Forrester: Software Development and Businesses Are on a Sour Note

 Attention! Till date if you have been thinking of software development as a protean solution, it’s time to think again! A recent industry report issued by Forester Consulting puts forth some unimaginable revelations. According to the report, even though enterprises are increasingly adopting software solutions in their business models to expand their performance horizons, entrepreneurs still remain disgruntled about the result-rendering capabilities of these solutions.

The study titled ‘Continuous Delivery: A Maturity Assessment Model’ was constituted by Thought Works, a software development company which pioneers in continuous delivery model. The associated report which is available for download on the official company website, clearly states- software development providers and their teams are not able to serve the surging demands of business leaders and are finding it gruesome to come up with new and innovative solutions to suffice business requisites.

325 IT and business professionals spanning across United Kingdom, United States and Australia contributed to the study, which aimed at evaluating whether their present delivery processes are capable of sufficing their rocketing demand for innovation. The most surprising revelation of the report, however, remained the bloating gap between business expectations and corresponding software development solutions. As per the survey, while 51 per cent of participating entrepreneurs expected their software solutions to be delivered within a time frame of six months, 70 per cent of them admitted that the solutions are actually completed in a much longer span. Surprisingly, around 40 per cent of business leaders noted that there have been instances when the IT departments took more than a year to deliver solutions to counter work innovative ideation.

The study noted- this speed gap between expectations and deliveries has kept businesses from utilizing their software development ventures from creating a breakthrough in the marketplace by launching new features and products at the first place. Besides, it has prompted businesses to respond to the prevailing industry trends rather than exploring untapped avenues.

Probing further, the report suggests corporate culture to be major impedance in the success of the software development vertical. Such hierarchical culture results in discord, as leaders consider IT departments as mere ‘order takers’, a view which doesn’t go down well with the IT professionals. 42 per cent business decision-makers regarded IT departments as regular service providers who respond to requests, while only 14 per cent accounted them as driving force for technological innovation and 43 per cent were of the view that the two departments work in collaboration in order to decide the launch of any particular feature of service. Software service providers, on the other hand, are of a contrastive view. 57 per cent of IT leaders said that IT acts as a joint decision-maker along with stakeholders, while 59 per cent noted that they worked in collaboration with their business allies.

To sum up, Forrester highlighted the following points in its industry survey:

1. Businesses are exceedingly depending on software services to render innovative solutions.

2. Software service providers are rendering incapable of developing solutions at the rate which business leaders are demanding.

3. The service delivery process is primarily slowed down because of immature development process and corporate culture.

4. A handful of IT organizations are seeking aid of advanced continuous delivery processes.

Suggesting the need of an enhanced delivery process, the report said that if any organization has a team which has not even touched Level 4 of the continuous delivery maturity model, it’s time to devise ways to get it there as soon as possible.