The struggle of IT innovation and what to do about it

Today, every IT business aspires for and even promises innovation in its organisation. But do you think it is as achievable as the company handbook makes it sound? Are IT companies honestly able to innovate as much as they claim to?

Studies, unfortunately, tell a different story!

According to a report by OutSystems, around 65% of app development practice is about maintaining old technology, and only 35% focuses on innovation. In a similar survey, only 21 senior IT professionals agreed that they were better equipped than their competitors to adapt to changes. Clearly, IT innovation is on all our minds, but leaders are lagging far behind when it comes to implementing it.

What are the internal challenges that are holding back IT innovation?

As the demand for better and more robust digital information technology grows, so does the need to innovate at a faster rate. In this race of delivering quicker and better, these are the bottlenecks that hamper IT innovation –

• Increasing backlogs

  IT companies are dealing with more work than their teams can handle, and it’s not just because of the increase in demand for new products. We all know that customer expectations change overnight, and IT teams struggle to keep pace. As a result, there’s always a massive backlog to take care of. In fact, technical backlogs were considered a problem by 65% of the respondents in a survey conducted with over 3,500 IT professionals.

• Silos between business and technical users

  The responsibility of a business user is to understand customer expectations and deliver the best possible solution to them, and IT teams are to take care of incorporating their needs in the projects. As customer needs and market trends change rapidly, business users expect IT teams to develop at the same speed. This pace is difficult to achieve with the traditional development process. As a result, business and technical teams get frustrated with each other and fall into a cycle of non-communication.

• Growing technical debt

  In a bid to reduce quick time to market, IT teams tend to focus on speed and compromise on quality leading to underwhelming digital solutions. They disappoint the end-user and add to the technical debt of an organisation, which ultimately puts more strain on the IT teams.

• Lack of resources

  Despite the growing number of developers globally, it isn’t easy to find, train, and retain the right people in an IT company. Yet, organisations always seem to be on a hiring spree. Not to forget, training resources, too, take up a lot of time from a skilled IT professional’s plate.

• Uncertain market

  As we have mentioned before, the market trends are forever dynamic and have the power to deem a perfectly developed application outdated. As a consequence, IT teams focus more on meeting expectations than innovation.

All of these IT industry challenges combined leave no space for innovation. When an organisation is busy delivering products and catering to market factors, they have no time to introspect and innovate.

How do external factors affect IT innovation?

Our world is growing every day, and so is its complexity. The current challenges in the IT industry go beyond their four walls; in fact, they often stem from external environments that shape their work culture, project lifecycle, and finally, form a team that struggles to innovate. Here’s a brief look at some external factors that add to the dilemma of IT innovation –

Increasing demand for more apps

“There’s an app for that” – when Apple coined this phrase in 2009, they didn’t foresee what was coming. Fast forward to today, and there’s really an app for everything you need, think, or do. However, this puts massive pressure on the IT industry.

According to research by OutSystems, 65% of IT organisations with more than 500 employees have 10 apps in the development process, and 15% of them are trying to get 100 or more in their pipeline. Now, these statistics look great for the customer but add to the work pressure that IT companies are facing:

Increasing technical complexities

App development is no fun and games – no matter what the popular media propagates. It involves different coding languages and frameworks in addition to the need to innovate. As a result, the app development process is long, complex, or not up to quality standards.

Increasing need for customisation

Just like customers, enterprises, too, run on applications these days. Although there are many standard ERP and CRM packages available off the shelf, the growing need for customisation again adds to the work pressure of IT teams.

Increasing change in the digital economy

Gone are the days when application updates used to be an annual affair. Nowadays, organisations expect monthly and even weekly updates. These expectations again put IT in work mode and block their schedule.

The factors mentioned above are just the beginning; there are many unsolved problems in information technology that make innovation tricky and only a figment of many CEO’s imagination.

However, modern IT leaders have been brainstorming to end these scenarios and build a culture of IT innovative technology at all levels. IT organisations have been experimenting with many feasible solutions, from sticking to mobile-only development to adopting low-code technology and citizen developers. Still, none of them have turned out to be as fruitful.

Of course, many of these ideas, like embracing low-code platforms can help but they are only a first step in the right direction. IT companies need a modern application platform that helps build solutions faster, better, and for the future. Luckily, OutSystems fits the bill perfectly! Let’s look at how OutSystems can help IT companies excel at deliverables and innovate at the same time.

OutSystems – the modern application platform that helps IT companies innovate

Yes! OutSystems is a low-code platform, but it has certain features that make it more comprehensive and futuristic than any other low code tool. Powered by AI capabilities and application modernisation techniques, it simplifies the development process while maintaining the quality usually delivered through traditional development processes.

OutSystems does not follow a linear approach to deal with the problems faced by the IT industry; instead, it transforms every stage of the development process. Be it development, deployment, or support, OutSystems reinvents every phase to sync with the changing demands of the digital landscape. With OutSystems, an IT company can involve business and technical users in the development process and eliminate shadow IT. 

Let’s have a brief look at how OutSystems helps struggling IT companies embrace innovation –

# Build it fast

As we have discussed already, speedy development and delivery are the topmost demand of the market. And these are also the factors that keep developers under pressure. Here’s how OutSystems deals with this issue – 

• It’s a model-driven visual tool that comes with pre-set templates and patterns and works with drag-and-drop methodology. Developers can always customize them with minimal coding and in a period. 
• It is based on a collaborative, AI-assisted, team-based environment that facilitates the smooth working of both technical and business users without any additional back-and-forth. 
• It enables streamlined deployment, which makes applications highly responsive. They can run on any device or get delivered to any app store. 
• OutSystems allow seamless integration with all kinds of third-party applications so that you have a flexible environment to build solutions on time.

# Build it right

While time to market remains crucial, a competitive application would never compromise on quality either. However, it is not easy to find a balance between speed and quality, where OutSystems enter. Let’s find out how it builds applications with superior quality –

• OutSystems enables regular monitoring during design, build, and run time with analytics, AI, and automation. 
• It allows a multi-developer environment where developers can visualize the changes made to every version and choose which version to publish. 
• It automates the debugging process, relieving developers of this responsibility and instead focusing on accelerating market time. 
• OutSystems further automates runtime analysis so that errors can be found out early in the development stage and can be resolved with AI-recommended solutions.

# Build it for the future

No matter how good your app is, there’s always a chance for it to become obsolete in a few days. Thus, you need a technology that supports quick updates and revisions. Let us show you how OutSystems can help – 

• It enables single-click deployment and rollbacks while making provisions for continuous integration and delivery.
• It improves business adaptability with automated workflows, visually-modeled business processes, and trigger-based events. 
• OutSystems has a rich repository of emerging technologies, including AI, IoT, RPA, access to available modules, and UI components.
• OutSystems has a portable deployment system that is compatible with all kinds of devices. 

In conclusion

Legacy modernization, workplace innovation, CX transformation, and business automation – our supposedly seamless world requires sleepless nights and countless hours on the part of IT professionals. Yet, they’re left with no time to invest in that single ethos that makes them stand apart – innovation.

OutSystems, fortunately, makes digital transformation possible at a faster rate and with lesser efforts. Moreover, it helps organisations meet their targets, keep customers happy, and keeps traditional excellence intact.

If your team is constantly busy in the hustle of delivering solutions, it’s time you consider OutSystems. Give them a chance to make efforts for what is necessary for the future – innovation.