Custom PCA Solution vs. Packaged Software
How does PCA's custom solution approach stack up vs. licensing a commercially-available
software package — in terms of cost, risk, time-to-market, and overall fit to your business needs?
It always makes good sense to explore commercially-available software packages as a potential
solution to your needs, especially if time-to-market is
the primary concern. In making this determination, some of the key issues that you want to
explore include:
- Functional Fit — Does the software package offer the core capabilities that you need? Are
you paying for a lot of features that don't need?
- Customization — What is the additional cost to configure or customize the package to suit your
specific data management needs?
- Robustness — Is it a commercial-grade offering built on a real database (E.g. Microsoft SQL
Server or Oracle), or is it simply a User Interface built atop MS Access or something else?
- Integration — What is the additional cost to integrate the software with your
existing business applications (accounting, manufacturing, inventory, etc)?
- Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) — What is the actual cost to own and use the system
over time, taking into account all the factors E.g. Licensing, Training, Data Conversion,
Configuration/Integration, Annual Maintenance & Support?
If you are like many businesses, you will discover that the cost to fit
most commercial software packages to your specific business needs is prohibitive, and the fully-burdened total cost of
ownership over time is more expensive than building a custom solution. For any "outside the box" requirements,
be prepared to open your wallet. Depending upon the application, rule-of-thumb
is 2-3x licensing fees for the professional services necessary to customize and integrate
the package to your specific needs.
|
|
|
|
Software Vendor |
PCA |
|
|
Application "Fit" |
|
80 / 20 Rule |
100% |
|
|
Licensing Fees |
|
Per User/Server |
None |
|
|
Service Fees |
|
2-3x Licensing |
As Needed |
|
|
Maintenance & Support |
|
20% Annual
M&S Fee |
20% Project Fee
(1st Year only) |
|
|
Time-to-Market |
|
3-4 Months |
6-12 Months |
|
|
Risk |
|
High cost-to-switch |
Open (Microsoft) |
When you take into consideration the software licensing costs, the professional service fees necessary
to customize and integrate the software, and the annual maintenance and support
fees, our Clients often discover that it is far more cost-effective to build a custom solution from
scratch, and the results are far superior (and more relevant) to your business needs.
A typical outcome of licensing: 1) you pay a lot more
than you originally anticipate to "fit" the software to your specific business needs; 2)
you are saddled with ongoing licensing, subscription, maintenance and support fees
(fees which grow in proportion to your use); and 3) you are locked into with a single
Vendor solution, with a significant cost-to-switch.
PCA believes there is a better way. Smart Clients provide an ASP-like approach to
centralized, repeatable application deployment and security, with ZERO ongoing Licensing
fees. End-Users get a highly-functional, high performance, easy-to-use and reliable
application powered by industry standard MS SQL Servers.