The case for a software development partner

For more than a quarter century, I have been providing software development services to a diverse clientele that includes companies from a wide range of industries including telecommunications, financial services, transportation, healthcare, manufacturing, online services, and many more. And, while the “nuts and bolts” of this software development has undergone evolution over this timeframe, the fundamental drivers as to why our customers value a software development partnership with a professional software development firm, like Eureka, has been fairly consistent. In fact, recent trends in the marketplace are magnifying these traditional drivers.

Historically, there have been three primary drivers behind companies seeking a relationship with a professional software development partner. Clients can be driven by only one of these or by a combination of them.

The first is that the right professional software development partner can provide accelerated access to skills and know-how relating to the latest technology.  Many companies are focused upon their core business and not staying abreast of the rapid changes in technology. The right software development partner is able to bring to bear proven expertise and best practices from a range of past engagements for new clients. This allows a client to rapidly have access to high-value technological capabilities that they would not normally have access to. The partnering process also allows the client’s staff to be rapidly spun-up on the state-of-the-art technology and proven best practices. For example, my firm is now being tapped by very successful technology companies to provide specialized expertise in creating high performance, low latency cloud-based APIs capable of several billion of transactions per day. Leveraging this kind of specialized experience has been and will continue to be a critical driver behind software development partnering.

The second common driver behind software development partnerships is time to market pressures – the need to launch a competitive product or improved service into the marketplace on an aggressive schedule. These types of customers can have all the necessary technological skills and know-how, but they are often constrained in the amount of extra software development bandwidth they can muster. The right software development partner, particularly one with which a longer term relationship has been established, can provide a key “bench” that can step in to make sure time critical projects are delivered on-schedule. In my experience, I believe an external software development partner often has the key advantage of being able to be laser focused upon the particular project at hand. Internal teams are often subject to many distractions and reprioritizations that can occur when less formal engagements aren’t established. The intensity of the time to market driver can fluctuate substantially depending upon both macroeconomic conditions and client’s specific market conditions.

The third is that many companies increasingly desire to focus upon the core competencies of their business and not on software and technology. In fact, many companies choose to have a long-term technology partner to take care of the software and technology aspect of their business. These types of projects for most companies are very cyclic and technology needs ebb and flow over time. Additionally, the complexities and frankly costs of developing and managing a state-of-the-art software engineering team are tremendous and only getting more difficult. A professional software consultancy typically can attract the very best and brightest talent and can have specialists in a wide range of technology areas; this is something that many organizations simply can’t achieve today.  Many companies that have tried to keep up with in house teams often find themselves falling behind technologically and talent wise.  Simply put, the right software development partner can keep your company’s technology and your software capabilities at peak performance in a cost efficient manner without any fall off over time.

So what then are the recent trends in the marketplace that are accelerating these drivers? For starters, the tools and technologies available for building software are evolving and changing an unprecedented rate. The rush to “the cloud” has made the half-life of previous technologies painfully short since the strategies for creating massively scalable systems are quickly evolving. Also, we see many clients who are feeling left behind by sophisticated HTML5 UIs and the explosion of mobile devices, so we are building new high-end user experiences for them. And of course those user interfaces create even more demand for those scalable back-ends, thus further fueling the dizzying rate of change in the industry.

The right software development partner can provide you with the proven experience with the plethora of rapidly changing technologies that are affecting today’s marketplace. Whether you use such a partner for a little or a lot, they can be there with the right talent and capabilities at just the right time for your business. I believe every business should consider how a software development partner could help take their organization to the next level.