In recent years, businesses are realizing the benefits of creating a custom app for their organization. In fact, a survey performed by CDW shows that out of 374 executives surveyed, 48 percent report their app development budgets have increased over the last few years and 42 percent are planning to invest in new app development in the coming year.

This reported and projected growth isn’t surprising. Businesses are realizing that off-the-shelf apps just aren’t meeting the unique organizational and process-oriented needs of their company as well as a custom app is able to. Custom apps are helping businesses manage scattered data and processes better than ever. Furthermore, businesses are finding their investments into custom apps “already have produced tangible benefits by increasing efficiency, productivity and allowing employees to work remotely”.

Better Way to Work

People want a better way to work. Off-the-shelf systems require you to change your workflow to match the system and deal with features you don’t care about or that meet your needs. Companies build custom applications to work the way they do. Organizations that continually improve their workflows look to custom applications. In the State of Custom Apps Report by FileMaker, an Apple subsidiary, 83% of Citizen Developers said they “just wanted a better way to work.” These problem-solvers drive innovation and constant improvement.

More Effective, More Efficient

Becoming more productive is critical for all organizations. In the State of Custom Apps Report by FileMaker, 82% of users saw a reduction in inefficient tasks. If you’re doing the right things, then doing more of the right things will have a powerful impact on your organization. Eliminating redundant tasks liberates your staff and the intellectual drain caused by double, or triple, data entry between systems, in addition to reducing data entry errors.

According to Small Business Computing, custom apps cut down on data entry errors by 71 percent. In addition to increased efficiency and decreased margin for error, businesses are also reporting a fast return on investment. After completing a custom application project, DB Services sends out a survey to customers and their responses state the ROI is less than one year in more than 75% of the projects. Once a custom app is deployed, small enhancements only take a matter of hours, days, or weeks to implement.

Better Insights

Businesses today find themselves with islands of data scattered throughout each department as they use many different off-the-shelf products. In addition, many times the data is trapped on a mobile device and/or laptop, and not accessible to your team in real time. Bringing all this data together becomes essential as organizations grow and work together in teams or across departments. In the State of Custom Apps Report by FileMaker, 46% say Reporting and Analysis best describes their custom app.

As Peter Drucker, the founder of modern management, stated: "What gets measured gets improved." The ability to measure productivity and performance is vital for constant improvement. Having a custom application that has the data for analytics is critical to gather quick KPIs and metrics for insights to make the best decisions. All this data available in real-time to staff also reduces the communication needs with co-workers and managers, saving valuable time.

There has never been a better time to build a custom app for your organization. If you’re ready to build a custom application yourself, start with FileMaker Training as we have many types of classes available for the Citizen Developer or Professional Developer. If you want us to help you with FileMaker Development, please contact us to begin the conversation. DB Services has been providing FileMaker Development, FileMaker Training, FileMaker Support, FileMaker Cloud Hosting, and FileMaker Licensing since 2003.