The efforts of custom software development include application modernization, application management, and application customization.
A good custom software development company will always satisfy the needs of their client and make perfect software to maintain the reputation of the company.
Importance of custom software development
There is much importance of custom software development and most importantly it helps in meeting the unique requirements of the clients and that also in a cost-effective way.
Some of the important benefits of custom software development are given below-
Efficiency
The main purpose of the custom software is by supporting the processes in a swift as well as a productive manner without tinkering with the need or adjusting with COTS applications.
COTS stands for Commercial off-the-shelf software.
Scalability
Custom software is very much responsible to grow along with the business and is also able to perform changes according to the changes in the business.
The future needs can be easily accessed by the developers and designers as part of their gathering of requirements. These factors can therefore be incorporated into the given application, instead of incurring the cost which is done by purchasing the licenses or providing subscriptions for packaged applications.
Profitability
This is the main point. Everyone is busy earning money and so with the help of developing custom software money can also be earned.
According to the project's terms and conditions, businesses who are responsible for developing their own software may have the right of owning them and so they can easily license or sell it to various other organizations.
Independence
Organizations are able to avoid hikes in prices for support and licensing. The cost that is there for supporting and maintaining the software is for the organization that is responsible for creating it or developing it.
So the organizations must pay greater attention to paper talks and decide whether they want to buy it or build it for themselves.
Steps of the software development process
The software in our lives is just a blessing from the side of technology. If we are shopping online or chatting with friends it's all possible because of the software that has been developed by the developers.
The software also helps us in playing games, watching videos, and many others. There are different processes by following which software is being developed by the developers. This process must be maintained or else the end product for the client won't be good.
All these steps are known as software development models. A best website development company will always try to maintain their reputation and won't commit anything wrong as they follow any one of the models depending on the requirement of the client.
Some of the examples of software development models are-
- V-model
- Spiral model
- Agile model
A definite step is normally followed by these models in order to complete the development of software. In the process of developing software different models are employed.
The employing of the models basically depends on the team of developers who are developing the software and also on the project that is given by the client. In each of the steps, an end-product is produced which is very much essential for the next stage to get that stage's end product, and finally, at the last stage, the software is developed.
The codes that must be written down by the developers depend on the design of the layout.
Read the blog- How Much Time Will A Custom CRM Software Project Take To Complete?
There are basically six basic steps for custom software development and each of these steps is important. Skipping any of the steps won't allow the developer to develop the software as per the requirement of the client.
The six basic steps for software development are given below-
Analysis and gathering of requirements
This is the first and foremost step for developing software. In this stage requirements for the products that are to be designed are gathered.
The main focus is this step and this for almost every project. Interested stakeholders, product managers play an important role in gathering all information and then putting it together.
Some of the important things that are gathered in this process are product utilization, type of people using the product, type of data that is going into the product, data that is returned in the form of output, and many others. All these problems are solved in this first step of analysis and gathering of requirements.
After gathering all the above problems and then after receiving all the solutions, the condition is analyzed in this step.
Putting the elements in the final product is very important and so the plausibility is assembled and analyzed. Moreover, they are studied carefully and the creation of certain documents takes place. When the process of requirement analysis is completed the team of developers goes to the next stage of preparing the product design.
This product design is basically followed in the whole process of development. All the software development services follow this first step and then proceed to the next step for product design.
It is almost impossible to proceed to the next stage without analyzing and gathering the requirements.
Product design
After completing the first stage of gathering and analyzing requirements, the creation of the product design takes place.
The design is basically created depending on the data of the first step. Product design generally helps in assisting in the specification of important hardware that is necessary for running the product.
In simple words, it can be known as deployment. This step also helps in making out the clear architecture of the general product depicting the modules of the software that is required for developing and their relationships.
This is the stage where the team of developers is engaged in selecting the platform for development. There are many platforms for developing the software and they are Java, NET, Ruby on Rails, Laravel, or FileMaker.
The choice is basically dependent on the platform that is mostly used by the company and also as per the requirements of the product. In this step the designing of the User Interface and also the designing of the User Experience takes place. A User interface is basically designed depending on the preference of the target users.
The next step is the development cycle and that step is followed depending on the model of the product that is designed in this stage.
Coding
This stage is very important and in this stage, the developers must be having proper knowledge about coding. In this stage, the team of developers must be having some plan for implementing the programming language and do the coding.
When the team of developers has received the requirement specification, the developers start the process of coding without doing any further delays. In this phase, not only coding is performed but the developers also do the unit or module testing for detecting the potential problems as soon as possible.
The problems must be disclosed in the earlier phase of development or else it can cause a major issue in the near future. There are many open source development services that are hiring skilled developers depending on their ability to do the process of coding.
There are many companies that normally prefer outsourcing the activities of coding and also the previous step that is the step for product designing to any of the third-party companies of software development.
There may be various reasons for the involvement of the third-party and they may be because of providing their main focus on core services and products, lacking resources, or skilled developers for gathering resources. When the stage of coding has completed the team of developers will now be moving to the stage of testing. An outsourced software development company will always take this process of testing very seriously and do it with proper care or else they wont be able to maintain their reputation.
Testing
When the developers are done with the stage of implementation and coding the next step which they have to go through is the stage for validation testing and integration process.
Different software applications are released by software development companies in a constant manner for different purposes. So the company must pay great attention to this process that is the testing process. Before releasing all the products the company must provide the process of testing against various parameters that are available.
If there are any potential bugs in the product then they are exposed in this process and they are rectified by the developer or the team of developers.
It is basically the software developers who are engaged in performing the unit or module testing that they performed in the previous steps for determining the problems at the early stage.
Then comes the next stage for testing and it is known as integration testing. In this part the testing between the external systems or individual modules takes place. Validation testing is performed after the completion of this integration testing.
The testing is basically done depending on the requirement of the software product and the design of UI/UX from the point of view of the end-user.
Read the blog- What Is Great About Developing Open-source Software?
Software developers can also follow the process of TDD. TDD stands for Test-Driven Development. In order to perform this step correctly, the software developers would have to write a test script.
This test script is basically for the particular requirements and then the code is written in order to fulfill the requirements. After this, the running of the test is done and then adjustment of code is done till the product passes the test. After the completion of this stage and if there are no more problems with the end product, the product is then taken for the next stage that is the stage for deployment.
Deploying the product
After the product is passed through the process of testing, the product is ready to be deployed. When the product is ready, rolling out of the first batch takes place and opened to the public.
This phase is known as Beta testing. During this phase, feedback from the customers is taken and bugs are noticed that cannot be seen in previous stages and they are corrected during this software development phase.
A production server is very much important for the stage of deployment. In this server, the software will be running. The server can be basically of two types one is from the server of the company or the other one can be the cloud servers like Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services.
Maintenance and operation
This is the last stage of the software development cycle. After successfully passing all the steps mention above the product gets to be released in the market.
It is very important to keep the product operational and product maintenance is also required. The process of maintenance and operation includes the process of fixing issues, keeping the software product up-to-date with the change of the latest patches of operating systems.
If there is an increment in the user base for the developed product, the processing power, memory, and capacity of the database must also be increased. This is very much essential in order to run the system in a very smooth manner.
Conclusion
These were the six main stages for developing custom software which is followed by any team of developers. Now the main part which depends on you is the process of selecting them.
Firstly, you will have to set a budget and then hire open source developers or a company who is having previous experience. It is up to you which one you choose. One thing which you must always remember is that you must never compromise with the quality for a cheaper price.
