Usually, when businesses decide on digital transformation and choose the most suitable approach, they are choosing between two different models:
- Integrating a Software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution is a ready-made system and software infrastructure designed, developed, and maintained by a third party.
- Maintaining a custom software development project from scratch requires a dedicated team responsible for creating a full-fledged software solution that meets business needs and demands.
However, what if we said you can combine the best practices from both approaches in the same digitalization project? This article will explain how a custom software solution can benefit your SaaS integration and save operational costs.
But first, we must define each approach’s core benefits and drawbacks to highlight how their combination can cover issues and enhance advantages.
Pros and Cons of SaaS Solutions
Using SaaS seems almost flawless for businesses. Why would you spend time and money creating software if your core business activities are unrelated to the IT industry? So, why not simply choose an existing software system from the list and pay for using it?
Such a statement appears fair and correct in many cases. In fact, the core advantages of using third-party services offer huge bonuses like:
- Almost immediate integration of full-fledged systems
- Relatively small initial budget for software services
- No need to involve developers for creating or maintaining software
However, if everything were as easy and beneficial, why do the IT market and software outsourcing still exist? The short answer is that SaaS has many apparent issues after some time of use.
Such solutions are managed and maintained by a third party. So, a software vendor decides how to scale the software, what features and services to add, how much it will cost to the end-user, etc. Therefore, as a customer, you must always adjust to the existing services, not vice versa.
For instance, if you use third-party analytical tools and need specific metrics or data-related services to boost your business efficiency or meet your corporate specifics, all you can do is ask your SaaS vendors to enable such functionality. However, there are no guarantees that they will enable or even consider such suggestions in the near future.
Subscription-Based Model
SaaS is subscription-based, meaning you must constantly invest to continue using the software. Subscription platforms also review their prices regularly to correct inflation, gain more resources for software scaling, etc. All the foregoing becomes more budget-intensive in the long run.
Finally, using third-party systems for your business needs poses security risks and issues: your business will likely store vulnerable or crucial data on third-party platforms, a common target for hackers and other ill-wishers. This doesn’t mean that a custom software solution is protected from the same threats; However, as a platform owner, you will have more instruments and control over your security policies and practices.
To sum up, using SaaS makes accessing necessary software-driven instruments for your business cheaper and faster. It allows you to use multiple ready-made features, like AI automation services, without the need to design and develop them on your own. Such platforms are also easier to navigate and use due to a fool-proof and intuitive UX/UI design created and tested over time.
Still, choosing SaaS over custom software means your business must adapt to the existing system and make constant payments to continue working. You might also lack control and the ability to integrate new services or features, making you entirely dependent on your software vendor.
Custom Software Solutions In a Nutshell
On the other hand, choosing to create your own custom solutions easily addresses the foregoing issues. This gives you complete control over the designed software, including the possibility to change or scale functionality on demand. In other words, as an owner, you can adapt the system to your needs.
Conversely, creating an app from scratch requires a large initial budget, experienced software developers, and a lot of time. This is quite inconvenient, especially regarding limited resources, or when you need an urgent solution. Besides, you can’t use the full potential of your software while it is under development.
Despite multiple ways to reduce the resource requirements for software delivery, such as a minimum viable product developer approach (MVP), it is still faster and cheaper to use SaaS on the spot.
As a result, it is possible to say that SaaS integration and custom development are two completely opposite solutions that offer contrasting pros and cons. This makes it hard to find a balance or harmony in satisfying your business needs and goals with a single method. However, who told you that you must choose only one?
Balanced Decision: How to Hit the Jackpot?
Eventually, we can discuss the main idea behind this topic: how to benefit the most from both solutions, covering the imperfections of each independent approach.
First of all, there are two possible approaches to mixing these two solutions:
- You start with custom MVP development to create your central software system with only the most crucial and unique features, while using SaaS as a supplemental solution to enable other services and features that are too complex or expensive to create.
- Choose the most suitable software-as-a-service solution as your main platform. Then, with the help of dedicated software developers in custom software projects, extend your functionality or enable missing features.
The first approach is an excellent choice in certain scenarios. However, the second method is preferable if you want to save costs and time, so we will stick to it.
So, how exactly do custom solutions help to save costs on SaaS business software? Simply put, there are a few core aspects that can be mitigated with the use of custom software:
- Cheaper subscription for services and features
- Less dependence on the SaaS vendor
- Higher system performance and data backup
Cheaper Subscriptions
Depending on the included services and features, subscription-based platforms offer various packages or subscription versions. Usually, such versions scale in price more than a basic subscription model, making it much more expensive to use all features as a service at once.
Additionally, many such functional packages might include services you don’t need or will use occasionally, and you are still forced to pay for each of them. However, thanks to the custom software solution, your business can integrate advanced and tailor-suited features into your basic version of SaaS software, enabling only the required functionality.
Therefore, your company can save money on subscriptions and still have a fully working system that will satisfy all of your demands.
Less Dependence on the SaaS Vendor
Another crucial point is that scaling your software-as-a-service solutions using custom feature development reduces your dependence on the vendor. When you have an alternative services structure, connected to the basic SaaS platform, you can implement changes and fix the bugs independently.
Otherwise, if issues are related to the provided third-party software, you will have to wait until your provider fixes them on their side. Moreover, you won’t depend on the market price changes so much when having your own solutions.
Higher System Performance and Data Backup
Finally, by “cloning” certain SaaS functionality, you can reduce the load on the core platform and keep its performance high. Supplemental bespoke software development services also allow you to create an extra data backup, making it safer and easier to restore data if something goes wrong.
Apart from that, such an approach allows you to scale functionality almost indefinitely, gradually extending the functionality of your solution and setting various processes within it.
For example, to avoid an extra load on data processing, you can create a parallel independent system responsible for only handling big data. When connecting it to third-party software, you can set the parameters and data types to be shared. As a result, you can reduce the third party’s access to vulnerable or NDA information, feeding it only the final processed results. And, as a great bonus, the third-party platform won’t take as many resources to perform such tasks on its side.
How Custom Solutions for SaaS Save Costs?
The math is simple: creating a full-fledged core platform takes a lot of time, effort, and expertise. At the same time, building and integrating separate features from scratch takes much less time and resources.
So, when you choose a ready-made software system, distributed as a service, as your core platform, you skip a few development stages at once. This significantly reduces the required time and resources for proper planning, coding, testing, delivery, and maintenance.
Consider such a mix as a microservices infrastructure, which consists of many independent, yet interconnected modules:
- A ready-made platform for managing and monitoring all the processes, developed and maintained by someone else
- A data backup and processing system to protect vulnerable information and store essential data on your side
- Advanced analytical tools for a more personalized management experience and satisfaction of specific business needs
- An oversimplified clone of the core management platform to reduce the load on various operations
This list can be indefinite, depending on your creativity, requirements, and goals. Still, scaling a third-party SaaS using custom software solutions is much quicker and can take place even with minimal resources, allowing your company to continue scaling on another day.
Noah Nguyen is a multi-talented developer who brings a unique perspective to his craft. Initially a creative writing professor, he turned to Dev work for the ability to work remotely. He now lives in Seattle, spending time hiking and drinking craft beer with his fiancee.
