Why Do Companies Struggle to Build Great Products?

Here’s a not-so-pretty number about software product development projects:

75% of business executives anticipate the failure of their software product right in the beginning.

If a software product is a crucial part of your business, you can’t afford to get it wrong. Your entire business and all other functions depend on how robust and fully-featured your software application is.

Whether you are working with an in-house development team or an outsourced product development in India, your software product might fail if you don’t take the right steps in ensuring its success.

Let’s look at the most common reasons why software products fail and learn how to avoid them.

Why companies struggle to build standout software products

Standout software products take a great deal of planning, execution, and everything in between. Here’s why software products fail and how to prevent yours from getting doomed.

Inaccurate Product Definition

Product specifications go way beyond defining and jotting down customer requirements. A comprehensive product definition would bring all stakeholders on the same page regarding the product features and execution stages, as well.

This product definition would talk about the problems the product aims to solve, the market necessities, use cases of the product, and the UI/UX needs to create an attractive software product.

When either of these components is left out of product definition, the product gets set up really quickly for a failure. Inaccurate or incomplete product definitions pave the path for inefficient products that don’t solve a real market challenge.

Insufficient Market Research

 Often, software products fail because they fail to identify or generate market demand. As a software product business, you need to conduct enough pre-development surveys and polls to gauge your audience’s interest in such a product.

Another idea is to beta-test your software product with a niche group of users who can offer unbiased feedback about your product, so you can go ahead and tweak according to their opinions and be confident of your product’s success in the wider market.

Sufficient market research is necessary if you want your software product to address market needs or be desirable to its target users when launched.

The Assumption that Leading Technologies Mean Innovation

Companies that focus all their energy on adopting a new technology just for the sake of it prep their product up for failure. Primarily, a software product should identify a market need and then work toward eliminating a challenge or addressing a need.

In order to serve the customers, technologies (latest, new, or old) can then be leveraged. However, as digital technologies gain more hype, businesses focus too much on choosing the tech stack than on solving the right issue for their customers.

Innovation happens when there is a necessity for it, not when there are enough technologies available. Therefore, it is important for you to channel your in-house or offshore software product development team toward working to meet customer needs first, then making the tech stack work.

Considering Software Product Development Investment as an Expense

Product development is really an investment for any company that wants to build a business around it. Therefore, when founders and owners consider a software product development initiative as an expense, they try to be stingy where they should rather be generous.

Early on in a startup’s journey, a business might struggle with low budget or availability of talent. This is when outsourced software product development services look appealing.

Instead of saving on UI, testing, or app security, outsource software product development to a reliable team and consider the process like an investment that will pay returns when done perfectly.

Features Don’t Add Value to Users’ Lives

According to a study by Standish Group, for an enterprise software system, only 7% of the features are “always” used, 13% of the features are used “often”, and 16% are used “occasionally.” This also means that over 64% of the features are “never” used!

In today’s fast-changing environment, you cannot afford to spend your time and energy in building features that your users may not use. To avoid this, you need to work on the features that will truly add ‘value’ to the users’ lives, gather continuous feedback, and focus on continuous product definition.

Right Idea, Inefficient Development

Software products often fail because of the wrong idea. But, more often, even if the idea was breakthrough, the implementation lags. Mind-blowing product ideas happen in-the-instant. But, putting them to execution takes harmony in the various steps, including testing, designing, and perfecting the application for the right market and audience.

Failing to execute any of these steps can lead to a failed product. Application usability, content, and connectivity are a few more factors that play a vital role in ensuring a software product’s success.

Make sure your product development does not compromise on its security, usability, UI/UX interface, and testing- so that you have the recipe for software success.

A majority of these factors play out when a company’s founders are also the ones leading and overseeing the development efforts. This is when they split their focus between too many tasks and don’t see the inefficiencies in their product.

To prevent yourself from these software development disasters, outsource product software development to an offshore team such as Pratiti Tech. We offload the entire software product development task from you on to us.

Our expert software developers pay due attention to detail and create the best software product that addresses a market need, appeals to the ideal customer, and proves secure, reliable, and robust against the best benchmarks.

Talk to one of our specialists today or learn more about our services.

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