How does a software package supplier make the transition from maintenance to innovation?
Before a software supplier develops a new product, he first chooses the technology, preferably the latest. However, sooner or later it will become outdated, which will make innovation increasingly difficult. It is of course possible to use new technologies as a makeshift measure, for instance a web portal or a mobile app.
The disadvantage of this however is that it makes the maintenance of the software, the core of which is still outdated, increasingly complex. The good news is that nowadays the choice for a particular technology no longer needs to be an obstacle for future innovation.
Almost every software supplier is familiar with the phenomenon of a declining innovation speed during the lifetime of a package. Quite soon, after a few years, a very extensive, complex structure is created. This means that the technological maintenance of the software takes more and more effort, leaving less time for innovation.
Furthermore, the software has been developed with a technology in which the employees are now specialists. A drastic change to something new is therefore very expensive and inefficient. This is, of course, an unsustainable situation, as customers today expect increasingly more innovation. If you cannot keep pace with this, the result will be a decline in customer satisfaction or even the loss of customers. And new customers will also ignore your package when they discover that it is based on outdated technology. This means that a package supplier has in fact become a maintenance company, that owes its existence mainly to the maintenance of its outdated technology and its customer base.
Separate functionality and technology
How can a software supplier prevent you from becoming technologically sidelined? The main problem is in fact the continued technological development of a package. Of course, every supplier would like to take advantage of all new developments. The reality however is that this is often impossible due to the previously chosen programming languages. The solution to this is to rebuild the package using a low-code development platform. This allows you to separate functionality and technology.
The technological foundation of the software is provided by the low-code platform, which allows you as a developer to fully focus on the functional elements of the software. Upgrading to a new technology is no longer a problem, and instead of doing maintenance the developer can now devote all his efforts to innovation. This is clearly a much more modern and sustainable development model.
Focus on continuous innovation
By using a low-code platform to develop your own software product, as a package provider you actually outsource the technological side of the development. This applies to both the technical maintenance of the software and the continued comprehensive development of new technology. In this regard, the low-code platform supplier must of course be able to provide guarantees to its users that the software they have developed will continue to work on all new and future technologies. However for a package supplier the greatest benefit is that its focus can be entirely on expanding and refining the functionality of its package.
In other words: instead of investing a lot of time and money in maintenance and keeping his software up-to-date, with low-code development he can focus entirely on innovation. And that is exactly what his customers want.