How to develop flexible digital solutions for changing customer needs

To thrive in the digital age, many enterprises are harnessing the flexibility of software development to benefit their customers.

In brief

• Large enterprises must design their digital services with flexibility in mind because the digital landscape is constantly shifting. 
• Organisations need to swiftly respond to changing customer requirements and ensure that their products or services are adaptable.

Businesses are aware of the need to be ahead of the curve when it comes to digital innovation. Otherwise, they run the risk of being left behind without iterative improvements to large digital transformation agendas. When faced with a business issue in an agile environment, businesses must produce solutions that can be implemented and tested quickly, then improve these adjustments based on the feedback received.

That’s why flexibility in software development is a critical approach to digital transformation that many enterprise businesses are harnessing for the good of their brand, customers, and end-users. That, alongside the introduction of agile ways of working in an incremental, low risk and manageable way, will help businesses respond to their customers’ ever-changing needs.

This article provides practical steps for senior leaders to harness during digitally innovative transformations, setting a solid foundation for successful implementation.

What does flexibility in software development mean?

When we talk about flexibility, we are referring to how adaptable a digital product or service is. That can include key characteristics like:

• How easily its components can be changed
• Its capability to be integrated with third-party platforms with ease
• The level of support it provides when paired with new technologies and devices
• How easily features can be added, edited and removed if users’ needs change
• Whether data is being stored in the cloud to allow for speedy retrieval from anywhere

The digital landscape is ever-changing. It’s no longer just the responsibility or opportunity of small startups to work nimbly and build flexible applications that evolve and change alongside consumers’ changing habits. These days even large enterprise organisations need to create their digital services with flexibility in mind.

Being customer-centric is key

Running an agile business means putting the customers’ needs above all else. If companies adapt to the customers, the profit will follow. But here’s the big challenge – what happens when the customers’ needs change?

Business leaders need to set up their business in a way that makes it easy to identify these changes and adapt to them, without disrupting the flow of everyday operations. It sounds impossible, but not if the company’s processes and systems are structured in the right way.

Begin by revisiting any existing KPIs to ensure they are focussed on customer satisfaction. Then, it is worth setting up some milestones and processes for capturing customer insight and feedback on a regular basis. It matters less how and where this insight is captured – it could be through regular surveys, focus groups, digital feedback forms or even guerilla testing (also known as hallway usability testing, it involves asking the public to test a product, site or app and record their feedback). It is the insight that matters the most, not the channel used to get it.

It's also important for leaders to review their existing processes and systems and identify any that make it difficult to respond to customers’ changing needs. This could be outdated legacy systems that need to be updated or it could refer to outdated processes that need to be improved or digitised for efficiency.

Opting for a headless CMS over the traditional CMS

Consumers expect to read content seamlessly, anywhere they please. As new devices and operating systems emerge, they will expect to see content beautifully presented on those too.

Traditional content management systems (CMS) are usually limited to a single front-end presentation layer. For example, a CMS like WordPress allows content creators to add pages and posts to a website. If they want to add content to a mobile app or smart device, they will need to use different content management systems for each. This is not particularly economical and does not offer the best experience to the end-user. Luckily, there’s a solution, and it involves going ‘headless’.

A headless CMS is a flexible alternative to the traditional CMS, which allows businesses to build future-proofed content strategies. The ‘headless’ aspect refers to the fact that the front-end layer is completely agnostic to the back-end. In other words, the content sits in a cloud-based repository and can be accessed by any platform via an API.

It requires some content planning upfront, but once set up, content can be retrieved and showcased beautifully on any front-end, from websites and apps to Alexa and smart TVs, making it a truly flexible solution for now and the future.

Systems integration

Flexibility is all very well when  creating a brand new, shiny pieces of tech, but what about legacy systems and existing architecture? Businesses can certainly apply flexibility to software development for existing systems, too.

Integrating new systems with legacy infrastructure can be a challenge for multiple reasons. Often, enterprise organisations will have proprietary software that is connected to a single provider. This might make it harder to integrate with other, open-source platforms, but it is certainly not impossible. They will simply need to understand many of the common constraints associated with legacy systems and how to overcome any hurdles they present.

It is also important to think about the long-term business goals and digital strategy, then how any systems integration will support this. It can be tempting to rush into systems integration to achieve short-term business goals, but the long-term efficiency and security of the systems is critical. The team must ensure that none of the architectural integrity is compromised in an effort to modernise or replace legacy systems.

Flexibility for the future

Many enterprise businesses would usually plan their software development roadmap for the next year, five years and even ten years ahead. Whilst it may seem like a low-risk option to plan for the distant future, today’s landscape changes at lightning speed and businesses need to keep up.

As a result, it is important to implement flexibility in software development to de-risk their development strategy. As consumers’ needs change, firms will be able to react to them swiftly. Sometimes this means changing existing features; whilst at other times, it may mean building entirely new ones and having to go through a digital transformation journey. Implementing these practical steps will lead to increased security and achieving long-term business goals, which in turn will improve efficiency and reap financial rewards.