Managing application development to unlock its full potential
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A report from The Economist Intelligence Unit
Managing application
development to unlock
its full potential
Sponsored by:Managing application development to unlock its full potential
Contents
About this report 2
Executive summary 3
1 Applications are here to stay 4
2 Differing roles and perspectives among application developers and C-suite 6
3 Models and methods of application development 8
4 Challenges and opportunities 11
The road ahead 13
1 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2018Managing application development to unlock its full potential
About this
report
Managing application development to unlock its Interviewees
full potential is an Economist Intelligence Unit Fin Goulding, international chief
report, sponsored by Google Cloud. The findings do information officer, Aviva
not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsor.
Finbarr Joy, chief technology officer, Superbet
The report draws on two main sources
for its research and findings: Martin Migoya, chief executive officer, Globant
A survey that includes responses from 1,018 Mike Robinson, executive vice-president
senior executives and application developers of product management and
worldwide, across financial services, healthcare, customer experience, Macy’s
manufacturing, retail, public sector, and
gaming and entertainment industries. Survey Roisin Parkes, chief technology
respondents are located in the Americas (44%), officer, Gumtree Australia
Europe, Middle East and Africa, or EMEA, (31%) We would like to thank all the interviewees
and Asia-Pacific, or APAC, (25%). More than half of and survey respondents for their time and
survey respondents (52%) are in the IT function. insights. The report was written by Jessica
A series of in-depth interviews Twentyman and edited by Michael Hoffmann.
with senior executives.
2 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2018Managing application development to unlock its full potential
Executive
summary
As hard as it may be to believe, it is more than The report investigates best practices in
eight years since a now-famous marketing slogan application development, drawing on the real-life
made its debut: “There’s an app for that.” experiences of those managing the process, and the
These days, there really is an application for importance of close alignment between development
almost everything—and most business leaders teams, the C-suite and the wider business. There
agree that their own company’s applications are were marked differences in responses between
important elements of their growth strategies, these groups across a range of topics.
helping them to reach new customers, develop
stronger links with existing ones and build new Key findings include:
revenue streams. Indeed, enterprise applications More than nine out of ten (94%) of survey
are numerous in type and function, connecting respondents describe application development
businesses to consumers, employees and other as either somewhat or very important
businesses across platforms like web and mobile. to their business’s growth strategy.
As businesses have embraced application
More than two-thirds (67%) of respondents
development, they have also adopted cloud
have already adopted some degree of
technologies, providing their teams not only
cloud infrastructure or applications and
with a platform on which to develop and test new
29% plan to within the next three years.
applications but also to run applications efficiently
without relying on hardware. When an application When it comes to proposing new applications,
turns out to be a big hit with customers, cloud approving and developing them, and allocating
provides the scalable infrastructure businesses budget, IT leads at most organisations, but
need to cope with potentially huge spikes in traffic. in close consultation with heads of business
As applications have become core to companies’ and with support from the C-suite.
strategies, their development has also become The most common ways to organise
an important part of corporate operations. development teams are by department (cited
But application development is not without its by 41% of respondents), function (33%) or
challenges, as shown by this report, sponsored business unit (31%), reflecting an emphasis
by Google Cloud. The research is based on a on business needs over technical issues.
survey of more than 1,000 business executives
and application developers at large organisations When asked about the preferred methods
across the Americas, EMEA and APAC. for application development, respondents
point to Agile (45%), DevOps (39%) and
Continuous Integration, or CI (31%).
In terms of barriers to application development,
security tops the list (44%), followed by lack of
funding (30%) and inflexible technology (27%).
3 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2018Managing application development to unlock its full potential
1 Applications are here to stay
Today, the technical barriers to accessing computing our customers better than ever,” he said.
power have all but fallen, and people with good Much of the responsibility for taking Macy’s
ideas for digital offerings can find the technical application forward rests with Mike Robinson,
infrastructure they need to express them faster the company’s executive vice-president of
than ever before. From a simple computer database product management and customer experience.
to a digitally savvy mobile shopping experience, Members of his team, he reports, “understand
enterprise applications play a powerful role in growth the impact that they can have and see it
and business development across industries. through the measurement of key metrics.”
Indeed, applications are widely seen as The constantly changing expectations of
vital to organisational growth strategies, say customers present a challenge, Mr Robinson adds.
respondents to an Economist Intelligence Unit “Speed is the name of the game and we have moved
survey of more than 1,000 business executives from a few releases a year to almost weekly. Our
and application developers at large enterprises job is to make the customer journey as convenient,
across the Americas, EMEA and APAC regions. as relevant and as interesting as we can.”
The survey was conducted by The Economist Other companies are thinking about enterprise
Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Google Cloud. applications the same way. The survey shows that
More than nine out of ten (94%) survey the acquisition of new customers is seen as the
respondents describe application development most important driver of organisational growth
as either somewhat or very important to strategy (55%), followed by increased revenue
their business’s growth strategy. from existing customers (47%), suggesting that
That’s certainly true at iconic US retailer Macy’s. companies see applications as a channel to reach
In May 2017 CEO Jeff Gennette outlined a new “North wider audiences and sell more products or services.
Star Strategy” for the company in his first address to On a regional basis, respondents in the Americas
shareholders since taking the top job in March. He are more likely to describe application development
could not have been clearer about the importance as very important (74%), compared with their
of digital applications in his turnaround plan. counterparts in EMEA (59%) and APAC (60%).
“Every experience matters, in-store and And on an industry basis, gaming and media
online,” he said. “Our mobile app and digital most often describe application development
capabilities complement the store experience as very important (82%), while those from the
and help our talented sales associates serve government/public sector are least likely to (46%).
Figure 1 Figure 2
Organisations across Americas Applications are seen as very important to growth strategies across various industries
geographic regions APAC (% of respondents saying ‘very important’)
agree that applications Europe & ME Gaming & media 82%
are very important to Retail 72%
their growth strategy 74% Manufacturing 71%
(% of respondents saying
‘very important’) 59% Financial services 68%
60% 59%
Healthcare & life sciences
“How important is application 46%
Government/public sector
development to implementing your
organisation’s growth strategy?” “How important is application development to implementing your organisation’s growth strategy?”
Source: EIU survey sponsored by Google
4 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2018Managing application development to unlock its full potential
Cloud enables modern applications
One thing is clear: cloud plays a big role in the More than two-thirds (67%) of respondents
application development effort at most companies, have already adopted some degree of cloud
whether by providing a platform for developing infrastructure or applications and 29% plan to
or testing applications or, as in many cases within the next three years. That leaves a paltry 4%
today, a runtime environment for applications who are not using cloud and have no plans to.
in production. It’s more scalable than using on- Mr Robinson at Macy’s notes that cloud has
premises infrastructure—so if an application helped the company “shift the development
proves to be a big hit with customers, there’s timeline. We continually focus on using cloud
always more capacity to accommodate spikes services to accelerate our development velocity,”
in traffic, billed on a pay-as-you-go basis. he says. By using cloud resources, Macy’s
As the international chief information officer seeks to release more software more quickly,
(CIO) of financial services firm Aviva, Fin Goulding, in the form of regular, incremental updates to
puts it, “our leadership is very progressive here in software and new features and functions.
terms of cloud as long as they see that it is used
within a very secure model. They understand
how it can help to get application development
work done quickly and delivered at scale.”
Figure 3
Most businesses are using or planning to use cloud applications in the near future
(% of respondents)
More than two apps or a significant portion of computing infrastructure in the cloud 38%
One or two apps or a small portion of computing infrastructure in the cloud 29%
Plan to use cloud-based apps and/or computing infrastructure within the next 12 months 15%
Plan to use cloud-based apps and/or computing infrastructure within 1 to 3 years 14%
Not at all and have no plans to adopt cloud technologies 4%
“To what extent has your organisation adopted cloud technologies?” Source: EIU survey sponsored by Google
5 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2018Managing application development to unlock its full potential
2 Differing roles and perspectives among
application developers and C-suite
It takes a village to develop modern enterprise But elsewhere in the business, others have
applications. The breadth of people involved their say. Heads of business units play a prominent
in application development ultimately helps role, particularly when it comes to proposing
leverage the strengths of the entire business, applications. Marketing or product managers may
but it also introduce new challenges. also have a distinct view of what customers expect
The survey findings reveal that IT is out in front from an application compared with developers.
when it comes to proposing new applications, When it comes to proposing applications for
approving them, managing development and development, for example, 27% of respondents
allocating budget. The heads of IT have the say that heads of business units play a role here
largest role overall, but they are supported by and 24% say product managers are involved.
IT managers, CIOs and chief technology officers CEOs, meanwhile, are cited as having a role
(CTOs) and, of course, the developers themselves in various stages of development but are most
across all stages of application development. often involved in having final authority over
application development and allocating budget.
At Macy’s, application development is a true
At Macy’s, application development is a true company-wide effort, company-wide effort, says Mr Robinson. “Our model
is based on business sponsorship and expectations,
says Mr Robinson. “Our model is based on business sponsorship
translated through our product management
and expectations, translated through our product management team, partnering with technology to co-develop,
team, partnering with technology to co-develop, iterate and iterate and deliver our capabilities,” he says.
deliver our capabilities,” he says.
Figure 4 App developers Discrepancies
Attitudes on application development vary greatly between developers and the C-suite C-suite (% of respondents)
(% of respondents saying ‘poor’ or ‘unsuccessful’)
39%
Ease of acquiring resources 30%
9%
39%
Rewarding innovation and creativity 29%
10%
31%
Training and development 27%
4%
29%
Flexibility throughout development 21%
8%
26%
Hiring high-quality talent 19%
7%
24%
Encouraging collaboration with non-IT teams 17%
7%
17%
Use of KPIs 11%
6%
“How would you assess your organisation’s application development processes with respect to each of the following?“
“How successful is your organisation at each of the following practices, specifically with respect to application developers?”
6 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2018 Source: EIU survey sponsored by GoogleManaging application development to unlock its full potential
Internal development, as indicated by developers (54%) say far less often than those in the
survey respondents, is generally favoured over C-suite (80%) that application development is very
outsourcing to a third-party development specialist, important to their organisation’s growth strategy.
but only by a relatively small margin. Financial This disconnect suggests that greater
services more often opts for internal development transparency may be helpful, not just in highlighting
than do companies in other industries (58%), to developers how the applications they develop
whereas manufacturing (51%) and retail (43%) will help the organisation to grow, but also in
more often choose external development. encouraging them to use new approaches that could
Although the IT function works closely with the accelerate and streamline that work. Furthermore,
wider business to deliver applications, the data reveal these insights can be shared across all parts of the
striking divergences of opinion across seniority levels business, from the developers to the C-suite.
with respect to the role of technology in the business. Aviva’s Mr Goulding describes the importance
At the same time, the closer respondents are of putting applications “at the centre of the
to day-to-day application development, the more business. That starts with new ways of working
often they rate elements of that process as poor or across all the technical teams. But we have to
ineffective, from the ease of acquiring necessary extend what we’re learning there to the rest of the
resources to the rewarding of innovation and business, so that the whole business recognises
creativity. Similarly, although most participants and appreciates the importance of agility,
rate their organisation’s IT practices positively, digital in general and of apps in particular.”
application developers more often describe Across the board, C-suite respondents are much
various IT practices as ineffective than do director- more sanguine about levels of encouragement for
level and C-suite audiences. These discrepancies using different tools than are application developers.
suggest that application developers are not More than two-thirds (69%) say that the use of
empowered to work at their full potential. cloud services is very encouraged, but only 37%
In fact, those working on day-to-day application of application developers agree. When it comes to
development may not even understand how open source software, almost half (49%) of C-suite
the work they are doing will contribute to their participants say their use is strongly encouraged,
organisation’s growth strategy. Application but only 29% of application developers agree.
Identifying leaders and best practices
What sets apart the leaders from the followers Executive buy-in certainly seems to get results.
when it comes to application development? By The data suggest that these leaders tend to be more
looking at companies that describe themselves as experimental, for example. In particular, leaders
“very successful” across all five best practices in more often feel encouraged to use new tools and
application development included in the survey— technologies and report high-quality applications
training and development, using KPIs, hiring relative to the overall group. They adopt cloud
high-quality talent, encouraging collaboration more often compared with the overall group
with non-IT teams and rewarding innovation (77% v 67%). Moreover, they are more often very
and creativity—it is possible to identify those encouraged to use cloud services, technologies
that might be considered “leaders”. These make new to the company, open source software and
up approximately 10% of the overall sample. bring-your-own-device (BYOD) approaches.
A key characteristic of leaders is that they Leaders more often report excellent
report greater involvement of the C-suite flexibility throughout application development,
throughout the application development ease of acquiring resources and quality of
process relative to the average, from the applications relative to competitors.
proposal of new applications (55% v 43%) to
their ongoing management (44% v 34%).
7 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2018Managing application development to unlock its full potential
3 Models and methods of
application development
The pressure on companies to deliver a steady flow these methodologies is a strong emphasis on
of robust, compelling applications has never been collaboration among multidisciplinary teams drawn
greater. And although IT may be heavily involved in from a wide cross-spectrum of the organisation.
managing various aspects of that pipeline, the overall Here, we again see different perspectives
strategic needs of the business often come first. between application developers and the C-suite,
In recent years, this line of thinking has leading to some confusion over what methodologies
sparked a revolution in how companies are actually used. For example, seven out of ten
develop and bring new applications to application developers report using agile application
market and how the success of applications is development, but only 34% of C-suite respondents
measured once they are “out in the wild”. say this is used. But C-suite respondents more often
It makes sense, then, that the data reveal that than application developers report usage of DevOps
development teams today are most commonly (50% v 30% of application developers), CI (41%
organised by department (41%), function (33%) v 19%) and Continuous Delivery (37% v 24%).
or business unit (31%). In this way, those groups This may be a question of definitions: these
in the business that commission an application— are all quite technical approaches, with which
perhaps marketing, for example, or a specific application developers are much more likely to
product group—and therefore have the best be familiar than a company’s leaders. Application
understanding of the business needs are involved developers may begin by using a handful of
in its design and development from the very start. these approaches to begin with, but they tend to
Various project methodologies have also incrementally add more over time as their familiarity
come to the fore. The three leading methods for with DevOps working practices grows. As Roisin
application development cited by respondents Parkes, CTO at Ebay-owned classifieds site Gumtree
are Agile, DevOps and CI. A shared focus of Australia says: “DevOps is definitely our direction
of travel. I wouldn’t say we’re fully there yet, but
Figure 5 we’re adopting elements of it all the time and it’s
Application developers are most often organised by department our intention to get to full DevOps when we can.”
(% of respondents)
On this journey, linking application development
Department 41% to the wider business remains important. “People
Function 33% are so wrong if they think that app development is
Business unit 31%
just about technology. That’s not the way to deliver
Products & services 30%
a great experience to customers,” says Martin
Application 28%
Operating system 26%
Migoya, CEO of Globant, a software development
Type of application 19% company that was founded in Argentina in 2003.
Programming language 7% Now listed on Nasdaq and having worldwide offices,
Vendor partner 5% the company builds applications for a wide range
“How are application development teams most often organised at your organisation?” of corporate clients, including sportswear brand
Source: EIU survey sponsored by Google
Puma, bank Santander and airline Southwest.
8 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2018Managing application development to unlock its full potential
Figure 6 App developers Discrepancies
The C-suite and developers report varying levels of modern application development methodologies C-suite (% of respondents)
(% of respondents)
70%
Agile 36%
34%
19%
Continuous integration (CI) 22%
41%
30%
DevOps 20%
50%
15%
Prototyping 20%
35%
10%
Pair programming 17%
27%
24%
Continuous delivery (CD) 13%
37%
33%
Iterative development 7%
26%
9%
Spiral 7%
16%
34%
Waterfall 7%
27%
25%
Incremental build 3%
28%
“What development models and methodologies are used by your organisation’s application developers?”
“This is not just about engineering, but also Perspectives on individual development methods
“A successful app has about design,” he says. “When Globant consults with differ by industry. Financial services companies
the ownership of the a client, we’ll sit down with the chief executive, the report a greater use of Agile (61%) relative to peers
whole company.” chief marketing officer, the sales team. A successful in other industries. Gaming and media companies
app has the ownership of the whole company.” report the greatest levels of CI, an arguably more
At Gumtree, Ms Parkes has her development technical practice that requires developers working
teams organised into squads, with each squad together on an application to integrate code into
including a project manager, a team leader, a number a shared repository, typically several times a day.
of front-end and back-end developers, a quality Application development methods also differ
assurance engineer and the “business owners” of the between companies that have adopted cloud and
application—such as advertising or sales executives. those that plan to in the near future. Cloud users
They follow a practice she refers to as “dual- more often report using DevOps than those that
track Agile”. In this approach, activities are split into plan to adopt cloud but haven’t yet done so (46%
discovery sprints and delivery sprints. In a discovery v 28%), CI (35% v 20%) and Continuous Delivery,
sprint, the teams will work on proof-of-concepts an approach that involves regular, small updates to
of new ideas and test them with customers. In the software, developed in short cycles (33% v 21%).
delivery sprint, new features are typically delivered These divergences may exist because cloud users
through an A/B test. This involves opening up that do not manage on-premises infrastructure.
new feature only to a pre-identified pool of Gumtree
users and comparing their interactions with the new
application with that of the existing application.
9 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2018Managing application development to unlock its full potential
Applications measured on external metrics over internal metrics
Once applications are delivered, what matters most Leveraging timely data analytics is critical for
is how they’re received by their intended audiences. understanding how customers use the applications
As Mr Migoya of Globant says: “Impact translates and what kind of traffic patterns they attract, says Mr
into loyalty, and loyalty translates into revenue.” Joy. “Instead of having a weekly or monthly dredge
Survey respondents agree: they say that through usage data when it comes to features or
applications’ success is generally measured on functions, our data analytics people sit directly in
external metrics, in particular quality (cited by the development team, giving constant directions on
53%) and customer satisfaction (52%). Quality everything, from the touchpoints at the front end of
of enterprise applications, in this case, refers the app, all the way through to certain usage patterns
to the software’s reliability, degree of latency that give clues as to where we could develop richer,
and compliance with functional requirements. more personalised segments at different stages in
Internal metrics are judged to be less important, individual games. That means we can run a lot faster
while time/budget (45%) and return on with the product, in terms of constantly improving it.”
investment (40%) both rank lower on the list. Feedback is also a big focus for Ms Parkes at
“It’s all about the outcome for the Gumtree. “With seven million visitors a month, the
customer, about the experience they have sheer volume of feedback can be overwhelming,
with our apps,” says Mr Joy at Superbet. but it’s all vital insight,” she says. She typically
External metrics also make it easier to identify gets daily reports on the ratings and reviews
when a new feature, for example, fails to hit that Gumtree’s Android and iOS applications
the spot with customers and to stage an early receive from users, along with reports from the
intervention—perhaps tweaking that feature or company’s customer support teams on any issues
abandoning it altogether if it proves unpopular. that users are experiencing. The results of A/B
But in order to establish those metrics, huge testing on new features are also thrown into the
volumes of data need to be collected, much of it mix. “All this helps me draw up a list of priorities.
unstructured (in the form of clickstream data, for But at the same time, I’m also keeping an eye
example). Those data then need to be stored and on what competitors are doing and, of course,
analysed. Here the cloud offers scalable storage thinking ahead about what might be the future
space and a platform to derive insights from data. technologies that we could use to enhance the
customer experience—obvious ones right now
include machine learning, artificial intelligence,
and even virtual and augmented reality.”
Figure 7
Applications most commonly measured on quality
(% of respondents)
Quality 53%
Customer and/or stakeholder satisfaction 52%
Execution delivery (on time and on budget) 45%
Customer and/or stakeholder use 43%
Achieving expected ROI 40%
Contribution to strategic goals 39%
“How does your organisation measure the success of application development?” Source: EIU survey sponsored by Google
10 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2018Managing application development to unlock its full potential
4 Challenges and opportunities
Survey respondents are largely positive about A world of challenges
their capabilities in a number of application
development and IT-related organisational practices. There are still many challenges for companies
They consider themselves successful at training across the board. The data reveal that these
and development (87%), using key performance challenges can hinder successful application
indicators, also known as KPIs, (86%) and hiring development as well as cloud adoption.
high-quality talent (86%). Likewise, they believe Top of the list is security, cited by 44% of
they’ve been effective in IT-related practices: respondents as a barrier to application development,
adopting cloud computing (87%), updating legacy followed by lack of funding (30%), inflexible
infrastructure (86%) and addressing interoperability technology (27%) and inflexible culture (26%).
and/or hybrid cloud challenges (85%). The importance attributed to these barriers
Respondents from the gaming/media sector reflects individual concerns of different sectors.
more often rate their IT practices as effective Although common across industries, security is a
relative to their peers in other industries, while particular concern for financial services companies
respondents from the government/public (50%), while government/public sector organisations
sector most often rate them as ineffective. are most likely to report lack of funding (41%).
In the case of application development, security
Figure 8
risks highlight the need for proper talent and skills
Most businesses consider their IT practices effective to avoid preventable breaches and mitigate user
(% of respondents) error, a leading cause of successful cyber-attacks.
Although executives must acknowledge the
Adopting cloud computing 87%
Updating legacy infrastructure
business implications posed by a potential security
86%
Addressing interoperability breach—such as brand damage or customer
85%
and/or hybrid cloud challenges loss—it is unlikely, however, that they will or
can afford to eschew application development
“How effective are your organisation’s IT
practices as they relate to each of the following?”
given its importance to growth strategy.
Similar barriers are seen when it comes
Figure 9 to cloud adoption, with security once again
Security is the top challenge for application development top of the list (46%), followed by inflexible
(% of respondents)
culture (25%) and lack of funding (23%).
Security 44% Across the survey base as a whole, the barriers
Lack of funding 30% to application development and cloud deployment
Inflexible technology 27%
are seen rather differently by C-suite executives
Inflexible culture 26%
24%
when compared with application developers.
Lack of alignment between IT and organisational strategy
Lack of insight into end users 24%
More than half (54%) of application developers
Lack of technical skills 23% cite security as a top barrier to adopting cloud
Lack of tools or technology 17% technologies, whereas the C-suite is more
No barriers 6% sanguine. There, only 39% see it as a barrier.
“What are your organisation’s biggest barriers to developing better applications?”
Source: EIU survey sponsored by Google
11 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2018Managing application development to unlock its full potential
Still, as suggested earlier by Mr Goulding, Only 14% of application developers see inflexible
executives are often comfortable using modern culture as a barrier to cloud adoption, while almost
platforms like cloud, as long as it is used within a third (32%) of C-suite respondents believe that
a secure framework. Again, this stresses the to be the case. Again, it’s clear that these groups
importance of gathering the right people and need to be communicating better in order to share
expertise to securely implement new technologies, a more common vision of the challenges faced.
for the vast majority of enterprises (96%) are
already using or planning to use cloud applications
and infrastructure within the next three years.
Figure 10
Cloud adoption is also hindered by security
(% of respondents)
Security 46%
Inflexible culture 25%
Lack of funding 23%
Lack of alignment between IT and organisational strategy 23%
Lack of technical skills 22%
Inflexible technology 21%
Vendor contract lock-in 20%
Lack of tools or technology 18%
No barriers 8%
“What are your organisation’s biggest barriers to adopting cloud technologies?” Source: EIU survey sponsored by Google
A matter of perspective
It’s no surprise that application developers unsuccessful, while only 8% of C-suite executives
working at the coalface of new code take a say the same. Over a third (39%) of the former
different view of the tools and practices at their group perceive problems with acquiring the
disposal when compared with their seniors in resources needed for application development,
the C-suite, who at best are somewhat remote but only 9% of C-suite executives agree.
from these activities on a day-to-day basis. In other words, the closer respondents are
C-suite respondents more often describe to application development, the less confident
their organisations as encouraging use of cloud they were in various elements of application
services, for example, than application developers development management. This is a gap
(88% v 69%). Similar discrepancies are seen when that urgently needs to be addressed through
it comes to open source software (84% v 70%) communications. Application developers and
and BYOD (68% v 30%). Although 88% of C-suite their managers need to be clearer about the
executives say that developers are encouraged issues they face and the resources that they
to use technologies new to the company, only need, and those at C-level need to get better at
73% of those lower down the hierarchy agree. responding to what they’re told about day-to-
Similarly, application developers more often rate day realities. More effective dialogue between
various aspects of their application development these two groups may help bridge that gap,
process as poor or unsuccessful, relative to their giving developers more resources and greater
higher level counterparts. For example, over one freedom to try new tools and technologies that
in four (29%) application developers describe will help them overcome the challenges they
their flexibility during development as poor or face and set them on a clearer path to success.
12 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2018Managing application development to unlock its full potential
The road
ahead
Survey respondents overwhelmingly agree dialogue across the business and address
that application development is a vital part cultural challenges like slow bureaucracy
of their organisations’ future—but it is also or resistance to new tools and ideas.
clear that many stakeholders have different Using success metrics based on business
perspectives on the tools and methodologies outcomes as well as communication of these
needed to successfully develop applications. linkages to application development teams, to
As we have observed, application developers ensure strategic cohesion and track progress
seem to have less insight than C-suite executives with KPIs. Evidence-based assessments of success
into the role that their applications play in overall can ensure application development is tied
company strategy and are less confident that they to company strategy and delivers on business
have the freedom to use the tools they need—or goals. Importantly, KPIs can help management
that their chosen tools and approaches are even reward developers that are innovating
the most effective. That needs to change. successfully and identify areas of weakness
Business leaders who recognise the importance where employees may need more training.
of offering a superb digital customer experience Using new technologies, to incentivise innovation
to overall competitiveness must ensure that and reward application developers for creativity.
their application development team can forge Many developers cite the difficulty of acquiring
ahead, unimpeded by obstacles or concerns. the necessary resources as a major challenge
All this highlights the importance to the success of enterprise applications.
of several key actions: Encouraging the use of new technologies
Fostering communication and transparency, and development methods may help alleviate
to create deeper and more frequent dialogue some of the inflexibility developers encounter
between the IT function and senior managers. throughout the development process.
Greater discussion between the C-suite and Responding to employee and customer feedback,
application developers can help ensure to address company-specific bottlenecks and
understanding of the strategic linkages between improve flexibility throughout the application
development of enterprise applications development process. Constant evaluation of
and broader business objectives. Enhanced feedback can help businesses continuously
communication can also raise awareness improve their applications in a timely fashion
of the day-to-day obstacles encountered by while also addressing specific pain-points for
developers, such as a lack of appropriate tools customers. Nuanced understanding of employee
or resources, and prompt those in leadership concerns can also help businesses adapt their
positions to enact any necessary changes. processes to better empower developer to succeed.
Cultivating cross-functional collaboration,
to include the voices of all team members Together, these steps can help businesses
from engineering to design and marketing. accelerate their efforts to create a common
Encouraging widespread participation in vision of the future of application development.
application development can incentivise further of the future of application development.
13 © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2018While every effort has been taken to verify the accuracy of this information, The Economist Intelligence Unit Ltd. cannot accept any responsibility or liability for reliance by any person on this report or any of the information, opinions or conclusions set out in this report. The findings and views expressed in the report do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsor. London New York Hong Kong Geneva Dubai The Adelphi 750 Third Avenue 1301 Cityplaza Four Boulevard des Office 1301a 1-11 John Adam Street 5th Floor 12 Taikoo Wan Road Tranchées 16 Aurora Tower London New York, NY 10017 Taikoo Shing 1206 Geneva Dubai Media City WC2N 6HT United States Hong Kong Switzerland Dubai United Kingdom Tel: (1.212) 554 0600 Tel: (852) 2585 3888 Tel: (41) 22 566 2470 Tel: (971) 4 433 4202 Tel: (44.20) 7576 8000 Fax: (1.212) 586 0248 Fax: (852) 2802 7638 Fax: (41) 22 346 93 47 Fax: (971) 4 438 0224 Fax: (44.20) 7576 8476 E-mail: newyork@eiu.com E-mail: hongkong@eiu.com E-mail: geneva@eiu.com Email: dubai@eiu.com Email: london@eiu.com
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