“Packaged Software can Kill Your Business”
Running a business without coding knowledge leaves you choosing between costly, inflexible software and expensive custom solutions. However, custom application development offers a third option that gives businesses the power to build tailored applications efficiently, even without coding expertise. This guide will show you how that’s possible.
Today’s world runs on various applications. If you are running a business, you have a lot of tasks and workflows that can be run faster and more efficiently with automation. This can be achieved either with a technology application that runs a single process, or a larger one that handles multiple tasks and processes simultaneously—or maybe a combination of both.
While considering application development, most companies make the mistake of choosing cookie-cutter applications. Which means, they choose generic applications that are tailored to a broad audience. The largest negative impact of this approach is the fact that these applications cannot cover all unique aspects of managing your business.
Packaged Software: What are the Disadvantages for Business Owners?
Packaged software is no longer the preferred option for companies looking to keep their operations scalable. Why? Because they just cannot keep up with your business as it grows and expands. Packaged software is usually meant for generic usage and applications.
They are usually very rigid and cannot accommodate changes to your business or its operational model. That’s why relying on cookie-cutter software can drive your business into a wall—a wall that you will then have to waste time climbing. Here is a detailed look at the drawbacks of packaged software.
1. Too Generic
Packaged software is mostly generic in nature. But that’s their intended purpose: to be used for general utility by a wide range of businesses for their common processes. Generic software is not scalable. It is intended for businesses that need a solution for their current operating capabilities. That is a heavy drawback for enterprises looking to expand beyond their current state.
2. Too Rigid
With packaged software, you don’t get access to the source code. Adding new features to the software and implementing them becomes next to impossible. Which means, your business will take longer to implement all those innovative features that might be essential for your steady growth. Generic software will not be able to serve as a lasting solution for your long-term growth plans.
3. Integration Limitations
As your business grows, new processes and automation requirements may come up. Such new needs, which may not come under the service purview of packaged software, might require additional software. As you purchase new software, you might have to allow more hands into your business pie! These extra costs ultimately add up to wastage, and you don’t want that.
What are Custom Applications?
Custom Applications are tailor-made for the various processes of your enterprise. Most enterprises are making the switch because these applications cover every aspect of the business, and reduce wastages in cost, time and effort significantly.
Custom Applications streamline your business processes and give time back to your business teams, so they can devote more of it to strategic initiatives. Having more time for strategic initiatives is crucial to long-term development.
These applications can be developed using any language on any platform to serve any need of your business. The scope and utility of custom applications are limitless.
What is Custom Application Development?
Custom application development starts with designing and developing a custom application and ends with deploying it successfully.A simple example of custom application development is when companies create custom portals for their HR, freelancing activities. The way these portals operate is unique to the company and that is what makes them custom applications.
With the evolution of technology, a lot of application development has been made easier with automation and also with the help of low-code and no-code platforms. With these platforms in play, custom application development becomes much simpler to handle. In fact, the no-code development process is so simple that decision-makers or business users with zero coding experience, known as citizen developers, can create custom applications with ease.
A recent survey showed that IT professionals in over 80% of organizations have got more breathing room with citizen developers who work with such platforms. This means that the rise of no-code platforms is not showing any immediate signs of decline! Now, let’s examine no-code custom application development closer.
What is No-code Custom Application Development?
Traditional custom application development is a coding-intensive, time-consuming process that requires many hours of skilled manpower to pull off.
But that’s not entirely a cause for concern because we have AI-powered no-code platforms like JIFFY.ai that revolutionized the process of custom application development. No-code custom application development speeds up the entire development process by reducing the need for skilled developers and coding.
No-code platforms enable even novice developers to create efficient applications that can handle a variety of business processes. By taking away the need for detailed programming and enabling developers with a range of tools that simplify the development process, they give developers more time to be creative and intuitive while imagining and ideating comprehensive automation applications.
What does this mean?
As mentioned above, no-code platforms allow users to be more intuitive than traditional programming methods. Therefore, enterprise IT departments can pitch in to provide relevant support to business users and citizen developers when needed. Users can take the reins on building applications that map out the necessary areas of their business processes accurately. No-code platforms provide valuable insights throughout the application development process and allow business users to step into the shoes of developers within no time.
What Makes No-code Custom Application Development More Efficient?
While custom application development brings a lot of business-specific benefits to the table, no-code AI platforms like JIFFY.ai amplify the impact of these benefits and add more. If you are looking to make the switch to no-code custom application development, here are some key benefits you could achieve:
- Cost Effectiveness
- Scalability
- Efficiency
- Easy Customization
- Lower Security Risk
- Ease of use
- Integrations
1. Cost Effectiveness
Building an application using conventional means is not light on your budget. You have to gather your requirements and send them over to your IT department. The department will then build, test, and debug the application, which will be a considerable cost burden to your business.
The simplicity of no-code custom application development helps cut down time and effort, and alleviates the strain on your resources.
2. Scalability
No matter what industry you might be in, your business is looking to grow. The applications that you employ in your business should be able to keep up with its steady growth. Even in the advent of a sudden demand boom, your applications should be flexible enough to adapt and support rapid scaling of your business.
Custom applications can support your business there. By making quick tweaks to your existing applications, they can be tailored to support your growth with ease. Even if you are in the process of restructuring your business, or revising growth strategies, the changes in the workflows and volumes can be captured and easily adjusted with the existing applications, making the impact of the change smaller and its outcome significantly positive.
3. Efficiency
The key selling point for no-code custom application development is its efficiency. Custom applications are developed with the intent of serving specific needs of the users. Therefore, an application made with the users in mind (or even with users directly involved in the project) will work more efficiently, by design, to serve their requirements.
4. Easy Customization
With cookie-cutter applications, if you have to make even the smallest of customizations, you might have to go through the whole hierarchy of the vendor’s customer support systems. Even then, the chances of your requests getting rejected are quite high. If you outsource your application requirements, customization might require a lot of man-hours, and the handover of the solutions and their implementation can be time-consuming.
Custom application development allows for easy customization at any point of time. By opting for custom development, your business users can make easy modifications to the processes under development, and deploy updates easily without taking the applications offline.
5. Lower Security Risk
Commercial applications are usually simultaneously accessed by multiple parties. Which means the security risks are higher and breaches can happen quite often. That’s not favorable for any business.
On the other hand, no-code platforms are cloud-based. With the recent advances in development protocols, no-code platforms follow stronger standards for security, data protection, and compliance. That’s why no-code platforms like JIFFY.ai are considered to be at the edge of innovation in custom application development.
6. Ease of use
With most packaged software, there is a steep learning curve. The application users will need to spend a considerable amount of time and effort picking up how to use the software, and that can be an overhead for your business.
With users being involved in the application development process, no-code custom application development helps to even out the learning curve considerably. As soon as the application is ready and implemented in your system, the training time needed to get it fully operational is minimal to zero and everything related is ‘ready-to-go’.
7. Integrations
Your business might be using multiple applications. Each of these applications has its own features and functionalities that need to co-exist with the others so your business can run smoothly. One of the main hurdles businesses face when bringing new applications into their ecosystem processes is compatibility. If the new application is not compatible with the existing ecosystem, then you might have to face a lot of problems moving forward. Overcoming compatibility issues can be taxing on your resources and time.
No-code platforms like JIFFY.ai offer built-in API integration functions that accommodate a myriad of third-party applications. So, you need not worry about custom-building those connections to various schools of apps for the entire ecosystem to function together.
What’s the BIG Difference? Low-code Vs. No-code Custom Application Development
Modern custom application development is done best by using either low-code or no-code platforms. Both are extremely efficient at helping business users with zero coding knowledge create custom applications with ease. That being the case, there are key differences between low-code and no-code platforms when it comes to custom application development. Let’s look at some.
| Features | Low-Code Platform | No-code Platforms |
|---|---|---|
| Coding Knowledge | Minimal experience needed | Zero Experience Needed |
| Target Users | IT Professionals with some coding knowledge | Business users with zero coding knowledge |
| Ease of Use | Requires more technical understanding | Very visual. Uses a drag-and-drop interface |
| Customization | More flexible with complex customization | Streamlined customization options |
| Learning Curve | Not steep, but time to learn the interface is needed | Next to none. Very simple and easy to use and understand. |
| Development Speed | Faster than traditional coding, but slower than no-code platforms | Extremely fast and intuitive |
The Change You’re Looking for: No-code Custom Application Development by JIFFY.ai
JIFFY.ai is the ultimate AI-powered, no-code platform that puts the innovative power of automation in the palm of your hands. JIFFY.ai’s intelligent AI is capable of top-end natural language processing, machine learning and data analytics, making it agile and flexible enough to meet any of your needs in application development.
Not only is it agile, JIFFY.ai is capable of application development that is up to ten times faster than traditional approaches. Even when you stack JIFFY.ai up against its competitors, the development speeds that JIFFY.ai provides are up to five times faster.
On top of that, JIFFY.ai also simplifies app integrations. The platform’s performance in application development can even cut total ownership costs by up to 50%.
By having JIFFY.ai at your disposal, you can put the thought of packaged software to rest! Say goodbye to those expensive application development contracts and your fear or need for coding.
In summary, custom application development performs really well when carried out through no-code platforms like JIFFY.ai. This is because no-code platforms offer a scalable, cost-effective, and user-friendly solution that is perfect for anyone with an idea in mind.
