When off-the-shelf stops being enough
Boxed software is great as long as you do what everyone else does. The trouble starts where your company has its own way of working — exceptions that don't fit the form, connections between systems no one anticipated, or a process that's your competitive edge and you don't want to bend it to someone else's logic. That's when people start patching gaps with spreadsheets, copying data by hand, and paying for five tools that each do 20% of what they need. Custom development makes sense precisely here: when off-the-shelf costs you more time and workarounds than it would cost to build exactly what you need.