According to Statista, annual global spending on enterprise software is estimated to be $755 billion USD dollars, with global consumer spending in mobile apps estimated to be $33 billion USD. For a business that develops and sells software products and services, this potential presents an exciting opportunity, but that potential can also be daunting.
Software product development is no small project! In order to be successful, the business needs more than an idea. Execution of that concept and the technical, quality, leadership and support skills and experience of a prospective IT partner are paramount. Any prospective IT consulting partner must have experience in developing a software product for market. In this article, we discuss five critical areas of consideration when selecting a software product development partner.
Does this sound familiar? Your business has a great idea for a software product, maybe even a mobile application, but you aren’t sure how to proceed. Your in-house IT team is well-respected but they are already overwhelmed with projects and ongoing workload and you aren’t sure what skills you will need to employ to adequately address your software product requirements.
Many businesses struggle to translate ideas into a reality but none of these struggles is more profound than the software product vision. Often, the business abandons a great idea for a mobile application or a software product that has great potential to improve and increase business. Usually the reason for this includes the cost, the time and effort required and the absence of the skills and training to conceive, design, develop, implement and maintain a software product.
When a business undertakes a Software Product Development project, software re-engineering, Mobile Application Development or any other software project, they often look to experts to provide consulting services, either because their IT team does not have the time or the knowledge to complete the project.
If you have a great idea for a software product and you want to take that idea to market to generate revenue and increase your business visibility, the first thing you need to understand is this: Software Product Development is not the same as software or application development. Oh, sure, there are many of the same steps involved, but there are many differences as well.
Elegant MicroWeb created a solution for a performance management and benchmarking consulting business to provide a data-secured, web-based Performance Monitoring, Improvement and Analysis solution with performance optimization tools designed around the principles of knowledge and activity-based management.
A UK consulting firm engaged Elegant MicroWeb to design an online bench-marking system to replace the existing bench-marking process which was managed by spreadsheet, and transfer complex calculations to a flexible online system that would allow for redesign of benchmark parameters and standards and integration with workflow and user management. Elegant MicroWeb created a web-based application to capture and analyze the benchmark position of an organization versus the average, and identify world-class performance and best practices.
You know what would be boring…?
A lesson on psychology! So as to make the article interesting, let us progress with a story arc format consisting of the good, the bad and the funny side!
The Good Side of the Story!
We have known people and have worked for people who understand nothing about technology, but have a defined domain knowledge or expertise or clarity of purpose to pursue use of technology to expand their skills to a global arena through automation made feasible by technology.
By automation, we are specifically talking about delivering value through use of software, rather than manual tasking.
Say for instance, an auditor who does auditing of major hospitals, food & beverage industries have found that the process could be optimized by use of an iPad type device that will carry the standardized forms for compliance regulation and works, just works! On both offline and online mode.
This simplification is a welcomed simplification; business needs efficiency, less paper work, more quality coverage and accuracy.
This forms the clarity of purpose behind the development of software product.
