Organizations have always faced the arduous task of delivering reliable services and intuitive products, while developing new solutions that anticipate the future needs of their customers. The difference today is that the highly competitive nature of markets leaves little room for error, as a missed opportunity can mean not only the loss of a potential revenue stream, but the end of a company’s viability. That’s why increasing numbers of companies are pursuing a Bimodal approach to meet customers’ expectations and stay ahead of their rivals as regards bringing new products and services to market. Why is partnering with a software outsourcing team the best way to kill two birds with one stone? Read on to find out.
A Bimodal approach – where dependability meets agility
Gartner defines a Bimodal approach as “the practice of managing two separate but coherent styles of work: one focused on predictability; the other on exploration. Mode 1 is optimized for areas that are more predictable and well-understood. It focuses on exploiting what is known, while renovating the legacy environment into a state that is fit for a digital world. Mode 2 is exploratory, experimenting to solve new problems and optimized for areas of uncertainty.”
In other words, one side focuses on what is currently in use and is dedicated to ensuring business continuity and delivering rewarding customer experience (CX). Goals associated with this aspect of business range from preventing disruption of services to enhancing the existing offer with user-friendly features and functionalities to securing users from bad actors and criminal cyber activity.
The other side, otherwise known as the exploratory side, dreams big, thinks outside the box and aims to build a better mousetrap (any number of cliches can work). The point of this side’s activity is to drive development and innovation; to take the existing purpose of a product or service and envision what it could become in the future. An idea is tested, analyzed and modified through fast iterations in order to produce a minimum viable product (MVP) that can be presented to end-users.
For organizations across all sectors, both sides are vital to maximizing value, driving growth plans and evolving products and services to delight existing customers, attract new ones and create new revenue streams. According to Statista, worldwide spending on digital transformations is expected to reach $1.78 trillion USD by the end of this year – so the pressure is on to implement evolutive solutions that not only reflect a changing world but anticipate it, has never been greater.
A Bimodal approach enables a company to concentrate on its core business
Organizations, facing stiff competition and ever-changing customer expectations, need to be able to concentrate on delivering their best products and services. To this end, their internal specialists are working towards maintaining stability and reliability. The overarching aim is to safeguard the core business of an enterprise.
Teaming up with a software outsourcing company will eliminate many necessary, but expensive and time-consuming tasks for an organization. For one thing, the burden of recruiting, hiring and onboarding experts to scale up operations falls to a software development outsourcer, who assembles the talents needed to speed up software delivery processes. This provides invaluable relief, as a shirking talent pool makes finding (and retaining) qualified experts increasingly difficult. Forbes reports that the shortage of 40 million skilled workers in 2020 is expected to reach 85.2 million by 2030. Allocating time and resources to attract this talent is an enormous undertaking, one that companies can pass on to their software partner to handle.
Additionally, support from an external, dedicated development team that prioritizes ownership results in a ‘hands-off’ approach to software development. Support from autonomous teams of interdisciplinary experts, including various types of developers, engineers, programmers, testers and data scientists, means that a company does not have to baby-sit a partner and can trust that their ambitious visions are being turned into practical realities that generate real value for the business.
Beyond addressing the pressing need all organizations face vis-a-vis scalability, a software outsourcing company can bring a wealth of knowledge that comes from real-world experience working on diverse projects for companies across sectors. An external team will have a background working within different frameworks and environments using numerous different tools and technologies. This high level of technical skill enables quickly getting a project up and running, so that little time is wasted between onboarding and actual development. Moreover, given their range of technical knowledge, a software outsourcing team can provide the trusted consultancy and best practices that come from experience testing tools and technologies from previous product engineering projects. Given that, according to research, around 70,000 new Android apps are released in the Google Play Store every month, this advice could be the difference between engineering a forward-thinking solution that evolves with your business, and one that gets lost in the crowd.
A Bimodal approach sets the stage for trailblazing solutions
By teaming up with a software outsourcing company, organizations can leverage their partner’ capacity to explore new options and develop ground-breaking solutions. Companies like Corelogic and Gtech, for example, have found new ideas and opened new revenue streams by doing exactly that.
The possibilities that companies have today as a result of emerging technologies is breath-taking; the fourth industrial revolution, known as Industry 4.0, is well and truly underway. In the words of Deloitte, “…the marriage of physical assets and advanced digital technologies – the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), robots, drones, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, cloud computing, nanotechnology, and more – that communicate, analyze, and act upon information, enabling organizations, consumers, and society to be more flexible and responsive and make more intelligent, data-driven decisions.”
The most effective way to explore your options is with a cross-functional team of experts who are familiar with cutting-edge tools, technologies and methods. Few companies have in-house employees who specialize in all these areas but given the wide range of projects its clients have, a software outsourcing company does. Even if your initial project does not include a certain area, the scope can, and will change. Instead of hiring another consultant, companies can make use of all the resources their outsourcing partner has. This saves money and importantly, time. Additionally, the knowledge-sharing that can occur between external and internal teams means that insights and best practices your team learns working alongside a software outsourcing team can be transferred to the rest of your employees. Normally, it takes years to gain this institutional knowledge, and comes with high price tag. Working with a software outsourcing company speeds up the process of attaining this information and should be regarded as an extra benefit that is included in the price.
How can you choose the right software outsourcing partner for a Bimodal approach?
While there is value to be gained from consulting industry observers like Gartner, Forrester, Capgemini and KPMG, the most important barometers are a company’s track record and reviews from past clients. The former can be obtained through case studies and testimonials. The later will give invaluable insight into culture, competencies and compatibility a software outsourcer can offer.
The right software partner will be one who seeks to understand your business and the market you operate in – only by doing this will an external team be able to deliver true, lasting business value. Pay attention to the culture of the organization you are thinking of hiring – do the values it embraces reflect your own? A similar culture will make it far likelier that teamwork is efficient, communication is smooth and the attitude to work is in line with your own. While there are many admirable values, ownership and openness are key to delivering achieving responsibility and encouraging communication.
While remote work, especially over the last few years, has soared in popularity and is a credible method of collaboration, time zone compatibility is still important. A software company provides nearshore, as well as offshore support, should be regarded as a frontrunner.
Whether seeking to adopt a Bimodal approach, accelerate digital transformations or access top-notch engineering talent, organizations around the world are turning to Software Mind to manage software delivery processes from ideation to release and beyond. Want to ramp up your capacity and develop solutions that scale to your growth? Get in touch with our experts by filling out the form below.
About the authorLeszek Czarnota
Director of Digital Growth
A Director of Digital Growth with over 20 years’ experience in the IT industry, Leszek combines a technical background in application development services with business knowledge from the financial and telecommunication industries. This extensive experience and passion for innovation enable him to create and implement effective strategies for generating new business.
