4 areas software development can have the most impact

Personal computers, smartphones, and workstations have become extremely pervasive in both our personal daily lives and business activities. Almost everything we do involves technology somehow.

But none of these devices can do anything entirely on their own. They need to be complemented by competent, reliable software that can perform the tasks people demand. Just look at your business computer, how many proprietary software programs do you use? Could you function without them? You’ll find the answer is a resounding no. This is why we need quality software development.

High-quality bespoke software programs are more important in some areas than others. For example, a local restaurant can create a relatively simplistic website with no bells and whistles, and it will do the job, for the most part. But in other sectors, you can’t survive and be competitive without high-quality bespoke software. In this article, we’ll rank the areas where software development is most impactful.

#1 Commerce

Commerce is the one sector in the economy that has been almost completely dominated by companies that heavily rely on the internet and custom software platforms. Think of the largest commerce companies: Amazon, Alibaba, Jingdong, etc., and they all started out as internet startups.

The internet gives you an extremely wide reach and lets you market products to people all over your country and even the world. This is extremely important to allow your business to grow and find new markets for your products.

This is even more important for startups and small businesses as they often provide a niche product, and niche products are only viable if a large population pool has access to your products.

#2 Banking and finance

Modern banking and finance would not be possible without really intricate bespoke software and very reliable internet. Banking security and reliability requirements are extremely strict. People have really high standards when it comes to companies they trust their money with, and for good reason.

Bespoke software programs can meet these security and reliability standards. Additional identity verification checks, isolated networks, custom encryptions, and much more can all be judicially used in custom software to make banking and finance truly secure. This is why software development for finance and banking provides so much value.

#3 Business 2 business

Companies that cater to other businesses have fundamentally different structures, operations, and services than companies that cater to consumers (B2C). B2B companies usually offer more sophisticated services/products, have higher standards for their conduct, and their services need to be more individualized.

None of these is easy to achieve, especially using traditional business methods and approaches, which are inflexible and hard to individualize. The same can’t be said for ones that heavily incorporate custom software and digitization, however.

With custom software, you can create custom business processes and approaches and be sure you have reliable applications that will complement them each step of the way. You can create individualized pipelines that are informed by and augmented through bespoke software programs.

The benefits of bespoke software programs here are almost limitless, and this is why it is very rare that you see a successful B2B company that doesn’t heavily rely on them.

Enterprise software development allows to align customer-related and business processes into a single holistic system with precise analytics, assigned departments processes and responsibilities, and tracking of how technology choices, new policies, and activities influence both sides of a business. Among other significant benefits are reducing routine operations and making data-driven decisions.

#4 Customer service

There’s a well-known fact in business management: retaining loyal customers is far cheaper than trying to appeal to new ones, and there’s one statistics rule that generally holds. The 80/20 rule: usually, 80% of your company’s revenues will only come from 20% of your customers.

These two facts tell us one thing very important: trying to please and retain your loyal customers is absolutely vital, and it is far more essential than marketing campaigns and adverts to new customers. They are the base you can rely on to ensure your company has a sustainable and reliable source of revenue.

In the past, businesses usually catered to loyal customers through in-person interactions building rapport and helping the customer put a human face on the business. But as eCommerce has taken over and businesses have scaled upward in size, this is far more expensive nowadays, and it has not retained its effectiveness, either.

One great solution that many companies have been using is bespoke customer service software. These programs allow you to chat with your customer, answer their inquiries in a reasonable amount of time, and keep track of your previous interactions with each individual.

If incorporated correctly into the business, this level of customer service is absolutely a game-changer, and it will do wonders for your customer retention rate. This is why so many businesses have decided to invest in bespoke customer service software, and it is also why you should look more into it.