Off-the-shelf or custom software: how do you choose?

The question is not which is better, but where your difference sits.

Take standard for what is common

Accounting, payroll, email. Those processes are the same for everybody, and an existing product is better and cheaper than anything you could have built.

Build custom for what sets you apart

Your particular way of planning, calculating, tracking. That is exactly what a standard product does not do, and where you lose time every day.

The most reliable signal

If somebody in your organisation maintains a spreadsheet alongside the official software, you have found the point where standard falls short.

The hidden cost of standard

Workarounds. Three people spending an hour a day retyping data cost more over three years than the development that would remove it.

The combination

Most often the right answer is standard software joined together by a custom piece. You do not rebuild what exists, you close the gap.