Advantages And Disadvantages Of General Purpose Application Software
Disadvantages of Real Time Operating System:-There are some disadvantages of RTOS also. So every system has pros and cons so here are some of bad things about RTOS. Limited Tasks: – There are only limited tasks run at the same time and the concentration of these system are on few application to avoid errors and other task have to wait. Examples of general purpose software include, word applications, databases, spreadsheet software, Web design and drawing and photo editing programs. These software provide multiple tools for editing or creating different kinds of projects. It can be adapted to suit different projects within a broad range of tasks, like editing school.
Custom software (also known as bespoke software or tailor-made software) is software that is specially developed for some specific organization or other user. As such, it can be contrasted with the use of software packages developed for the mass market, such as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software.
Advantages:Custom software will generally produce the most efficient system as it is can provide support for the specific needs of the business, which might not be available in an off-the-shelf solution and will provide greater efficiency or better customer service.
Given a suitable approach to development, such as DSDM, custom software will also produce the best or most well-targeted service improvement. Businesses can tailor the software to what their customers want instead of having to choose a package that caters for a generic market. For example one printing business may want software that responds in the shortest time, whereas another printing company may focus on producing the best results, as these two objectives often conflict an off-the-shelf package will normally sit somewhere in the middle whereas with custom software each business can focus on their target audience.
Although not always the most suitable for larger or more complex projects, a spreadsheet allows less technical staff at a business to modify the software directly and get results faster. Custom software can be even more flexible than spreadsheets as it is constructed by software professionals that can implement functionality for a wide range of business needs.
Disadvantages: The main disadvantages of custom software are development time and cost. With a spreadsheet or an off-the-shelf software package, a user can get benefits quickly. With custom software, a business needs to go through a Software development process that may take weeks, months, or with bigger projects, years. Bugs accidentally introduced by software developers, and thorough testing to iron out bugs, may impede the process and cause it to take longer than expected. However, spreadsheets and off-the-shelf software packages may also contain bugs, and moreover because they may be deployed at a business without formal testing, these bugs may slip through and cause business-critical errors.
Custom software is often several times the cost of the other two options, and will normally include an ongoing maintenance cost. This will often make custom software infeasible for smaller businesses. These higher costs can be insignificant in larger businesses where small efficiency increases can relate to large labour cost savings or where custom software offers a large efficiency boost.
Bespoke software can differentiate your business above competitors but it’s not always the most suitable option. Other solutions exist including user friendly database packages such as Microsoft Excel or off-the-shelf solutions designed for your industry.
In this articles there’s so much to go through that I have split it into three parts, the first part will talk about quantitative factors in your decision making process, the second will be qualitative factors as well as the conclusion, the third part is an Efficiency Calculator that will help you measure the quantitative factors within your company.
The quantitative factors are efficiency, staff costs and development costs.
Efficiency
Bespoke development will significantly increase the efficiency of the processes within your business. As long as you hire the right bespoke development team then you will be guaranteed to have better efficiency over either database packages or off-the-shelf solutions. The reason for this is that bespoke software is developed to your business requirements and every business functions differently so all of your idiosyncrasies that make your business unique can be catered for in the most convenient manner.
On the opposite side of the coin off-the-shelf solutions have something to offer when it comes to long term efficiency. Because they are built for the generic market they often adopt industry best practices into the software. If you work differently to the rest of the market then forcing your hand into industry standards can improve systems integration and communications between customers and suppliers. Of course these industry standards can also be developed into bespoke software, it’s just getting the right balance between staying unique and maintaining status quo.
The amount of efficiency gained via obtaining software needs to be considered careful as it will help to determine the most cost effective solution. How much of the work done inside your business can actually be handled by software?
You have common applications of software:
- Customer relationship management
- Communications
- Document generation
- Websites
- Business process automation
All of these can have their efficiency improved by the right software choice however there are many things within a business that can’t be applied to software. If you take a commercial laundry company as an example they will have admin staff who will communication with customers and suppliers, inventory, delivery maps and daily tasks, the efficiency of all of these can be improved by software. However there will be the people cleaning, delivering, collecting as well as repairing the laundry, none of these manual jobs will be affected.
In conclusion it is important to take into account the overall efficiency you think can be achieved by a solution across your whole business. Bespoke software and database packages will be able to reach the entirety of your business where efficiency can be improved whereas off-the-shelf may be limited to certain parts.
Staff costs
Staff cost is a major factor in determining which solution is most commercially viable for your business. The sole focus of most software solutions is to increase efficiency within a business, this efficiency can only be given a monetary value when combined with staff cost. For smaller companies it’s hard to justify bespoke software when costs can be a significant portion of the monthly wage bill, but as a company grows the costs can trifle in comparison to the efficiency savings.
In order to get the best possible look at how your software solution is going to affect staff costs then you need to consider where your software solution is going to increase efficiency. You will probably get a different result if you consider your efficiency saving against all the wages inside of your company instead of applying the efficiency of each job to how much that person gets paid in that job. For example in a company with a manager and secretary where the manager is getting paid significantly more the staff savings will be better if the software solution is mainly making the manager’s job more efficient to a solution that is making the secretary’s job more efficient.
It important to take note of where you think your business will be in the next year or two. You can make a decision to adopt a cheaper software solution as it is the most viable at the current time but if your staff bill rises rapidly then it may leave you losing potential savings in staff efficiency and you will also be faced with a new implementation bill if you decide to jump ship to another solution.
Off-the-shelf packages can be very useful at different stages of the growth cycle within a company and this will depend on which industry the company is in. Some off-the-shelf solutions are quite expensive and require regular license payments and may be suitable for companies with higher staff costs, other solutions may incur a one off fee which will make them more suitable companies will lower staff costs. Something to aware of with off-the-shelf software is that you can sometimes outgrow a package meaning that you will have to start again with new software which can be expensive and time consuming.
Acquisition Costs & Time
This is the main thing that a company will focus on when deciding which solution to purchase, and I have purposefully left it to the end of this section so that it’s clear that this is only one third of the quantitative factors. As explained in the staff costs section the acquisition costs can often be negligible in relation to potential savings in staff efficiency.
Costs will normally get companies to start by using a database package, this is generally the best idea as it means that they can digitise and test out their business processes internally. Although there’s no external cost to this development process there is normally the time of the person inside the company doing this work which generally takes significantly longer than a professional, however for the purpose of this section we can say that these costs are low.
Off-the-shelf solutions depend strongly on the industry, I have seen systems that cover a large section of business for a one off fee of around £400 and yet in other industries the market leaders are charging £1000+ a month for software that isn’t much bigger or complicated. Much of this depends on external market forces and whether the structure within the system needs to be regularly updated, held centrally or has a high complexity. It is important to look at the off-the-shelf solutions within your industry in order to get a rough idea of cost for comparison.
Bespoke software is generally the most expensive of the three, for small companies a project will generally range from £2,000 - £20,000 with medium company’s looking at systems anywhere up to £200,000 and large internal companies into the millions. Bespoke software will also take the longest to get up and running as it needs to get through a whole development lifecycle before it is at the stage of a database package or off-the-shelf solution.
Most companies when they think of software development will only consider the development of the code itself however the stages of requirement acquisition and testing are generally the longest processes. In both of these stages it involves the software company interacting with the business in order to first ascertain the requirements of the software and then to check that the software is functioning correctly to the needs of the business in a way that is intuitive and easy to use. This interaction involves making sure both parties are available and prepared which can be difficult when a business has other priorities and the software company needs to work on other projects in the meantime.
A database package will take the next longest to ‘develop’ but it’s generally done as a step by step process with functionality being added as it is required. The system is up and running quite soon although generally in a minimal form. Off-the-shelf packages normally only need some configuration before they are ready to go. All three options may need additional time in order to transfer existing data into the new systems.
Maintenance
What Is General Purpose Software
A database package will generally be the easiest to maintain as it is often done in-house. Popular database packages such as Microsoft Excel are also quite well known among staff so maintenance can be shared among them. Due to the rigidity in off-the-shelf it generally means that there is little to no maintenance required.
Bespoke software will require ongoing maintenance. In some ways this is more an indication of the benefits of bespoke software as it is only its ability to adapt to the companies requirements that means that it must be maintained. In order to adapt the software must be updated which will often mean it also has to stay up to date with the technologies it uses. This will mean additional time is required but it’s also future proofing your software so you don’t have to start again from scratch in 5 years time.
Training
As mentioned above most staff members will have at least a basic knowledge of the popular database packages and there will be plenty of learning materials online making training easy and cheap. Off-the-shelf packages normally come with online help, manuals and guides which are often free and can even come with free customer support, although it’s normally supplied at cost.
Bespoke software will involve training at the start of the installation process to show staff how the software can be used. This training is then enhanced through a support package which is provided and charged on a monthly basis. This again makes bespoke software the more expensive option but it also means that you are more likely to optimise the efficiency that you will get from the software.
Example
Let’s start with an example of a telemarketer Amanda on an average wage of £25,000 a year. If she employs a bespoke system and someone to train, develop and maintain the system at a cost of £6,000 a year then the efficiency requirements would be:
25, 000 * 1 = 25,000 (Staff cost per annum)
25,000/6,0000 = 4.16 (Efficiency required to cover cost of bespoke software)
100/4.16 = 24% (Efficiency as a percentage)
She would need a system to make him 24% more efficient just to cover the costs. Although this wouldn't be out of the question with a bespoke system you have to consider it in respect to the other options. Most businesses of this size would opt for a database package like Microsoft Excel which is just a few hundred pounds. Let’s say that Excel was able to provide an efficiency increase of 20% and the bespoke system was offering a better 24% efficiency increase. Although the bespoke development is achieving greater efficiency it’s now only by 4% but at an additional cost of £6,000 a year so they are paying 24% more for only a 4% efficiency raise. This is why it is normally best for small companies to choose a database package.
Off-the-shelf solutions are somewhat a half way house here, they will normally give better efficiency than the database package but they often cost significantly more than the generic database packages that you find on the market, you'll have to do research into software to your industry to find out more about this option.
Now let’s consider Amanda 5 years down the line, things have gone well and she’s managed to accrue a team of 10 other telemarketers for his company. Her database package is getting difficult to manage and ahe’s looking at her software options again. She’s paying all his staff the same wages so the calculations are now:
25, 000 * 10 = 250,000 (Annual staff costs)
General Purpose Application Software
250,000/6,000 = 0.416 (Efficiency required to cover cost of bespoke software)
100/0.416 = 2.4% (Efficiency as a percentage)
She now only needs a 2.4% increase in efficiency to cover the costs of the bespoke development that wasn’t viable for her at the start of her business. In the example above bespoke software can give her a 4% increase in efficiency over her database package. That means a saving of:
4 – 2.4 = 1.6% (Difference between bespoke software efficiency increase and required efficiency)
250,000 * (1.6/100) = £4,000 (How much this difference equates to in cost savings)
So by maintaining her database package he is now losing £4,000 a year in lost efficiency. And as some of the £6,000 bespoke development cost would have been going towards further development each year it means efficiency savings to will increase year on year. This is why for most companies it’s important to consider their software options at various stages of growth.
Next...
Now that I have run through the three quantitative factors that you need to consider when deciding to adopt bespoke software then you can either continue to Bespoke Software – Advantages and Disadvantages (Part 2) or go on to our Efficiency Calculator that will give you an idea of how efficient your software will need to be in order to cover its monthly cost.