How Software Development Companies are Maintaining Productivity and Surviving in COVID-19 Situation
It becomes more and more apparent that COVID-19 lockdown and its consequences are not sharp fluctuations or a temporary acute problem. It is a marathon that is going to last for several years. And, as all of the experts agree, the market is never going to be the same. The lockdown teaches us to overcome the most unexpected obstacles, checks our stress resistance, and changes the overall attitude to business and its strategies. Software development is not an exception. Moreover, this part of the market has shown an example of the flexibility and the ability to transform.
The New Value of Healthcare Industry
Needless to say, that medical care remained one of the vital demands of the quarantine society. And it's not just about the treatment of the virus. All the schedules of preventive examinations, vaccination, or prenatal visits fell apart, and all the doctors' communication went online. The need for healthcare software increased as accessible telemedicine platforms are required for comfortable patient management in the pandemic conditions. So it's no surprise that many IT companies expanded their services with healthcare solutions development. A far-sighted step, isn't it? Whatever the changes will happen in the future, the need for treatment keeps being essential until there are any people on Earth.
Outstaffing Instead of Hiring
When it comes to reducing the budget in times of worldwide crisis, many companies prefer outstaffing to the expensive process of growing the in-house team. Of course, the risks of such a kind of cooperation should also be considered. But as a trend, outstaffing is occupying an increasingly strong position. The issues of managing the remote team have become common as all the companies have switched to telecommuting. So the difference of the expenses turns out to be the distinguishing factor that impacts the company's decision making.
Costs Reducing Technologies
In a short-term perspective, the businesses are going to choose the technologies that enable quick savings of money. For example, Golang, Python, Kotlin, Scala. The vacancy market demonstrates this trend. An RPA project with the automated work of 10 people can help cost-cutting. And the choice itself is not new, but in the time of the lockdown, it can become a vital factor in the company's survival.
Enterprise-Oriented Startups: the Issues and The Opportunities
Whatever the storm is, the small boats are in the most significant trouble. Whatever the crisis is, the startups are the first to be affected. But the small size and a shaky position in the market can be an advantage. Flexibility is crucial in overcoming the crisis. And the startups are the most flexible kinds of companies. Consumer orientation is the way to keep on the market that helped the 26% of tech startups manage the situation. Meanwhile, the startups oriented on large and medium enterprises experienced a lack of funding and recession. So, the solution is obvious: switching from enterprise-oriented to consumer-oriented activity and transferring services into the most demanded ones.
Cloud Technologies for the Flexibility of the Business
The pandemic caused some processes, and also boosted some of the ongoing ones. Migration to the cloud has already become the global trend, and during the lockdown, we can observe the rapid growth in the industries of telemedicine, remote communications, retail, and streaming platforms. All of these solutions need cloud technologies, and more and more companies are choosing this way of data operations. Even large corporations, which avoided cloud technology before, change their mind.
Cutting-Edge Technology or a Known and Reliable Solution?
General uncertainty causes the fact that the customers are less likely to choose an experimental new product or service. More and more attention is paid to experience in the field, case studies, and reviews.
To sum up, we can highlight the next factors of software development companies' ability to endure the crisis:
- expanding the services;
- switching to the healthcare industry, especially Healthcare IoT and telemedicine;
- changing enterprise-orientation to consumer-orientation;
- cloud technology development;
- more outstaffing, and less hiring.
I hope your company is doing well these days.
