Top tips: How small IT organizations can save big on development costs

Top tips is a weekly column where we highlight what’s trending in the tech world and share ways to stay ahead. This week, we’re taking a closer look at how smaller IT teams can keep their development costs under control—without sacrificing quality or long-term viability.

When you're a large IT enterprise providing services to millions of users around the world, it's only natural to expect development costs to be sky high. As long as these costs aren't getting out of hand and you've got the margins to justify them, there's no cause for concern. However, not every IT organization has a budget that's comparable to the GDP of a small nation.

In reality, the vast majority of businesses don’t have that luxury. Micro-, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) account for around 90% of businesses worldwide, making smaller budgets the norm rather than the exception. This is especially challenging for smaller IT and software-focused organizations that simply cannot afford to keep shelling out money to deal with developmental challenges. Here are three ways MSMEs in the software development sector can keep their costs low.

1. Leverage cloud computing

Cloud computing, specifically Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) are a godsend for smaller IT organizations. These services free up organizations from the burden of having to manage backend IT infrastructure (we're talking servers, server-side software, and other hardware components). These services also allow them to deploy and host applications through the vendor's servers. What's more, there are several PaaS providers (such as Zoho's very own Catalyst) that specifically target MSMEs. These vendors typically also follow a pay-as-you-go model, allowing users to make significant savings in the long run.

2. Opt for a low-code approach to development

In an era where development costs are only increasing, citizen development—where individuals who aren't expert coders are able to build applications—has emerged as a sustainable approach to developing applications or features, especially for MSMEs. Low-code development platforms like ManageEngine AppCreator specifically allow users to build and deploy applications quickly using an intuitive and easy-to-use development dashboard that requires very little code. These platforms are also customizable in that they provide some level of flexibility to make changes to the underlying code where necessary.

3. Prioritize modular and reusable development

Modular development is a more feature or function-centric approach to development with an emphasis on reusability and cost savings. It involves creating components (or modules) for a specific task that can then be reused in other programs or applications offered by the organization. This approach has numerous time- and cost-saving benefits as your team doesn't have to keep creating code from scratch for the same purpose every single time.

Scalability today, sustainability tomorrow

Scalability matters to all organizations regardless of size, but it plays a far more critical role for rapidly-growing MSMEs. By prioritizing development approaches that are easier to build, maintain, and scale, smaller IT organizations can better position themselves to respond to changing market demands—without letting development costs spiral out of control.

Smart infrastructure choices, flexible development platforms, and reusable design practices don’t just reduce costs in the short term. They create a foundation for sustainable growth, allowing MSMEs to scale with confidence as their needs evolve.