RPA, Low-Code, SaaS/COTS, Custom — Which Is Right for You?

The year was 1994. I was working full time as a software engineer and going to graduate school part time to get my master’s degree. One of my professors told us that within the next five years, we will not be writing software with code anymore. Fourth Generation Languages (4GL) will make it so anyone can build software and visual drag-and-drop tools will let us build anything. Fast forward 26 years, and we are still writing code. Even in 2020 recent articles predict the end of custom software development. Coming soon, robots will be writing code for us using GPT-3.

The current state of software options to solve your business problems is quite complex, and it can often become overwhelming. You read articles about robotic process automation (RPA) saving the world, or low-code/no-code solutions saving 80% of your costs, or software as a service (SaaS) solutions like Salesforce, ServiceNow and others being the answer to all your problems. What if none of these work for you? When is it time to build your own software?

In my 25+ year career in software construction, I have seen lots and lots of crazy things. I have seen a business run a 100+ million dollar investing service using Excel spreadsheets. I have seen a Domain Name Server (DNS) used as a relational database. It seems that everyone has their own ideas of how to…