Digital powers the next generation of startups and small businesses. But as the digital landscape transforms, so do the unique challenges these businesses face. Challenges require an innovative technology—driven solution to keep small businesses competitive and up to speed for the accelerated growth and market pressures of the digital economy.
Traditional software development is too slow—the time to market is critical as small businesses work with party “A-Players” to maximize their capital and stay ahead in the race. Therefore it is important for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses to get new, innovative concepts to yellow within milliseconds and CRUSH the market. Dive into the blog post Software Development as a Service and see how it works for you!
This blog further explores the topic of: Software Development as a Service (SDaaS)—what it is, and more specifically, how does it benefit startups and small business to enable them to undergo their digital transformation journey, efficiently and effectively.
Cost Efficiency and Flexibility
More often than not, startups and small businesses don’t boast the luxury of deep pockets and, as such, must cautiously allocate their money and manpower. In-house software development comes with some significant financial strings attached – including infrastructure setup and maintenance, licensing fees, and personnel costs. Consequently, SDaaS is a cost-efficient alternative, as businesses pay for what they actually need – and park the fixed, large costs they’d accrue through development. This flexibility and cost-savings allows a small business to invest more cash in the areas that are most crucial to their success (marketing and talent acquisition, for instance), all while fueling their growth and scalability.
Enhanced Speed to Market
In the cutthroat landscape of startups, being first to market can make all of the difference. Traditional software development cycles are inherently long and drawn-out, often resulting in delayed launches, missed opportunities and, ultimately, losing market share to competitors. SDaaS offers startups and small businesses a game-changer in that they have the flexibility to access seasoned development teams who are able to rapidly deliver high-quality software solutions. With SDaaS, startups can compress significantly their time to market, gaining essential early customer feedback and maintaining their lead over rivals as they continue to adapt their software to the needs of a rapidly changing industry and customer base.
Available Expertise and Talent
Most new startup companies have minimal in-house technical expertise, so management of development complexities presents quite a challenge. A SDaaS provider has a wealth of experience and specialized skills that they can bring to the startup company’s business, specific to what they and their development need; it’s an easy way to tap into a wide and deep pool of talent without the overhead involved in hiring and training a myriad new staff. Whether startups need strategic software architects that can help anticipate and tackle new business challenges, UI/UX design experts that can bring fresh perspectives to user interactions, data and database administrators that can scale on demand, or security that can keep third party bugs from crawling on their application from the bottom up, SDaaS providers can put a team together, ramp it up quickly, and then dissolve it just as fast when the project’s complete. This level of competency can unchain startup companies from the operational responsibilities needed to manage technical teams, freeing them to focus on what they do best — crafting exceptional experiences and new products.
Scalability and resource optimization
Both the startup and small business environments are characterized by change and usually not with much time to prepare. It is difficult to predict with any confidence just what resources are going to be needed to build and deploy a product — demand is not always predictable. SDaaS providers that can scale up or down on a project team in a matter of days are going to be highly sought after. Startup and or small business owners will find they are, finally, able to ensure that their resources align with business demands. A startup or small businesses can bulk up their development team to launch a product to a broader audience. This is, before going further, the most important point of all — it’s never for a moment about finding enough developers to hire permanently, but rather, finding enough so they can finish one project, and then shifting all but a couple off that project. It not only helps with resource optimization, it also keeps small companies lean enough so they can move fast, strike quickly when opportunities arise, and shift when market conditions dictate — all without the crushing burden of fixed cost.
Focus on Core Competencies
Startups and small businesses – faced with managing everything from marketing and sales to operations and customer support – must often juggle many hats. After the attention and time software development projects demand, these businesses are distracted from the core competencies that drive success. By outsourcing software development to an SDaaS provider, startups can reallocate internal resources, time and attention to critical business functions that are central to their success. This strategic delegation drives increased productivity, efficiency and effectiveness, and can significantly boost service delivery, customer satisfaction and overall business growth.
Innovation and Competitive Advantage
Startups live and die on their ability to innovate, disrupt and differentiate. Positioned within an SDaaS ecosystem start-ups gain access to external professionals that have honed their craft by working in different industries and exposing themselves to the latest technologies. These professionals bring fresh perspectives, creative ideas and best practices that can shape (or reshape) the innovation cycle within startups. By leveraging SDaaS, start-ups can stay abreast of the latest industry trends, harness that knowledge to keep them ahead of the pack and deliver unique software solutions that clearly differentiate them from the competition.
The digital technology revolution of recent times that’s responsible for so many of the unprecedented breakthroughs in digital technology in recent times, has of course unleashed the inevitable, digital disruption. In ways that were simply not possible before, small business and startup, without technology and software expertise, have never been able to leave their lumbering old competitors behind and race off to conquer their lucrative customer base. Traditional and conservative business people everywhere, who before would leave the gurus of business to others, are all now jumping on board with the new business gurus: the ones who declare, “Disrupt or be disrupted.”
Business is everywhere you look to business themselves for the new business product and services that their scale executes on their small business and startup competitors for them. Or for the digital analytics combined with big data and the Software as a Service (SaaS) delivered by the winning startups and small business that leapfrog the traditional ones to success, before they can use their sacale to eliminate the new competition , increasingly, these traditional businesses, can’t wait for the SaaS and big data combinations, that take giant bite size chunks out of their business.
The rate of market change is now too quick to keep pace (in a recent study 76 percent of executives said the current business environment will change more in the next five years than it did in the preceding forty nine.) As importantly, even if you could, you can’t get the kind of scale you need from traditional SaaS cloud applications. Today, you don’t build anything (with the exception of core IP) and certainly nothing if it touches the internet. You buy it. More and more startups are turning to Software Development as a Service (SDaaS) to acquire (in many cases, develop from scratch) the applications they need to compete — and they do so without a staff and the capital investments necessary for in-house hardware management and software development/integration that conventional solutions require.
According to McKinsey & Company, “The proliferation of services signals an unprecedented ability to use software in unfamiliar and fluid business environments at speed and scale. As these services gain critical mass, they drive the widespread, rapid formation of new solutions — including tools to integrate or coordinate them — and establish the foundation for new business models…. Organizations implementing these patterns have reported a 41 percent improvement in time to market, 69 percent improvement in application quality, and 53 percent fewer defects from development to production. And $25 per user costs (vs traditional SaaS model), is what enables startups to embrace them — leveling the playing field or even enabling them to outflank” larger competitors.
The report confirmed the massive benefit when it observed, “Faster and cheaper options for developing software and bringing it to market represent the biggest opportunity for digital transformation.” For startups, small businesses and the employees who drive them, “digital transformation” means “business transformation,” and the technology and capability made possible by SDaaS enable these benefits.
Conclusion
SDaaS enables startups and SMBs to digitally transform and reach their growth objectives affordably and competitively. By delivering cost efficiency, flexibility, speed to market, access to expertise, scalability and innovation, SDaaS partners allow startups to remain focused on their core business, enhance their customer experiences and achieve sustainable growth. As the digital world rapidly evolves, SDaaS will indeed prove to be the game-changing approach that enables startups and SMBs to confidently compete in today’s fast, highly competitive digital business world.
For new startups with nothing but big ideas and gumption, the innovative software brought to market through SDaaS will always light the way. As it ushers in new markets, new customers and new opportunities for growth, each step of that journey is worth it.
So, startup? Go ahead and embrace SDaaS. But embrace the pants off of it. Because it’s the key to changing the future prospects of your young company – to the point that you’ve not only disrupted an industry, but have successfully embraced a whole new digital transformation, as well.
