Application Self-Assessment Questions
Do you need Power Apps, SaaS or a Custom Build Application?
Take our quick application self-assessment and get recommendations on which solution is best for your business' needs.
Application Self-Assessment Questions
Do you need Power Apps, SaaS or a Custom Build Application?
Take our quick application self-assessment and get recommendations on which solution is best for your business' needs.
How does it work?
Our team of experts have compiled a list of 10 questions that cover your existing technology, application requirements, and application preferences.
You will then get instant access to:
- A tailored, easy-to-view analysis of the best solution for your business growth.
- Question-by-question insights from our experts on key considerations and how to approach application innovation.
- The option to continue a highly-tailored conversation with one of our solutions experts to answer your strategic or technical questions.
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Fill out the questions below to get your results
STEP ONE
Existing technology
STEP TWO
Application requirements
STEP THREE
Application preferences
1/10: What's your internal IT capability? Do you have your own team to build or support an application?
Talk Think Do's Insights: Matt, Founder and Head of Architecture
It's worth remembering that customer work will always take priority; any application you use should therefore facilitate better customer service and support... Show More
It's worth remembering that customer work will always take priority; any application you use should therefore facilitate better customer service and support. SaaS is a good starting point for providing a basic application with support often included. Custom-builds can be outsourced, even when in-house capabilities are varied. Power Apps speeds up the process of application development, but requires semi-technical users in-house, who must be willing to find workarounds if application features are limited.
2/10: Where is your business in its cloud journey?
Talk Think Do's Insights: Matt, Founder and Head of Architecture
Regardless of where your business is in its cloud journey, you should be looking for new applications to be cloud-native... Show More
Regardless of where your business is in its cloud journey, you should be looking for new applications to be cloud-native. This will ensure that your software is future-proof, and provides customers or internal stakeholders with seamless cross-device experiences.
3/10: Do you have a specific deadline for your application?
Talk Think Do's Insights: Matt, Founder and Head of Architecture
How urgently you need a solution will play a part in deciding which option is best for you... Show More
How urgently you need a solution will play a part in deciding which option is best for you. Businesses often underestimate the amount of work required for a product to go live. If you are looking to implement a large piece of software, expect it to take around 6 months for tasks to be understood and a realistic schedule to be planned.
4/10: How much downtime would be acceptable for this application?
Talk Think Do's Insights: Matt, Founder and Head of Architecture
Some solutions can lead to more downtime than others, which makes it an important factor to take into consideration... Show More
Some solutions can lead to more downtime than others, which makes it an important factor to take into consideration. If application support and uptime are important to you, make sure to check your provider's SLA and support agreement very carefully. If you plan on only using internal IT capabilities, you'll have to ensure your citizen developers are available to provide timely support when required.
5/10: Who is the application for?
Talk Think Do's Insights: Matt, Founder and Head of Architecture
Different solutions will be beneficial, depending on who your primary audience is. For customer-facing applications, I'd recommend having a user interface layer that hides the backend implementations... Show More
Different solutions will be beneficial, depending on who your primary audience is. For customer-facing applications, I'd recommend having a user interface layer that hides the backend implementations. This will enable you to migrate systems more easily in the future, and allows you to be more agile when making changes to core systems or user interfaces.
6/10: What do you think the lifespan of the application is?
Talk Think Do's Insights: Matt, Founder and Head of Architecture
Each solution will have a different lifespan - it's important to invest in the options that will support your application for as long as you need, without forcing you to overspend... Show More
Each solution will have a different lifespan - it's important to invest in the options that will support your application for as long as you need, without forcing you to overspend. If your system is likely to become dependent on overtime, a custom build application may be best, combining traditional development languages and the knowledge of skilled developers. The products and suppliers for SaaS and Power Apps, on the other hand, may change over time.
7/10: How important is application innovation and change to your business?
Talk Think Do's Insights: Matt, Founder and Head of Architecture
If you are serious about continual improvement, then a dedicated development team would provide more consistent results... Show More
If you are serious about continual improvement, then a dedicated development team would provide more consistent results. SaaS product roadmaps are lengthy and hard to influence, while Power Apps are great to achieve ad-hoc innovation, but could be constrained by core application limitations.
8/10: How important is cyber security to you?
Talk Think Do's Insights: Matt, Founder and Head of Architecture
If your solution needs to be customer-facing, or you need to meet a specific set of assessment criteria, your project should be built to the highest cyber security standards using DevSecOps... Show More
If your solution needs to be customer-facing, or you need to meet a specific set of assessment criteria, your project should be built to the highest cyber security standards using DevSecOps. This can be done internally or externally, depending on your in-house expertise and resource availability. However, third-party suppliers should always work closely alongside internal teams to ensure that security requirements are met. This means providing source code use transparency, flexible cloud hosting, and a high level of certainty on compliance.
9/10: How important is user experience to you?
Talk Think Do's Insights: Matt, Founder and Head of Architecture
Ultimately, custom build solutions are the only way to guarantee a highly personalised and controllable user experience... Show More
Ultimately, custom build solutions are the only way to guarantee a highly personalised and controllable user experience. If UX customisation is less important to you, there are many repeatable UX patterns that you can use to create simple, easy-to-use systems at a lower cost.
10/10: What level of future access/ownership would you require?
Talk Think Do's Insights: Matt, Founder and Head of Architecture
It's worth considering this question before starting any project, and exploring whether source code ownership is really business-critical... Show More
It's worth considering this question before starting any project, and exploring whether source code ownership is really business-critical. While it can help to prevent you being locked into a single vendor, purchasing the source code or IP rights can add significant costs to the application development process.
It looks like you've missed at least one question. Please complete the question(s) outlined above to move to the next step.
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Do you need Power Apps, SaaS or a custom build application?
Your Results
You're most suitable for a SaaS solution
We recommend that you go with a SaaS solution. This will help you to fulfil your immediate application needs, and is an affordable, easy-to-implement option, particularly for startups and small businesses. SaaS allows you to test the capabilities of an application in relation to your requirements, which can help inform future buying decisions. Make sure to set clear expectations in the early stages of the application's journey, as there will be limited flexibility further down the line.
If you find a SaaS option that fits your needs, we recommend you look carefully at the costs, potential supplier-related risks, and data residency policies before signing any agreements. Unlike custom applications, SaaS solutions may not be able to assure security. If you have reservations about a supplier's suitability in the long-term, but feel their service is perfect for your medium-term needs, a 1-3 year contract will ensure stability and flexibility.
Long-term, you might find yourself wanting to invest in a custom built application - but at this stage in your business development, there are SaaS solutions that can meet your needs. Be sure to research your options well, as you want to avoid paying for features you won't use.
You're most suitable for a Power Apps solution
We recommend that you go with Microsoft Power Apps. It is an easy one-stop solution when you need to build an application from scratch, and is reasonably intuitive to work with. While Power Apps has limited customisation abilities, it should be sufficient until you're able to build out your internal IT capabilities - and will work perfectly for short-term projects with tight deadlines.
This is a cost-effective option for businesses who aren't entirely sure of their requirements, and want to explore a range of different features before settling on one solution. If you decide to go with Power Apps, make sure to first assess its features based on your critical support, compliance, and uptime needs; as a widely-used low-code development platform, it may not be able to meet highly specific compliance or user SLA requirements. If your application is customer-facing, we would also recommend adopting a user interface layer to hide the backend - this will ensure your customers have the best experience possible.
In the future, you may want to swap to a custom build solution, which will offer greater opportunities for customisation, scalability, and longer application lifespans. For now, however, Power Apps should offer all the personalisation and detail that you need.
You're most suitable for a custom application solution
You're most likely to benefit from a custom-built cloud-native application that is tailored to your needs. SaaS or Power Apps can't fulfil your advanced requirements at this stage in your business' development, so you should invest in systems that can scale as you continue to grow. Unlike SaaS solutions, which can be customised but often increase costs in the process, custom builds have no hidden costs - and offer you an actual piece of code that you can own either through a perpetual licence or IP.
A good custom build solution will enable you to change, customise, and adapt features, and should offer you support through your application's release and go-live period. It's worth noting that if you choose to build the application in-house, your development team will need access to extensive time and resources. Regardless of whether you build the application yourself or with an external developer, expect the process to take some time - potentially six months or more. This will allow space for a significant discovery project, DevSecOps development processes, and the development of a custom piece of software that will last you well into the future.
A custom build application will allow you to provide the highest quality user experiences. You can develop your application to ensure its UX matches specific guidelines, and customers are insulated from the system's backend implementation. Custom software can also include responsive web applications that work across both mobile and desktop apps, and even work within other modes of interaction such as chat and iOT integration.
Custom build applications are a big financial undertaking, but you're investing in a solution that's entirely bespoke, has no hidden costs, and will be scalable for the years ahead.
Want to discuss your application requirements or challenges in more detail?
Book a free consultation with one of our experts to explore your opportunities for innovation