What is Custom Application Development and It's Methods and Practices? There’s no perfect off-the-shelf software. No matter the configuration you have been promised, while buying an off-the-shelf software application there is going to be something you might find missing, often leading to more hassle than they're worth.
All the commercial off-the-shelf software are:
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Generic: do not serve unique business requirements.
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Rigid: changing functions and adding new features becomes unfeasible.
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Difficult Integration: adding packaged software with third-party apps might require re-engineering of code.
But that doesn’t have to be the case.
With custom app development, you can fulfill your unique business needs with ease.
So in this blog, we will look into custom app development, problems with off-the-shelf software, the benefits of custom apps, and how you can create an effective custom app.
What is Custom App Development
Custom application development is the process of planning, designing, developing, deploying, and maintaining an app specifically tailored to meet the needs of a business, user, and function. Custom apps are also known as tailored-made or bespoke software because these apps are customized to address the needs of a specific set of audiences rather than targeting the whole group of people.
Although it might be tempting to get started with a no-code app builder or off-the-shelf one, there’s no surety that it will consist of everything that you will need to meet the requirements and make it successful in the market.
Custom applications are designed with specific purposes like inventory management, customer management, online banking, human resource management, field service equipment management, etc.
The custom app is either developed by an in-house development team or by outsourcing a third-party development team from companies like Decipher Zone. It will go through a similar development process as another web app development, including gathering requirements and using methodologies like DevOps, Agile, RAD, etc. to create, test, deploy, and maintain code.
Why is Custom App Development Important?
We know that the core reason behind developing a custom app is its ability to meet your unique business requirements. But there’s much more to why custom application development is important.
Read: Types of Custom App Development
Some of the benefits of using a custom app are:
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Custom apps make it easier to adapt according to the changing business requirements.
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Being built purposefully to meet your business requirements, processes in custom apps are fast and efficient.
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If your business works with the personal data of the users, eliminating security threats and risks by implementing data encryption and security measures in custom apps becomes easier.
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It minimizes the need to use different third-party applications to achieve certain business functions leading to lower integration costs.
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By developing a custom application, you get complete access and control to enhance and update the app as needed.
How to Build Effective An Custom App
Before designing an effective custom application project, it is important to determine if you truly need one for your business. Other than not wanting to invest in the off-the-shelf software, there must be a genuine need for custom application development.
One of the best ways to find out if there’s already a commercial off-the-shelf software that can provide more than 80% of the functionalities your business needs to:
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Automate unique business processes and transactions
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Meet your business’s privacy and security requirements
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Can handle data as your industry demands
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Can be integrated with legacy data and applications
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Help in consolidating the previous solution and offer better productivity at a lower cost
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Can help in finding better opportunities
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Can grow according to the changing needs
Now if no software can meet 80 percent of the requirements your business has, then you should opt for a custom application.
Read: Best Practices & Tools for DevOps Testing Strategy
But how can you make it efficient and more productive, let’s find out!
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Set Clear Objectives
As stated previously, the custom apps are designed depending on your objectives. So to build a powerful custom application the first thing you need to do is define clear objectives. In short, you should question yourself:
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What do you want to achieve through the custom web app?
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Who is your target audience?
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What is your focused market?
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Does it need to be available in different languages for different countries?
Getting the answer to these questions will help you in setting the right objectives, scope, and characteristics of the custom application.
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Defining Requirements
Now that you have a clear understanding of what you want or don’t want the software to do. It is time to define your requirements in resolute detail to meet customer needs, addressing compliance while staying within budget and schedule that will help you in delivering a high return on investment.
Your requirements should be technically and legally correct, complete, clear, consistent, traceable, verifiable, feasible, design independent, and modular. It should also define the ideal technologies, methodologies, and practices to develop the custom application.
Defining requirements and applying stable development methodologies and practices can help you in getting an effective and innovative custom application swiftly.
Development Methods, Technologies, and Practices for Custom App Development
We know that setting clear objectives and defining requirements plays an important role in creating an efficient and high-performing custom app. But in defining those requirements and objectives, you also need to know about different development methodologies, technologies, and practices.
Read: Best Practices for Unit Testing in Java
So let's start with some of the development methodologies that you need to consider:
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Agile is the software development method that centers around iterative development where requirements and solutions continuously change through collaboration between cross-functional self-organizing teams. Agile breaks business requirements into small functions that allow developers to deliver better values with great predictability and quality to respond according to the upcoming changes. Besides, the regular feedback loop helps teams to identify and fix problems and errors while functionality gets deployed.
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DevOps combines software development and operations to shorten the system development life cycle while offering continuous delivery without compromising the quality of the custom application. It is a set of tools, practices, and philosophies that automate the processes between development and operational teams.
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Rapid application development (RAD), a non-linear method, prioritizes rapid prototyping and feedback rather than long development cycles. It allows developers to create multiple iterations and updates for the software without requiring them to start from scratch every time. RAD ensures that deliverable is quality focused and meets the requirements of the user.
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Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a development method that consists of organizational and workflow patterns to implement agile practices in larger organizations. It includes structures, roles and responsibilities, planning, work management, and values to validate.
Read: Best Practices for API Security
With the knowledge of the methodologies to choose from, we will move ahead with technologies and practices you need to consider before defining the requirements of the project.
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Open source is the software released under license where the owner provides access to the developers the right to study, change, use and distribute the software and its code to anyone. Apache web servers and Linux are open source servers and operating systems that enhance the productivity of developers by offering the reuse of components.
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Put simply, Cloud-based development refers to writing code on a local machine connected to the cloud environment. These cloud environments support designing, coding, integrating, testing, and other development processes to create a custom web application. Cloud-based development only requires a browser that is connected to the cloud infrastructure which makes it swift and convenient to build an app.
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) defines the ability of a computer to do tasks that require human intelligence for decision making. AI can be implemented in the custom app development process to improve the process. For instance, one can add a natural language processing system to their software to analyze needs and suggest improvements.
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Blockchain is a shared, secure, immutable ledger that helps in recording transactions while tracking assets in the business network. It also removes the cost and weaknesses brought by third parties like intermediaries, banks, and regulatory bodies. Blockchain is used by developers to create secured financial applications that can boost business processes.
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Analytics help web applications and their users make sense of a vast volume of data through visualizations, dashboards, and predictive capacities. With APIs, cloud services, and artificial intelligence it becomes possible to implement analytics into the application efficiently.
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Responsive web application technology is a must. With more and more customers using different devices to access a business, it becomes increasingly important to create an app that is responsive regardless of the device being used to access it and provide users with personalized experiences.
Outsourcing Custom App Development Company to Build and Maintain
Once you have decided whether you just want to go with off-the-shelf commercial apps or build a customized app, you can move ahead with buying the commercial version or outsourcing a custom app development company accordingly.
The custom app development company will help you in defining the requirements, finding the right development methodologies, and choosing the right programming languages, and technologies that will work best according to the unique demands of your business.
Read: 7 Best Practices for Testing APIs
By outsourcing the project to an experienced company, you will not only improve the flexibility, user experience, and efficiency of the app but also reduce the development cost and time consumption.
These outsourcing companies will also help in removing the bottlenecks/bugs/errors from the application with ease while maintaining the app after deployment as well.
So what are you waiting for? Get in touch with our experts for further details now!