Bespoke or Off The Shelf
Helps With
- Assessing the cost of each option
- Understanding the benefits
- Identifying hybrid solutions and their features.
Bespoke software is expensive - this is a common perception that we need to examine
Bespoke Advantages
- Exactly matches your requirements
- Can be adapted as business changes
- COST
- One off cost, sometimes with support charges 15% per year
- Bespoke application (eg simple CRM) = £6K-
- FLEXIBILITY
- If well designed can adapt to business needs
Off the shelf Advantages
- May have many (unnecessary) features
- May have many (useful) features
- COST - Licence fees sometimes annual, per user e.g.10 users of Act at £100/user = 1K e.g.10users of MS CRM at £850/user = £8.5K
- FLEXIBILITY -Some reconfiguration may be possible.
Hybrid
If you take something like Act there is little customisation possible. MS CRM is different - although you might pay £8.5K for 10 licences, you probably need to spend a further £8.5K to make it work as you want it to.