Great achievements start with simple ideas. One clear goal. Take the Apollo 11 space mission, launching Neil Armstrong and co. into the great unknown. It started with someone, somewhere, asking: what if we put a person on the moon?
Developing bespoke software should have the same clarity of vision. We want to do X. From that starting point, planning, resourcing and strategy can take shape in order to achieve that vision.
But it doesn’t always work that way.
Failure to launch
The current choices for software development mean businesses face major compromises:
Buy something off-the-shelf. It might technically work, but any idea worth its salt relies on differentiation; which is a pipeline with a generic purchase. Because off-the-shelf really means the-same-software-as-everyone-else. And NASA certainly didn’t reach the moon by buying a rocket from the rocket shop. Additionally, the more specialised your business is, the higher the chance that there isn’t even an off-the-shelf option to choose from.
Staff your projects with contractors or freelancers. You end up carrying the burden of managing and steering these external software resources; telling them where to go and what to do. And as great as your idea might be, software may not sit at the heart of your business, so this responsibility introduces substantial risk. Once the project concludes, all of their experience and skills simply walk out the door.
Outsource bespoke software development to a third party. These external consultancies either implement their own plans, pushing the project further away from your original vision, or build a black box that you own – without understanding its inner workings. Both of these approaches create risk, and once more the end of the project leaves a vacuum of technical expertise.
In between these options is a space we call the Advantage Gap. It’s there that singular, powerful ideas can be realised through a better approach to bespoke software development that can take it into orbit.
And that’s where CID has been operating for decades.
