Define General purpose software. Name two disadvantages. 1)Programs that may not be used to have to be installed as they come as a single package. 2)Some features that are available individually may not be available in these packages. Define special purpose software. Advantages and Disadvantages of Software. The software consists of cells arranged in rows and columns in which the user can manually enter data, including symbols, fractions and special characters. Examples of general purpose software include, word applications, databases, spreadsheet software, Web design and drawing and photo editing programs. Bespoke software advantages and disadvantages aren’t limited to the list given above, of course. But despite the disadvantages, the benefits are still supreme. The first and main fact to have the bespoke software is that it will be tailored to your needs and requirements to function exactly as you need it to.

1. Advantages And Disadvantages Of Special Purpose Application Software
2. Advantages And Disadvantages Of Special Purpose Software In Computer
3. Advantages And Disadvantages Of Special Purpose Software Development

Teams can be divided into four main groups: project teams, self-managed teams, virtual teams, and operational teams. What type of team you have depends on its purpose, location, and organizational structure. Each type of team comes with its unique set of strengths and weaknesses. In order to fully utilize your team, you first need to understand where each type of team works the best.

The Big Book of Team Culture

When we are enjoying the benefits of Internet, how many of us are aware of the flip side of that coin? To maximize Internet's merits, both its advantages and disadvantages should be paid attention to. This type of software needs to be installed separately on a device, and it regularly has interfaces that enables communication between the machine and the user, hence giving rise to many different advantages and disadvantages.

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Project Teams

Project teams are groups of employees who work collectively toward shared goals. This type of team allows you to structure work in a specific, measurable, and time-constrained way. You can assign clear roles, responsibilities, and deadlines. Also, by selecting both experienced and inexperienced workers, you enable them to do informal coaching and mentoring.

There are four main types of project teams:

Functional Teams

These teams are permanent and always include members of the same department with different responsibilities. A manager is responsible for everything, and everyone reports to him. These types of teams are more likely to be found in companies that incorporate traditional project management.

Sometimes, in order to complete a project, several departments need to work together. For example:

• Work on the new product starts with the idea from the marketing department;
  
• The idea is passed down to research and development to determine its feasibility;
  
• After R&D, the design department is tasked with giving it an appealing look and feel;
  
• And finally, the product is made by the manufacturing department.
  

This type of approach is known as ‘baton passing’. It requires a manager that has oversight of the entire project and ensures that there are no obstacles when it comes to transferring work from one team to another.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Functional Teams

Advantages:

• Handles routine work
  
• Line management has control of projects
  
• Pools technical and professional expertise
  

Disadvantages:

• Difficult communication across areas
• Inflexible

Cross-functional Teams

Cross-functional teams are made up of members from various departments. These teams tackle specific tasks that require different inputs and expertise. Even though cross-functional teams are becoming increasingly popular worldwide, a recent study has proven that a whopping 75% of all cross-functional teams are dysfunctional.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Cross-functional Teams

Advantages:

• Can handle a wide array of projects

Disadvantages:

• Takes a long time to develop cohesion
• Diversity can cause conflict

Matrix Teams

These teams are characterized by a “two-boss system”, where an individual report to a different manager for various aspects of his work. This type of team is the product of the Matrix management approach.

Let’s say Jeff, a designer, was given the task of making a design for a new product that marketing provided an idea for and that R&D deemed feasible. By being included in this project, Jeff all of a sudden has two bosses: the first one is a project manager who only cares about the design being done, while the other one is his functional line manager who’s in charge of Jeff’s training, career development, and routine tasks.

While this approach helps the top management retain control over the project without being included in day-to-day decisions, employees are often faced with challenges of dual command: Jeff now has to report to two managers, who might give him conflict instructions, which causes confusion and frustration.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Matrix Teams

Advantages:

• Flexibility for assigned personnel
• Top management controls projects, stays out of daily activities

Disadvantages:

• The team leader is usually unable to choose who will be on the project

Contract Teams

Contract teams are outsourced teams that are tied down by a contract and brought in to complete a part of a project. After the project is completed and the contract has ended, the client can cut all ties to the team, no questions asked.

The project manager is the key to success when it comes to contract teams. The project manager has to:

• maintain constant communication between the team and the client,
  
• compensate for the lack of a team’s physical presence (given that most contract teams work remotely),
  
• bear full responsibility for the success or failure of a project

Advantages and Disadvantages of Contract Teams

Advantages:

• Easy employment of experts
• No need for client training

Disadvantages:

• Difficult assessment of project progress for the client
• Difficult to resolve political and organizational issues

Self-managed Teams

Typically, members of self-managed teams are employees of the same organization who work together, and even though they have a wide array of objectives, their aim is to reach a common goal. There is no manager nor authority figure, so it is up to members to determine rules and expectations, to solve problems when they arise, and to carry shared responsibility for the results.

One of the first major companies that decided to implement self-managed teams was software company Valve in 2012. Around 300 employees have neither bosses nor a formal division of labor. Instead, they are expected to organize themselves around individual or group projects and are obligated to take care of customer support themselves. The work ethic at Valve relied heavily on individual responsibility.

When setting up a self-managed team, you have to define two parameters:

• Levels of responsibility
  
• The autonomy that is given to the self-managed team
  

Research has shown that employees in self-managed teams feel more useful on the job and find their jobs more challenging, although there is no proof that they are actually more productive.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Self-Managed Teams

Advantages:

• Autonomy improves employee motivation;
  
• Team members can manage their own time and handle tasks when it suits them;
  
• You don’t have to pay for an office;
  
• Shared responsibility instills pride in team accomplishments.
  

Disadvantages:

• The lack of hierarchical authority can put personal relationships over good judgment;
  
• It can lead to conformity that suppresses creativity and critical thinking;
  
• An added layer of responsibility is time-consuming and requires skills that some people simply don’t have;
  
• Training time and costs are higher due to a broader scope of duties.
  

Virtual Teams

Virtual teams are made up of people who work in different physical locations and who rely heavily on collaboration tools to get things done together. Virtual teams provide members with a better life-work balance and allow business owners to employ the best experts in the field, regardless of the fact that they live on another continent.

One of the organizations that had the most success with its virtual teams is Automattic, best known by their company, WordPress. Over 100 employees in 43 different countries use WordPress plugin P2 that enables them to communicate with each other in real-time. Also, when a new employee gets on board he receives a $2.000 stipend to improve his home office, gets the latest Macbook, and an open “time off” policy to use to take free time whenever they need.

It may seem a little farfetched, but this policy is one of the key factors behind Automatic’s success: WordPress is now used by 27.5% of websites globally.

Types of virtual teams

According to the Manager’s guide to virtual teams, virtual teams are characterized by three dimensions:

• Time - WHEN people work. They could work during different hours, on different shifts, or in different time-zones.
  
• Space - WHERE people work. They could be working right next to each other or hundreds of miles away.
  
• Culture - HOW and WHOM people work for. ‘Culture’ dimension includes factors such as gender, race, language, profession, education, nationality, as well as political, social, religious, and economic factors.
  

Operational teams

Operational teams support other types of teams. They are formed to make sure that all back-office processes go smoothly.

For example, the Human Resource department doesn’t handle any projects but it has to perform candidate screening, interviewing, and recruiting. If one of the key players decides to leave, HR has to find a substitute so the respective team can carry on its work.

Also, operational teams can have their own projects and function like a project team because they have well-defined roles and responsibilities. For instance, if the accounting department received a task to make an annual financial report by a certain date, they will most likely devise a timeline, delegate tasks, and keep track of deadlines just like any other project team.

What type of team is right for you?

When choosing a type of team to perform a certain task, ask yourself these questions:

• What’s the team’s purpose exactly?
  
• How many people are required, and what will their roles be?
  
• Are selected members capable of self-management, or they require a strong leader?
  
• Is it necessary for them to be located in a single place?
  
• Is their engagement temporary or permanent?
  

If you have a project that requires input from marketing, design as well as the Customer Support department, choose a cross-functional team.

If, on the other hand, you choose to outsource the design, and the agency you have chosen uses a designer that works remotely, the only logical way to go is opting for a mixture of virtual and contract teams.

In practice, you will rarely find a team that can be defined as solely functional or solely virtual: most teams in modern business represent a hybrid of some, if not all of the team types.

Are you having a hard time deciding between custom software development and off-the-shelf software for one of the critical functions in your organization?

Choosing between the two options is, in fact, a very difficult decision to make for any manager or a leader.

Both custom software development and off-the-shelf software require a considerable investment in terms of time and cost, and also affects your company for many years to come.

You would not like to go wrong on this important decision.

You need to understand the advantages of custom software over readily built solutions and vice-versa, and evaluate all pros and cons to make a wise decision.

Custom software can be a viable solution if you chose the right kind of people who provide you with highly customized flexible solutions that are easy to use and maintain.

On the other hand, a ready built solution saves a lot of your time and initial investment.

There are various factors that can help you decide on the right option for your organization.

This includes complexities of your work, the size of your organization, your future plans for growth and of course the most important, financial viability of the solution.

Before you make a final decision, it is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of each option in detail and cases where custom software may be better suited over off-the-shelf software and vice-versa.

Let’s first have a look at what are the advantages of custom software.

• Advantages of Custom Software
• Disadvantages of Using Custom Software

Advantages of Custom Software

Readily available solutions are built on the basis of generic requirements in the category for which it is built which may not fit the way your operations work.

Sometimes, businesses need unique solutions to solve problems specific to their organizations.

Custom Software Development is a popular option for all such companies.

Let’s look into some of the key benefits of Custom Software.

Tailor-made Solution

When you purchase off the shelf solutions, they may or may not be built around your business goals.

Developing a software solution specifically for your company ensures that it is tailored to suit your needs.

In fact, during the process of building custom software, you may find several opportunities to optimize your processes, which leads to higher productivity for your organization.

There are several outsourcing partners who would be willing to analyse the complete set of processes followed within the organization to give you highly optimized solutions for automation.

This will increase your productivity, which in turn makes it financially more rewarding in the long run.

Check out our portfolio page to find out what custom tailored solutions we have created for our customers.

Return on Investment

Custom software development may look like an expensive option at the beginning as a lot of investment is involved in software development but in the long run, they may get you higher returns.

On the other hand, readily built software packages also involve some cost.

At times you may need to purchase extra hardware, high-end servers (sometimes even with version updates) to run them effectively. The additional cost that you need to bear every year is annual license fees.

Custom software is high on investment at the beginning but the costs become almost negligible in the long run.

A detailed ROI needs to be done to find out paying huge sums for custom software development which will pay for itself in few years vis-à-vis license fees during the same period and other costs involved in buying off-the-shelf software.

Security Concerns

One of the benefits of custom written software is that security, as required by your organization, can be inbuilt in the software.

Hackers love the popular commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) and are more likely to find ways through vulnerable portions of such tools to enter your systems.

With custom software, chances on intrusion are considerably reduced as you use your own tool which is predominately used by your own team.

Flexibility

Scalability can be built into custom software easily.

This will ensure that the software addresses any changing needs of your organization. On the other hand, features of an off-the-shelf application remain constant more or less and cannot be manipulated easily.

With off-the-shelf software, you will have to wait for some other company to enhance their features to make your life easier.

This is not the case with custom software, you have a team in hand who can take up all your requests at any time and enhance the features for you.

In case you are outsourcing development to another company, it is always better to ensure maintenance is built into your contracts and they are flexible enough to incorporate any changes that you may need at any point of time.

An agile and flexible team is what you need.

Compatibility

There may be several other tools that your organization may be using.

You may want that all the tools talk to each other and may need to build interfaces which makes it easy to transfer data from one application to other.

These functionalities are very difficult to obtain in an off-the-shelf tool.

This compatibility can, however, be built in a custom software. Off-the-shelf software may have some options to integrate with other software but this may not be too seamless as you may want it to be.

Easy to Operate

Another advantage of custom software is that they are easy to operate as they are not bulky and have just enough features required for your operations.

Off-the-shelf software may have a lot of functionalities based on a generic set of requirements.

You may not be needing many of these functionalities and may be using just some features. The tools become bulky and difficult to operate due to this.

The ease of use increases productivity and reduces costs by automating repetitive tasks. This will increase your profits and lower the cost involved further.

Long-term Risks

Many times, off- the- shelf companies release newer versions of their software and they stop all support for older versions.

Companies also go bankrupt and stop providing any support altogether.

You don’t run such risks if you go for custom software.

You can run your business without worrying about an off-the-shelf software that is being used to run your entire business or a critical function may be discontinued and no further updates or improvements can be received.

A custom software is always available and can be updated as many times as you may want.

Improved Software Support

You get better support from teams working on custom software than off-the-shelf software.

Most of the time, continuous support is built into your contracts with outsourcing partners which means there will be a dedicated team that they will provide you to maintain the software.

This provides better problem solving and defect fixing than the support provided by off-the-shelf software.

The response and resolution time are faster with custom software development and this can be ensured by building Service level agreements (SLAs) in your contracts.

The control of support that you will receive is in your hands and not the other way around.

Competitive Advantage

A custom software is made exclusively to suit the needs of your business.

You can get all kinds of unique features built into the system which your competition may not have.

You have a unique solution in hand which can become your USP (unique selling proposition) and gives a competitive advantage to you over your competitors. An off-the-shelf software is rigid and you need to align your processes against it.

With custom software, you have what you need and you can focus on your target audience better.

This can ensure higher customer satisfaction and more business for you in the long run.

Disadvantages of Using Custom Software

Now that numerous advantages of customized software are listed, let’s look at the flip-side of using custom software.

High Investment

As we discussed above, a huge investment is required to develop a custom-built software.

While it may pay in the long run, the initial investment may be a little overwhelming for some organizations.

A good ROI should be done before deciding on the custom software.

Time Involved

Apart from investment in terms of money, a huge time investment is required to complete the software development process.

While off-the-shelf solutions will give benefits quickly, it may take months or years to actually get the custom software delivered.

The organization need to invest a lot of their time in providing requirements to the outsourcing company or to your in-house software development team.

An off-the-shelf software has been tested for all defects, has gone through elaborate usability tests and is ready to use when it reaches your desk.

This may not be the case with custom software.

The custom software requires investment in terms of time to test the software from a user’s perspective and the process may go through several iterations before you get the desired results.

This whole time spent in various software development phases may be draining for you or the teams working with the outsourcing partner.

Deciding Between Custom Software and Off-the-shelf Software

Now that advantages and disadvantages are listed, let’s go back to our initial question on choosing between the two options.

Here’s is a small checklist for you which will help you decide.

Choose custom software when:

• You need highly customized software that suits your business needs and gives you a competitive advantage and off-the-shelf software may not fit the bill.
• You need it to be compatible with other systems, flexible to include any changes that you may need and easy to use.
• You work with highly sensitive data and security is a concern.
• You are looking to increase your efficiency by automating repetitive tasks, as well as efficiency in the processes obtained through custom software will significantly improve your productivity and reduce cost in future.
• You can afford the cost of the software and ROI goes in favour of custom software due to a productivity improvement and reduced labour requirement.
• You can devote time to custom software development.

Choose commercial off-the-shelf software when:

• Investments are too high or ROI is not in favour of custom software.
• You are a very small organization and there are no plans or opportunities to scale-up.
• No integration requirements or security concerns.
• You are in a hurry.

Custom software often cost much more than off-the-shelf software.

This makes custom software a very expensive option for a smaller business. These higher costs may be easily borne by larger or medium-sized businesses.

They may also benefit hugely from small efficiency increases in the process which may lead to large cost savings as labour requirement is reduced.

A small company which is planning to expand its footprints may also benefit from custom development as needs for highly efficient processes and a quick turnaround would lead to higher cost savings.

They can also benefit from scalability and flexibility offered by the custom software.

To cut the long story short, the best option depends on the circumstances your organization is in.

Advantages of custom software are numerous and they also provide you better control on how you want to run your business and changes that you may need later on, but the decision has to be taken after carefully evaluating the benefits that you will derive both in short-term and long-term.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Special Purpose Application Software

Making wrong decisions may be very costly, choose the most effective solution through which you will be able to serve your customers better without compromising on the profits that you are getting.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Special Purpose Software In Computer

We would like to hear your thoughts on this.

What is an advantage of custom software that really got you thinking more about custom software vs. off the shelf software?

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Special Purpose Software Development

Comment below or contact us if you have any other questions.