Generic software is the right answer far more often than software companies admit. Knowing when it stops being the right answer saves a great deal of money.

We build custom business systems, so it may be surprising to read that most businesses should not commission one. Off-the-shelf software is cheaper, faster to adopt and better tested than anything built from scratch. The question is not whether it is good — it is whether it fits.

The signs it has stopped fitting

  • Your team keeps a spreadsheet beside the system to track what the system cannot
  • Work is re-entered by hand from one tool into another
  • You have changed how you operate to suit the software rather than the reverse
  • Per-seat licensing costs now exceed what a purpose-built system would have cost
  • The thing that makes you different from competitors is the thing the software cannot express

The last one is the important one. Generic software is built around what businesses have in common. If your advantage lies in what you do differently, at some point the tool will start pulling you back toward average.

Start smaller than you think

The failure mode for custom software is scope. A system that tries to replace everything on day one takes a year, costs more than planned and is resented on arrival. Replacing one painful process — the spreadsheet everyone hates, the report that takes two days a month — delivers value in weeks and earns the right to do the next piece.

Own what you pay for

If you commission a system, make sure you get the source, the data in a format you can export, and documentation someone else could pick up. Software you cannot take elsewhere is a subscription with extra steps.