Website is the basic level building block of a company or any business. Small projects or those that are barely being completed need a website to remain effective. Websites are useful for many reasons. Online pages of a company or business can store prospective clients’ details, show their achievements or promote their business.

Many companies or businesses consider having a website or a web page to be essential. They hope that the website will attract potential clients and eventually clients will visit the site. Some people already have websites that are well-attractive and functional.

But before a company or business can do the site, it has to choose or find an appropriate software or tool for the project. Custom or custom application, are the terms for the software.

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Custom application development is the buzzword in the field of IT for several years. The reason is that it involves designing or developing a software as per your specific needs. It can be a business application or a software for a particular organization and is different from a software that is mass produced. mass produces software but doesn’t necessarily fit the needs of the company or business.

For instance, a mass produced software for a retailing company will not necessarily fit the needs of a retailingLINE. Custom application development allows the mass produced software to be customized to meet the specific needs of the company. In other words, the parts that are required by a retailing company, but not necessarily necessary in a mass produced product, can be eliminated.

This gives room for enhancement of the software. An efficient system improves the efficiency of the work and client services. This is more costly and harder work. mass produced software can eliminate the unwanted parts, but not the required ones. This creates a problem since the required parts will be deleted from the mass produced software and will no longer be used.

This is where custom application development comes in. The process can be quite complex, but essentially, it involves providing maintenance and enhancements for a software application. Custom development includes the activities like software modification, rework, programming re engineering, maintenance, documentation to reduce the application development time and cost and training.

The complexity of custom application development varies according to the complexity of the software. While mass produced softwares are quite simple to develop and use, custom applications are complex software programs that may need tweaking or information about the software structure change etc. It is therefore important that all the software management team members are aware of the work flow of the software, its implementation and flow of information.

Also, the custom application development process requires information about the database structure. Structural specifications of the software including the types of applications, business rules, data design, test plan, functional specifications etc need to be determined and documented. These design specifications need to be approved by the project owner and all software users. Also, a conceptual data design should be created together with the software itself. This helps in controlling the data belongs to each client or functional group.

Maintaining the cost of development is another challenge that is faced by the software developers. Setting a fixed price for a software development is not possible in every case. Cost and budget have to be worked out as a whole by the project owner, management team and the developer.

Also, the developers need to keep a track of the progress of the software as they progress. Tracking the development cost, the progress, final deliverable etc have to be documented in a manner that can be utilized later.

All in all, custom application development provides scope and flexibility to the clients. It saves time in development and minimizes cost of development. Custom applications are user specific and adaptable to a larger scope of clients.

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