Developing a custom-made, professional-grade application is too expensive and takes too much time.You need an application to fill one of your needs. The ideal solution would be to develop a custom application, it would contain only the required features and fulfill all your requirements. Unfortunately, developing a custom-made, professional-grade application is too expensive and takes too much time.
The current solutionsTo solve this problem (cost and time of development too high), one of the following solutions is usually used:
Choose an existing application on the marketDecide to use an application already developed to meet your need. The cost is lower and the implementation time is short. On the other hand, there is usually a big delta between the features of the application and your requirements.
Disadvantages:
• Finding the best application among all the existing ones requires a considerable effort (comparative study).
• Some of your requirements will not be met by the application.
• Unnecessary features lead to unnecessary complexity (management, training, etc.).
• Little control over the evolution of the application (adapt to your changing requirements).
Fulfill the requirements without using a new applicationDecide to fulfill the requirements with the available tools (use excel files with macros, use an application already in place creatively, etc.). There is no acquisition cost and little time required for the implementation. On the other hand, the long-term cost of this solution is high because the time required to manage the tool, train the users and define the processes is great.
Disadvantages:
• Weakness in validations and control of the data.
• Weakness in data security.
• Requires a lot of training and care from the users.
• Demand a lot of effort to support, maintain and improve.