It’s now or never for more perfect software

Now is the time to celebrate how software is helping us, everyday consumers, to get our daily tasks done and make our lives easier. For instance, from paying bills via an app or streaming a film, most of our day-to-day activities are digital and our reliance on digital infrastructure has never been greater than during COVID-19.

Prioritising software

With our daily consumption being largely digital, companies need to prioritise software, or they will risk losing customers and revenue. There is currently a real struggle to retain talent in the tech industry, which shows no signs of abating, and the global shortage of skilled software developers is at the heart of it. Recent research commissioned by New Relic found that 37% of UK respondents had difficulty recruiting the right development and infrastructure skills, making it a major barrier to software and systems performance within their organisation. Interestingly, the figures showed that Australian businesses (50%) were struggling more than those in Japan (43%), UK (37%), US (30%), Germany (30%) and France (29%).

In addition, existing engineering teams are facing increased difficulties in managing new software and infrastructure, all while working from home. That said, nine out of ten of the best performing businesses surveyed said that developing and deploying more perfect software has helped them to overcome challenges during the pandemic. The top 25% of respondents are identified as ‘More Perfect Software Leaders,’ having reported higher success against business metrics like financial performance and growth, pace of innovation, employee engagement, and brand perception. For these leaders, it is a strategic priority for them to:

o Leverage cloud technology – By migrating applications and infrastructure onto the cloud, it allows businesses to enhance agility and speed to market.

o Observe – A single source of truth on how software and systems are performing in real time provides holistic insights that can shape software design and development, thus allowing teams to rapidly identify and resolve issues.

o Monitor data intelligence – Evaluating software performance data and incorporating it into customer experience with business data can enable companies to develop solutions that answer customers’ needs.

o Build resilience – Businesses should consider employing chaos testing and automated remediation to minimise errors and downtime while still enabling faster innovation.

The research also found that 77% of leaders adopted chaos testing, compared with just 30% of laggards, and 89% of leaders engage in automated remediation in contrast to 5% of laggards. With these systems in place, 83% of leaders experienced only five software and systems outages per month, while 49% of laggards faced 11 to 15.

Meeting customers’ needs

Today, the rise and fall of a company is all down to how well they engage with their customers, no matter which industry the business falls into. So, how do companies meet their customers’ demands?

Most businesses today are using software to service their customers and manage their supply chain from a competitive standpoint. With the pandemic speeding up digital transformation, digital channels could soon become the only way customers interact with many of their go-to brands. As organisations undergo this change, they will need to measure themselves against speed, service, and scale to stay ahead of the competition.

Key questions businesses ought to ask themselves include:

● How quickly can new products, services, and improved customer experience go to market?

● Is our business able to service customers 24/7, regardless of their geographical location?

● How does our business scale to meet increasing global demand?

Maintaining a focus on software development and ensuring engineering teams are fully equipped to move fast, fail quickly, and scale easily is vital. Businesses would struggle to achieve this agility if they were stuck in data centres with legacy technology, silos of data, and lack of observability - software is what provides businesses with a competitive edge against competitors.

Empowering teams

Developers need to have good access to authority, data, and tools to make faster and more informed decisions to provide seamless user experiences and enable business continuity during the pandemic. Although engineering teams are facing a huge amount of pressure, having a desirable DevOps culture in place encourages speed and drives efficiency, optimal productivity, and high job satisfaction.

However, many companies are finding it challenging to expand their software development teams to meet demand in the first place due to skills shortages and poor employee retention. This is as a result of numerous issues including a lack of a ‘developer-first’ culture within the business, low levels of autonomy, and limited access to the necessary tools and resources. The research provided further insight – 99% of leaders say their company culture and observability technology allows their developers to make quick decisions without fear of repercussions, whereas only 33% of laggards can say the same.

Therefore, in order to keep and attract developers onboard, firms need to be able to present exciting and challenging projects that allow them to grow their skillsets. At the same time, they need to be given the best tools and technology to successfully complete the tasks on hand to realise greater job satisfaction, increased tenure, and a highly skilled and motivated workforce.

Now, more than ever, it is essential that businesses are able to deliver bespoke and frictionless experiences to their customers as COVID-19 continues to expedite digital adoption. And it is our developers and engineering teams that are keeping digital infrastructure afloat during these times of unprecedented demand for online services. To realise more perfect software, it is time to re-think processes, put employees first, and ensure they have the tools they need to succeed. It is now or never.