SSP Lifecycle: COTS vs Custom

May 3, 2018 — Ian Martin

Spend any time trying to sell or procure software and you’re bound to hear, “Is SSP Lifecycle COTS or custom software?” What is COTS and what is custom? The acronym COTS has been around for decades, but at the risk of sounding pedantic, I’ll define it again here. COTS stands for commercial-off-the-shelf software and it’s used by project managers or procurement departments to indicate a requirement for software that is available for purchase from a software vendor. This contrasts with bespoke or one-off software solutions that are written from scratch – sometimes using one or more published APIs – to meet specific project or solution requirements.

What’s the big deal anyway?

Most software product companies endeavor to develop and sell COTS software because it’s easier to maintain and offers a repeatable implementation and integration pattern that maximizes earnings from sales and implementation projects. Custom software on the other hand is typically developed by outside (or embedded) consultants or internal staff, and they can be very lucrative (or costly) depending on your perspective. The justifications for custom vary from lack of features and capabilities in the COTS product to the lack of capital funding to procure, implement and integrate the COTS product. Regardless, in procurement departments, COTS has a largely positive association and custom a largely negative one.

SSP Lifecycle is a COTS software product, so why do we still answer questions about COTS vs custom? Something SSP Lifecycle Assets, SSP Lifecycle Workelse must be going on. I think there is a perception that anything that requires coding is custom and custom is bad. The configurable pendulum has swung too far. Software qualifies as COTS even if it requires services to install, configure or integrate with 3rd party systems to meet a customer’s needs. One should extend that to include integrating into custom business processes. No COTS software can hope to address 100% of every customer’s needs. COTS might meet the needs of customer A, but customer B has a different business process, a different regulatory environment and different operations systems to integrate with. It’s simply not feasible for a COTS product to address all these requirements with no coding. However, COTS products can get close. Sometimes they just need a little custom push.

Where does custom make sense?

Custom is not bad if it’s focused on processes as opposed to core features and capabilities. Why the differentiation? If you’ve got gaps in your software that 80% of your customers need, that should be a core feature. If you’ve got gaps in your software that are only occasionally seen or if the reason for the gap is that it’s dependent on a customer’s business process or a recalcitrant 3rd party, that should probably stay custom. Especially when it comes to process optimization.

Process optimization drives savings and helps customers recognize the full value of the solutions they are implementing. Process optimization requires process re-engineering and organizational change management. Many sacred cows must be slaughtered before ROI is achieved. In most cases, true efficiency and costs savings are only realized when processes are taken apart and automated through integration and customer-specific customizations. That requires both COTS and custom software, and we should not overlook the benefits of each when taken in the right dose.

Is SSP Lifecycle COTS or custom software?

Revisiting the original question, SSP Lifecycle is COTS configurable software. Most of what you need to setup asset and work management lifecycle processes is configurable using the administration and configuration UI available in SSP Lifecycle. In fact, many utility and pipeline business processes are supported out of the box via Lifecycle’s COTS features. Where there are process gaps or integration needs, SSP Lifecycle provides a full featured API and powerful integration framework that allows for specific business process optimization. In short, SSP Lifecycle provides the best of both worlds – COTS and Custom – and is an excellent choice for companies looking for simple, smart and streamlined software to solve complex engineering and operations business process challenges.

If you want more information on how SSP Lifecycle can help your company recognize process cost savings and implement solutions that you thought were impossible, infeasible or expensive, drop us a line or contact Ian Martin directly.

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