the discovery phase - an initial research period to identify the ultimate goals of an application – teams will accompany clients through the entire application development life cycle, leveraging an extensive history of discoveries and analysis to deploy their methodologies.
Custom application development services are best served as technology agnostic, meaning that teams will propose only the technologies best suited to a client’s needs. Additionally, the more fluent a team is in languages, the better. Robust cybersecurity solutions should also be tailored to the realities of clients, using constantly updated frameworks and security patches to remain vigilant. Sites should be tested by in-house cyber security experts to assess every custom application by probing for vulnerabilities with penetration tests, man-in-the-middle attacks, and more.
Following the recent deployment of a website for a major European air carrier, a 30% traffic increase was detected, largely attributable to vulnerability checks from hackers being implemented from a variety of geographical locations. Alithya monitored the traffic closely to ensure that all systems remained protected, and later added a web application firewall (WAF) to prevent future overloads of ping requests as an additional layer of security. Furthermore, if a skillset is required beyond an immediate team, we simply leverage the expertise of our Communities of Practice (CoPs), created to envision the future of things like data, mobile, web, design, and much more.
The bottom line
From setting your priorities, to allocating your budget to address the most critical components of a project, you are the one who calls the shots. In the end, rather than altering your business processes to meet the structure of an off-the-shelf application, you can develop a customized solution specifically designed to enhance the functions of your existing business processes.
While enticingly priced, costs associated with the full lifecycle of off-the-shelf products can be substantial in respect to implementation costs and annual licensing fees. Contrastingly, custom designed applications require a larger up-front investment, but the return on investment in terms of user experiences, functionalities, and long-term maintenance and support can ensure that it is money well spent.
From cost-efficient turnkey solutions, to fully customized applications, present us with your ideas and let our experts find the best technology solutions to bring them to life.