The project that looked far too big in 2019
The situation
In 2019 a company director was looking for a way to bring order to his call-centre operation.
He needed to manage:
- incoming customer requests;
- different levels of service;
- the employee responsible;
- moving a request between teams;
- escalation;
- communication history;
- current status.
The need was extremely specific.
The company wanted the process to become clearer and easier to manage.
Why custom development looked too risky at the time
Technically, a system like this could have been built back then too.
Economically, though, the choice looked different.
A custom solution meant a large first step:
- defining requirements;
- a considerable budget;
- several months of development;
- dependence on the developer;
- and only at the end of the project any chance to see how well the system actually fitted the company’s work.
So the director’s reaction was entirely rational:
better to find a finished product.
This was the period when SaaS became the natural answer to a very large number of company processes.
Instead of building its own CRM, helpdesk or task system, a company could buy a ready-made product with a known price and functionality that had already been proven.
What has changed since
Off-the-shelf SaaS has not gone anywhere.
And in many cases it is still the better choice.
But today there is no longer any need to assume up front that a custom solution is too expensive or too complicated for a company.
The economics of software development have shifted substantially.
What used to require long design work and a considerable upfront budget can today often be made real far more quickly.
So between:
a third option has appeared:
build a small solution of your own first, and see whether it really is better.
What we would do first today
In this call-centre example there would be no need to build the whole customer-service platform straight away.
For €1000 you could build a prototype of the main working scenario:
a request comes in → it is assigned to an employee → escalated if needed → the communication history is kept → the manager sees the current status.
That alone would be enough for the director and the staff to genuinely try out:
- whether the process becomes easier to follow;
- whether the information shows up in the right place;
- whether the escalation logic matches reality;
- whether the system helps manage the work;
- whether an off-the-shelf SaaS actually does the same job well enough.
At that point the choice between SaaS and a system of your own would no longer be abstract.
The company could compare a finished product against its own idea, actually working.
Custom software is no longer exotic
This is the most important thing we see differently today.
A solution of your own used to be reserved for situations where:
- the company was large enough;
- the process was critical enough;
- the budget was big enough;
- off-the-shelf products did not fit at all.
Today custom software can also be far smaller.
It can be:
It is no longer something magical, or available only to large organisations.
If a company’s process is specific enough, building a solution of your own can be entirely realistic.
If the prototype proves its value
If the staff try the prototype and it becomes clear that their own way of working really does give them an advantage, the next step is already far more concrete.
In 8–10 weeks the tested process can be developed into a solution for everyday work:
- with user accounts and roles;
- data storage;
- access rights;
- integrations;
- an audit history;
- security;
- testing;
- error handling;
- deployment and monitoring.
And only then does the company take on the larger investment.
Not on the basis of a presentation or a technical specification, but on something it has already seen working.
The main point
In 2019 the choice:
off-the-shelf SaaS or custom development
usually meant:
the safe, relatively cheap option or a large and risky project.
Today that choice is no longer so stark.
A company can build a small part of its own solution first, test it, and only then decide.
That changes the question itself.
Not:
“Can we afford software of our own?”
But:
“Would our own solution be valuable enough here to be worth building?”
And today you can start answering that question for €1000.
a €1000 prototype → a real reaction from staff → a comparison against SaaS → if your own solution wins, 8–10 weeks to a working system.
Are you fitting your company’s process to the software instead of the software to your process?
Show us one specific working scenario. Within a few days we can show what a solution built for your company would look like.