Forrester Outlines 5 Trends in Application Development
It isn’t just individuals that make New Year’s resolutions—companies make them as well. Forrester Research recently released a report about CRM applications, as a guide to companies looking to tighten up application development without breaking the bank this year. This week, Lauren McKay at CRM Magazine took to the publication’s website and outlined five routes CRM software vendors should take in order to pursue “lean and mean” application development.
1. Move to the Cloud
This first morsel of advice from Forrester isn’t surprising in the least. Companies creating business applications have heard for years now that they should move toward cloud development, and many have. Forrester specifically recommends public cloud environments like Amazon Web Services and Salesforce.com, and reminds us that cloud benefits include scalability and cost-efficiency, and that it offers a number of entry points. In addition, cloud computing is undoubtedly the future of application development, so it would be unwise to at least begin experimenting in cloud environments.
2. Operate like a startup
The economy seems to be on the up and up so far, but it’s early in the year still and so Forrester is advising companies to adopt the no-nonsense attitude of a fledgling business. Startups don’t have the resources larger companies enjoy, and so there is little room for error. Therefore established companies looking to tighten up should put a little more pressure on themselves and be more goal-oriented.
3. Put cost and flexibility above platform loyalty
In terms of language frameworks, Forrester found that even though Java EE and .NET remain the most popular for CRM application development, there are a number of popular alternatives, like Adobe Flex, Drupal, and Google Web Toolkit, to name a few. There are a number of open source, rich Internet applications and dynamic language frameworks that are emerging, so companies should reevaluate what their needs are and then choose a path, rather than sticking with the more popular and convenient choice.
4. Make the customer experience your *top* priority
The customer experience has always been, in theory, every business’s number one priority. However, Forrester concluded that things get a bit muddled in practice, mainly because even the most talented developers can be unversed in designing applications that will truly impress customers. Naturally, companies that succeed in pleasing their customers are more likely to see repeat purchases and recommendations, so really digging deep into market research to wow them is paramount.
5. Hire multitalented developers
This last step is definitely one of the hardest to fulfill, because truly gifted developers don’t grow on trees. But what Forrester is trying to indicate here is that companies should consider a programmer’s business knowledge when making a decision. Multitalented developers may be difficult to find now, but luckily, there is an increasing number of developers who’ve studied business management and have a solid grasp on enterprise processes.
Thanks for useful information on certain ways that CRM developers should pursue to get better result.