The shift from buying to building
For years, a clear rule applied in IT: first look for an existing product on the market, and only consider custom development if none is available. That logic made sense. Custom software was expensive, time-consuming, and risky. Buying a SaaS product was faster, more affordable, and safer.
That trade-off is shifting. With AI-supported software development, building targeted, custom applications has become faster and more accessible than ever. At the same time, the limitations of SaaS products become more visible as organizations grow and their processes become more specific.
A standard SaaS product is designed for a broad market. This works well as long as your processes fit that standard. In practice, three common bottlenecks tend to emerge.
01
SaaS products offer configuration options, but those have limits. In many organizations, teams end up adapting their way of working to the software instead of the other way around. That leads to compromises that build up over time: workarounds, manual steps, and processes that never run quite smoothly.
02
Many SaaS products use a pay-per-user model. With ten users, that is still manageable. With one hundred or more, licensing costs can rise quickly, especially when you use multiple SaaS products alongside each other.
03
With a SaaS product, your data is hosted on the vendor’s infrastructure, often with an international cloud provider. You have limited control over where that data is stored. For organizations where data sovereignty, compliance, or local hosting are important, this can be an issue.
That does not mean SaaS is always the wrong choice. For many use cases, it remains a logical and efficient model. You outsource part of the responsibility: the vendor keeps the software up to date, secure, and continuously improved. But when the drawbacks start to outweigh that convenience, it makes sense to look at alternatives.
We focus on building relatively compact software products, each designed to support a specific task. This aligns with a composable architecture approach: instead of one large monolithic system, you build smaller, focused applications that work together within your digital landscape.
Think of a custom CRM tailored to your organization’s customer relationships and workflows. A reservation tool that fits how your hotels or restaurants handle bookings. An internal portal where employees access information and follow processes specific to your way of working. A registration system, a workflow tool, or a dashboard that shows exactly the insights your team needs.
The principle is always the same: the software fits your business processes, not the other way around. And when those processes change, the software evolves with them.
What makes the difference compared to five years ago? Agentic Engineering. It is a way of developing software in which AI agents independently carry out tasks within the development process: writing code, generating tests, identifying bugs, and proposing solutions. Our developers direct those agents, review the output, and make the decisions. The AI executes, the human stays in control.
In practice, this means that an application that used to take months can now be delivered in weeks. That has fundamentally lowered the threshold for custom software. Where custom development used to be feasible mainly for large projects with substantial budgets, it is now a realistic alternative to SaaS products that no longer fit.
That changes the trade-off. The question is no longer, “Can we afford to build custom software?” but, “Can we afford to keep using a product that does not fit?”
With a custom software product, your organization owns the product. You own the code, decide where the data is stored, and determine when and how the software is further developed. There is no vendor setting the roadmap or increasing prices.
You choose your own hosting environment: with a major cloud provider if that suits you, in a sovereign cloud if that fits your compliance requirements, or on local infrastructure if needed. You rarely have that level of freedom with a SaaS product.
Many custom development agencies build software as a standalone product. For us, custom software is part of a broader digital landscape. Because we also build the CMS and e-commerce platforms and handle the integrations with your back-office systems, it becomes much easier to fit a custom application into what is already there. The same partner, the same architectural principles, and the same understanding of your systems.
We also work with our clients over the long term. We know the domain, the processes, and the context. That means we do not have to start from scratch when designing a custom product. We understand how your organization works, which systems are in place, and where the opportunities lie. That domain knowledge leads to better software, delivered faster.
We would be glad to think along with you. With our technical expertise and years of experience in digital platforms, we help you make the right choices for your digital landscape.