In today’s digital world, software is a key component of any organization’s infrastructure. Whether you have a small business with just a few employees or a large corporation with thousands of workers, the software that your company uses on a daily basis can have a major impact on your ability to achieve your goals. Fortunately, there are many open source software options available to businesses of all sizes that can help streamline operations, reduce costs and increase efficiency. Let’s take a look at some examples of when implementing open source solutions makes sense for your organization.
Meet Compliance Requirements
Businesses today are increasingly required to comply with regulations, industry standards, or contractual obligations. Open source software can help organizations meet these compliance requirements in many different ways. First, it’s important to note that open source software is auditable by nature. Since open source software is open to public scrutiny and peer review, it is easy to track and audit an organization’s use of the software. This makes it a natural fit for organizations that must comply with regulations such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, FISMA, or GDPR that require sensitive data to be protected.
Save Money
Most businesses would like to save money wherever they can, and open source software can often be a great source of cost savings. You may be surprised to learn that many organizations that use open source software don’t actually pay anything for it. Open source software is distributed freely online with the source code available to be modified and shared under a license. One of the key advantages of open source software is that it’s often provided at no cost. Some organizations choose to use open source software and then make a donation to the developer or support team as a way of giving back to the community and supporting future development of the platform. This is a great option for businesses that can’t afford to invest in proprietary software, but still need a state-of-the-art solution to meet their organizational needs.
Streamline Operations
Any business can benefit from streamlining its operations. Traditionally, this has been a primary advantage of proprietary software. However, modern open source software can make automation and streamlining your business operations easier than ever before. Selecting open source software that offers real-time collaboration features can help your team to work more seamlessly. Real-time collaboration features can help to eliminate miscommunication and ensure that your team members are all on the same page. This can make it easier to achieve your business goals and streamline operations.
Leverage Existing Infrastructure and Talent
In many cases, the best reason to use open source software is simply to leverage the infrastructure and talent you already have in place. If you have existing software engineers in your organization, you may want to consider leveraging their expertise to use open source software. While using open source software in many cases requires less upfront investment than using proprietary software, you may still want to consider the resources your team has available to leverage open source solutions.
Reinforce Company Culture
Your company culture is one of the most valuable assets that you have. It defines the people who work for your organization, and it can serve as a key differentiator in the marketplace. Open source software can often be a great way to reinforce your company culture and attract the type of employees you want to hire. Not only does open source software allow your organization to select the tools and functionality that are best suited to its specific needs, but it also communicates a message of transparency and collaboration that can help to reinforce your company culture.
Software Development Platform
Another important consideration when evaluating open source software is that it can serve as a great platform for building proprietary software. If your organization is considering building a custom software solution, you may want to consider using open source software to get the ball rolling. This is an especially good option if your organization has limited time or resources to develop a custom solution from scratch. Using open source software as a foundation for your custom solution will allow you to leverage existing code, which can help to accelerate the development process. It can also help you to reduce costs by taking advantage of other organizations’ existing engineering work and expertise.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many different reasons why organizations choose to implement open source software solutions. One of the best things about open source software is that it is highly customizable. You can use open source software to meet your specific organizational needs without having to invest in custom development. This can help to reduce costs while also accelerating the time frame in which your organization can get the solution implemented and up and running.
