If you have ever undertaken an IT Project you will be well aware that custom development on any IT platform is expensive.   That is why buying an off the shelf SharePoint Forms Solution like Requests is a compelling alternative.

Direct development (coding) costs only make up a proportion of the typical IT Project.   Additional costs across the following areas also have to be accommodated.

Business Analysis

Initially a high-level requirements document will be produced to ensure the project is in line with corporate IT strategy and budgets.   This would then be followed by a functional requirements document to gather more specific information from the business.

Finally, detailed requirements have to collected, collated, evaluated and notated in a manner that can be understood by your development team for delivery. 

Internal End Users

The application is being developed to meet a business need.  Do the end users feel it does indeed meet this need?  Do they need training to use the software, do they need to be taken on a journey to buy in to use the software?  Are they change resistant?

Design

Look and feel is important – and expensive.  Who will develop – and pay - for the look and feel of the application.

Testing

Test plans have to be developed and tests conducted to ensure that what was built matches perfectly with the detailed requirements.  Testing should account for a quarter of the costs of any IT project.  Most organisations have a poor understanding of the importance and cost associated with testing.

Documentation

How much documentation is needed for the project?  Documentation is expensive and often over-looked, but absolutely essential for bespoke development.

Project Management

Someone has to track how the work is progressing and liaise between the business and various development team members.

Account Management

How will you get invoiced for the work?  It costs a significant amount of money to run a business with rent, wages, equipment, accounting, management costs all having to be covered.  An account manager will ensure the business is kept in the loop with costs and ensure the people paying the bills are comfortable with how the project is progressing.

By moving your custom SharePoint forms to Requests you can mitigate many of the costs associated with the typical bespoke software development project.