3 Pillars of Realizing your Software Product Vision

The global software market, which currently stands at $300-320 billion, is creating immense opportunities for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to develop groundbreaking products and expand their market. However, as the business ecosystem is becoming more complex, there is an increase in the demand for ISVs to meet the need for specific business processes or design for niche markets globally at a rapid pace.

Challenges for ISVs to scale up

While established ISVs, with their large talent pool and wealth, can adapt to the fast changing scenario, for the small and mid-sized ISVs, it is difficult to ride with the tide. In a competitive scenario, the mid-sized ISVs come across several challenges such as speeding up the launch of new releases, improving product quality and customer satisfaction, and reducing support costs.

Challenges for ISVs while scaling up

• Finding the right talent for software development

• Retaining quality software developers

• Reducing time to market

• Reducing R&D cost

• Choosing the right development partner

• Increasing operational efficiency

• Dealing with ongoing maintenance/ support

As a mid-sized ISV, your job becomes challenging because some versions of the product are already out in the market and the customer expectations are high. You have already established your presence in the software development domain and now face the task of sustaining the success and stabilizing your operations, in order to move to the next level. At this stage, you aspire to rub shoulders with the leaders in the industry and explore new business opportunities and sign new deals.

Taking the right approach

ISVs often face the dilemma of choosing the right approach of realizing their software product vision. After carefully analyzing the primary issues that ISVs generally come across, we have identified three pillars – talent, methodology and technology, which should be the main focus areas for software companies to address the roadblocks and achieve success gradually.

Strategic options for ISVs to scale up

• Increase the size of R&D team

• Explore and expand to new market/geographies

• Add new customers from SMEs and large enterprises across industries

• Create new products to capture emerging market

• Upgrade and relaunch existing software products

Now, you have the three pillars in front of you to support your product development vision. But do you have the relevant experience to strike a perfect balance between all the three? In this scenario, an expert development partner with strong product knowledge may be of help. The partner should not only support you with the required number of talented engineers, at the same time, they should be equally sound with development methodologies such as agile and modern technology such as cloud.

Hire the right talent, secure success

For a software company, hiring high quality talent is crucial and it should be the first pillar of realizing your software product vision. If an ISV manages to hire and sustain the right software developers, technical architects or project managers, it has almost reached the milestone to secure the success of its software product and the entire organization as a whole. While sourcing quality talent is the primary step, there is also the aspect of retaining them. It is a challenge for ISVs to generate loyalty in its developers towards the business and a steady commitment towards the products by investing in them and supporting them in their professional growth.

ISVs should seek candidates who are

A talented software developer should have the capability to take initiative and be a real master. Especially with limited funding, ISVs cannot afford to recruit software developers who can only create perfect code, but lack leadership qualities.

Several ISVs also face the challenge of finding the right talent in their own country. While setting up an R&D team, it is not always easy to find a software engineer, a developer, an architect or a senior manager who can lead the development team with ease.