Tips to improve software excellence and drive business growth in 2023 Table of Content 1.A clear understanding of business goals and objectives 2.Agile development, task automation, and continuous learning 3.Automation shortens the response time to market 4.Pick up the best software development methodology 5.Make sure the team knows a clear definition of done (DoD) 6.Implement code reviews and testing to ensure quality 7.Prudent management of technical debt 8.Utilize software that is cross-platform compatible 9.Implement milestones to maintain the project's momentum 10.Have an assessment, evaluation, and planning with your team 11.Companies should focus on creativity and innovation 12.Quality, right tools, proper communication, and on-time delivery 13.Meet your unique needs with Continuous Improvement (CI) 14.Improved efficiency, faster time to market 15.Multiple reasons 16.Conclusion Strategically aligning software resources, assigning well-defined roles to the leaders, and adopting efficient ways for prioritization are some of the crucial strategies that every bespoke software development firm takes for their best-in-class product development. Why are they so important for software excellence? Let’s put it in a figurative sense, imagine a dish full of spaghetti that is all intertwined and knotted. One noodle pulled would affect the whole thing. The same goes for the SDLC process. A minor change in the source code might have a significant influence on the product. It is challenging to identify the problem unless you are an expert with knowledge at several levels. Thus, developing software excellence strategies is crucial. Let’s move further and learn the most exceptional tips to improve software excellence and spur business growth in 2023. A clear understanding of business goals and objectives As we move into 2023, businesses will be looking for ways to improve their operations and drive growth. For many organizations, custom software development will be a key area of focus. In order to ensure excellence in this area, there are a few key things to keep in mind. First, it is important to have a clear understanding of business goals and objectives. What are you hoping to achieve with your custom software? Once you have a good understanding of your goals, you can then begin to assess the needs of your organization and identify potential areas for improvement. It is also important to put together a team of experienced and talented developers who are committed to ensuring the success of your project. Finally, it is vital to establish clear communication channels between all parties involved in the development process. By following these simple tips, you can set your business up for success in the coming year. - Oberon Copeland, CEO of Very Informed Searching for reliable Bespoke Software Development Solutions ? CONTACT US Agile development, task automation, and continuous learning There's no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the best way to improve software development and drive business growth will vary depending on the specific business and its goals. However, some tips to help improve software development and drive business growth include the following. Keep your development process lean and agile. Focus on automating key tasks and processes. Make sure your team is constantly learning and keeping up with new technologies. - Zach Larsen, CTO of Pineapple Money Automation shortens the response time to market In my opinion, every day, an estimated 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created. The majority of this data is either created or stored within enterprises. As businesses accumulate more data, they must find solutions to automate their data administration, analysis, and utilization. Custom software development solutions offer more efficient data collection, storage, and analysis. For example, 48% of manufacturing organizations manually enter data using spreadsheets or other documents. This is not a practical approach, especially when working with big amounts of data, which is why a growing number of industrial companies are implementing customized data automation technologies. Automating your data with technologies like FileMaker improves accuracy and contributes to the development of a data lake in your firm. This is essentially a repository for data within your organization that can be made accessible to all members of your organization, hence fostering team collaboration. Through comprehensive data analytics, automation shortens the response time to current market trends, which is one of its many benefits. As the process is automated, the requirement for data modeling is also eliminated.  - Antoine Boquen, CEO of Horizons Read More: Cutting-edge Technologies for Custom Software Development in 2022 Pick up the best software development methodology In my professional opinion, this is the first step that needs to be taken. Selecting an appropriate software development methodology can significantly boost both the process and the outcomes. Whether Waterfall, Kanban, Scrum, or Lean should be used depends on how well-defined the project's objectives, scope, budget, capacity, and functional and non-functional requirements are. If you don't have the right model, you'll be driving aimlessly without knowing where you're going. - Robert Smith, Head of Marketing at Psychometric Success Better project management techniques will enable teams working on custom software to complete projects on schedule and within budget. This is crucial for organizations, as time and cost overrun can result in lost income and customers. Excellent project management enhances the team's reputation and draws in more new clients. Additionally, it makes the software engineering process more effective, which results in shorter turnaround times and reduced costs. Businesses may benefit from this in the marketplace by gaining an advantage over competitors. - Calvin Willis, Founder of Moosoft Make sure the team knows a clear definition of done (DoD) As a specialist, I recommend settling on a clear definition of done to indicate when work has been completed to the desired standard of quality and effectiveness. Make sure everyone on the team is familiar with this DoD so that everyone is working towards the same goals and has a common understanding of what must be accomplished before a project or user story can be considered finished. - Abdul Saboor, Full Stack Developer at The Stock Dork As an industry professional, I would suggest defining what it means for a task to be done when it has been finished to the point where its quality and performance have been optimized. Make sure that the entire team is aware of this Definition of Done (DoD), so that everyone is aligned and following the same objectives, and so that there is a shared understanding of the collection of items that must be done before a project or user narrative can be deemed to be complete. - Tim Davidson, President of Car Title Loan Lenders Searching for a reliable IoT software development company ? CONTACT US Implement code reviews and testing to ensure quality As an expert, I can tell you that losing your customers' trust because of low-quality, bug-ridden code is a surefire way to fail. In order to solve these issues, there are two approaches. To begin, it's vital that the development team perform a code review on all of the significant code they produce. Reviewing one another's code is a technique that has the potential to fundamentally alter the way in which development teams improve quality, culture, and communication. For more complex procedures, you may want to make it obligatory to have the codes reviewed by an outside party. Second, the testing phase is yet another major step. Teams can implement code reviews, but testing is still necessary to ensure high quality. It's the most reliable method for discovering problems before a product goes to market. To ensure quality in software development, testing enables the procedures, practices, and resources required to do so. Complete project failure is guaranteed without exhaustive testing. - Andrew Priobrazhenskyi, CEO of DiscountReactor Before integrating the new software company-wide, it should be thoroughly tested. Testing typically occurs on both the technical and user levels. Developers and IT professionals conduct technical testing to confirm the functionality of the software's fundamental components. User testing is conducted by business beta users. User testing guarantees that the program functions as intended and expected. Additionally, the user experience and interface will be tested to verify that staff can function with optimum efficiency and without confusion or annoyance. - Brady McAninch, Founder of HM-Attorneys For internal use, I would advise researching the current software market before developing any custom software. There are excellent off-the-shelf commercial solutions available for most business processes. For client-facing software,building a custom solution is often the best option. When doing that, I'd recommend the following: Make sure that the firm that will be developing the software follows good design patterns. Having some solution developed in a fast and inexpensive way will often lead to major problems in the future. Correct abstractions and use of inheritance make code maintainable in the long term. Create a process for continuous, manual UX testing. When software is client-facing, paraphrasing Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, from Basecamp, every error message is marketing. Product executives and sales engineers need to experience first-person what clients will experience when using the software. - Dan Berges, Founder of Berges Technologies Read More: Top 8 Developing Technologies that are making headlines in 2022 Prudent management of technical debt In my professional opinion, the cost of technical debt is substantial for both the client and the development firm, making it a risk that must be managed. Better software development projects can be achieved through the prudent management of technical debt and the detection of unexpected increases in debt. Debt is inevitable, but it can be mitigated by taking precautions such as standardizing quality management and refactoring processes, maintaining up-to-date technology tools, encouraging team members to stay current on training, and clearly outlining roles and responsibilities to cut down on wasteful repetition. - Josh Pelletier, CMO at BarBend Utilize software that is cross-platform compatible I would say, that all sizes of businesses have competing objectives and requirements. When it comes to IT, businesses require software that is compatible with several platforms and devices, including various operating systems and hardware. Platforms for custom software creation, such as FileMaker, offer a remarkable array of cross-platform features to accommodate a variety of needs at scale. This includes the capability to function across devices and platforms. Teams working from home and utilizing several platforms to complete their tasks and stay connected require remote capabilities more than ever. Cross-platform capabilities aid these teams' marketing efforts. Consistency, Businesses must be certain that their software will integrate easily and provide identical access options to all team members regardless of their location. Software that is restricted to a laptop or desktop without connectivity is obsolete. Businesses in the twenty-first century must remain linked from anywhere and at any time without worrying about security issues. Cost-Effectiveness, save money by eliminating the need to regularly rewrite code to accommodate new devices and operating systems. Cross-platform features enhance the adaptability of custom software. This is more significant in 2022 than it has ever been. - Adam Wood, Co-Founder of Revenue Geeks Looking for an esteemed .NET development company For Your Business? CONNECT US Implement milestones to maintain the project's momentum Create a team comprised of your engineers, subject-matter experts, and a project manager to lead and direct the initiative as a whole. Create a project road map together. You cannot construct a comprehensive workflow and shipping system within a week. Implement milestones to maintain the project's momentum. These are the several stages of development that must be accomplished at defined budgetary and time intervals. Examine the work at each milestone to determine if alterations to the planned schedule or budget are necessary. - Max Whiteside, SEO & Content Lead at Breaking Muscle Have an assessment, evaluation, and planning with your team Assess and evaluate your current process and know your future needs. It is good to have an assessment, evaluation and planning with your team. This will help you to know what processes are working. Then, you should plan based on the assessment and evaluation. Continuous customization of the software will also help you cope with the ever-changing needs of your team. Remember, the software should be tailor-fitted to the needs of your members to achieve best results. Of course, you will need customizable software. They are more expensive, but they can be useful for a long period of time. This will also address the future needs of your business. Lastly, have a testing period with the new custom software. This testing period can help you make necessary adjustments before its actual/full implementation. - Lily Will, Founder of Ever Wallpaper Read More: Pitfalls to Avoid When Outsourcing Software Development in 2023 Companies should focus on creativity and innovation Scarce talent in custom software development is the biggest challenge for companies to stay innovative and competitive. In this context, companies need to use the right technology for their development teams to focus on creativity and innovation rather than the less exciting aspects of software development. This includes technology that handles critical but undifferentiated development tasks, and that constantly updates with the latest cloud technologies to ensure development teams deliver excellent application architectures and move quickly to meet changing business needs, with low risk. All this while keeping you free from unnecessary maintenance work and technical debt. Even outsourcing custom software development is not a bad idea to drive business growth. This is because with outsourcing, practicality, quality, and savings are sure to be optimized. We have practically reaped these benefits. In addition, by outsourcing custom software development to a company that specializes in the development, you will have a well-defined work process because specialized companies are focused on developing the specialized service they offer. Attention to work and the way it is executed add practicality and quality to your custom software development project and its design thus outsourcing guarantees a job well done with no compromises on quality, time, delivery, expert services, and agile development to improve custom software development excellence to drive business growth. - Ronald Williams, founder of Best People Finder  Custom software development is essential for a large-scale and niche business. Providing employees with pre-made software that often serves some other purpose can hinder the productivity and efficiency of a workforce. Creating custom software specifically for your business activities can really help you cut corners in terms of efficiency. Moreover, the updates required on pre-packaged software can set you back and be rather inefficient, if you can develop your own updates, you are essentially machine learning like an AI and can take major steps towards business success. - Peter Strahan, Founder of Lantech Quality, right tools, proper communication, and on-time delivery .pointnumber{text-align: justify} Focus on quality. This means ensuring that the software meets the customer's requirements and is free of bugs. Streamline the development process. This includes using the right tools and technologies, as well as having a clear and concise development plan. Improve communication. This involves maintaining open lines of communication between the development team and the customer. Deliver on time. This means meeting the customer's deadline and ensuring that the software is delivered as promised. - Brandon Wilkes, Marketing Manager at The Big Phone Store Meet your unique needs with Continuous Improvement (CI) One thing that will really benefit business growth is continuous improvement. This can be pretty simple, if you are using pre-packaged software then their updates can not always be relevant to your business activities. With custom software development, if you continuously update the software to meet your unique business needs this will in turn, no doubt, improve your business operations greatly by making them efficient as well as fine-tuned. - Aimee White, Co-owner of keyboard kings There is already collective wisdom within your organization on how to improve the workflow. Talk with your team to get a solid understanding of your existing system, its shortcomings, and suggestions for improvements. After all, they are the ones who work with these systems every day and understand the workflow best. After you do your research perhaps an evaluation of your existing applications would be worth your while. You might discover you’re doing just fine with the solutions you have in place. Improving workflow is an important process that should be revisited on a regular basis. Much can be achieved through custom programming engagements that yield long-term benefits and cost savings. - Amber Morland, Founder of Softwalla Want to work with the best Word Add-in development company ? CONTACT US Improved efficiency, faster time to market Faster time to market: Custom development projects that would formerly take months only require days or weeks. This lets your business deliver solutions to customers and/or employees in a fraction of the time. Improve developer efficiency: Development projects completed with low-code development software require fewer developers and less time. This means that your business can accomplish far more with your existing resources. Gain a competitive advantage: Low-code platforms improve agility, giving your business an advantage over the competition. Rather than wait for weeks or months for new applications, low code helps you deliver them in days. - Steve Hansen, Partner of Michaels Ross & Cole Ltd. Read More: Azure vs AWS vs GCP: What to choose for custom software development Multiple reasons The following are some key ways that you can achieve this: .pointnumber{text-align: justify} Build a strong team of dedicated and passionate developers who are able to work together effectively. Incorporate best practices into your development process, including test-driven development (TDD), code reviews, and automated testing. Tomorrow we are conducting Off campus placement- 35 students are going to come at our office Effectively manage user feedback through effective customer engagement processes such as surveys and interviews. Address any issues quickly so that customers have a positive experience using your product/service. - Sohaib Hasan, Founder of MyTechIsSolved The following individuals and businesses can design bespoke software: Your internal IT department, comprising your chief information officer (CTO). People you expressly hire or contract for the job. Software development suppliers and businesses. To save money, it is tempting to pretend that you will handle everything internally. But there are disadvantages to using your own IT team for this purpose. First, your workforce already has obligations; removing them from their regular duties could result in business-wide delays. Second, your technical staff may lack software development training and experience. In many cases, outsourcing this procedure makes the most sense. You can collaborate with teams that have built and deployed custom software effectively. You may even uncover a company specializing in products for your sector. - Steve Elliott, Franchise Owner of Restoration1 The capacity to comprehend a user's need The success of any software development strategy depends on a deep familiarity with user needs. Creating a minimum viable product (MVP) might serve as a means of idea validation. A minimum viable product (MVP) is the initial release of your product. With the data you collect, you can design a state-of-the-art app that provides exactly what consumers want. Organizing and assessing potential Always seek software development consultancy for validation and analysis of your ideas. You can't move forward with developing a software product without first conducting a feasibility analysis, which is why it's a crucial part of the app discovery process. A product roadmap requires careful consideration of many factors, including but not limited to: time, resources, key activities, estimations, return on investment, etc. Any potential pitfalls in creating a software product can be anticipated with the right amount of research and preparation. Risk-reduction plans can be better prepared by using this information. Web-based Software Distribution and Hosting The location of your app's hosting is a crucial decision that must be made before the app can be released. You'll be in charge of hosting it and getting it out to users if it's an app. If you need server software, you must use cloud computing. Maintaining server stability and security requires proper configuration and management. If you don't have the workforce in-house, you'll need to decide whether or not to bring in a software product development firm. Deployment The most crucial portion is right here! It's up to you to choose a strategy for navigating life, which can vary widely depending on the circumstances. There is the option of an immediate release or a softer debut with specific audiences. You must think about moving your data to the cloud and be prepared for any problems that may arise during deployment. Planning allows for extra cushion time to be included if it is needed. - Jason Cordes, Founder of CocoLoan  The below-mentioned criteria will ensure that your business is in line with growth along with the trending technologies. Adapting to Agile Model: The Agile Model of Software development has overcome the challenges of the traditional waterfall model with its incremental approach. When your process is agile, you can plan the development as smaller modules with the flexibility to test them and make rapid changes, when needed. Form a DevOps Team:  When you employ teams, make sure you give up on a disparate set of people for development and operations. Combine them and form a DevOps team, which can operate faster and deploy your product on time, without bugs. Choose Cloud Computing:  Virtual servers are everywhere. You can now cut off the cost of paying a fortune for physical servers and choose to host your software on the cloud, fast and cost-effective. Integrate APIs:  Choose to integrate pre-built APIs into your product, without spending a huge amount of time and money on building modules from scratch. Just opt for an API, plug it and implement the functionality in no time In terms of custom software development, there is a pile of opportunities to build successful products with the latest technologies and resources. There exists more and there will be more in the coming years! - Atchaya J, Content Writer at CONTUS If we look at custom software development as an in-house approach, the business should consider all its peculiarities when creating business growth plans. You have to be aware of the limitations of the custom software operating in your company. Because if the system's capacities cannot cover your business plans, you won't achieve growth. The more mature the company is, the higher the probability it's using legacy software developed over a decade ago. One of the leading business growth drivers is migration from outdated solutions (e.g., on-premises computing, legacy programming languages). It helped our retail client achieve 40% growth in up-sells of their goods and services. The second driver is here your internal IT team and its constant maturing. Your tech lead should always work on the team's excellence by learning new technologies and approaches and motivating the team to grow as A) professionals and B) personalities. The third one is the communication between the management and tech guys. Everyone should be aware of business strategy and the goals to be achieved. Even more - the tech team has to be involved in strategic decisions because only they know how your custom software works and understand its abilities. - Evgeniy Aleksandrenko, Digital Transformation Officer at JEVERA  Conclusion Putting software excellence strategies into practice is essential for product development. Since various experts work on an Enterprise product development, a minor change in the source code might have a big impact on the project. Unless you are an expert, it is challenging to pinpoint the precise issue. This article taught us why software development is so complicated and challenging, as well as the best tips for enhancing software excellence for business success in 2023.