Organizations today must develop technological solutions capable of responding quickly and efficiently to customer demands, and thus offer the best experiences. This new digital paradigm gave rise to the birth of software factories.
Software currently plays an important role in the development and evolution of companies. Software facilitates applications that support the operations and strategy of organizations. The importance of software for companies and society, in general, lies in the facilities it provides. This is related to optimizing tasks, increasing profits, reducing costs, minimizing time… In other words: making the company’s operations easier and, therefore, enhancing strategy and competitiveness.
Software development is carried out by technology-lovers, like us at Huenei. When these come together in a company dedicated to development, we are talking about a Software Factory.
Illustration by Sicma21
What is a Software Factory?
A software factory is a company dedicated to developing software products for its clients, adapting the developments to their specific needs. While IT and technology consultants cover the entire creation and development cycle, software factories focus specifically on development.
Modern software factories adopt innovative approaches that facilitate collaborative development guided by the specific needs and requirements of customers and users. These organizations focus on understanding the key needs that the products to be developed must cover. Likewise, the work methodology is fast, based on rapid trial and error, and focused on continuous improvement.
Let’s dive into it! Some characteristics of software factories
Agile is the core principle of the whole operation. Being nimble and responsive should permeate the development process. This generally means collaborating in ways you never have before.
A basic but fundamental pillar is automation. This saves a lot of time in prototyping, development, testing, and refinement of products. All of this translates immediately into creating greater value for the customer.
You also need to consider security. Customers today demand high-security standards. Many times, software factories develop programs and applications that will handle sensitive data. This information can be key to the company’s operations and even to its strategy. This is why the security that your developed platform can provide truly makes a difference.
A software factory needs to be customer-centric to be successful nowadays. This means focusing on providing you with great experiences; This should be the number one business priority. Insights gleaned from ongoing customer feedback are the fuel that keeps the factory moving.
Digitization has become a fundamental axis in any company that offers its services. That is why if you want to acquire a competitive differential for your organization, you need to join the wave of digital transformation. Remember, taking advantage of these trends and being one of the first in your industry to transform digitally can bring you great opportunities in the future!
Illustration by Tecnova
What are the benefits of hiring a software factory?
- You have a team that guarantees all the profiles that your project requires. Regardless of the characteristics that your project needs, a Software Factory will always have trained and specialized personnel to carry out your project. The specialization of the technology teams is an important differential of these software development companies. At Huenei we have experts in development, prototyping, testing, UX/UI, and other specialties that your project may require.
- You don’t need to have 100% of the roadmap to start the project. You just need to have a first clear idea of the problem you need to solve and a software factory team can start working on potential solutions.
- Times and costs are defined from the beginning. The use of agile methodologies throughout the entire process speeds up times and minimizes costs. Thanks to the experience of software factories, professionals can accurately project budgets and development times.
- You will see incremental deliveries until the final product is complete. This is another of the virtues that agile methodologies present. It is not necessary to get the finished product for you to understand what the members of the software factory are working on. You will constantly be presented with advances, prototypes, and test units, as well as a minimum viable product so that you can visualize different incremental instances of development.
- Your product will be finished without having to dispose of the total operating time of the Technology area.
Digital transformation is what most companies are seeking to achieve, particularly in what we are now calling the fourth industrial revolution. Technology and software development companies are key to accompanying organizations like yours in all aspects of software production: from the initial stages of product specification to the maintenance of the product after it is in operation. In this sense, software factories play a fundamental role that can help your organization gain momentum and stand out from the competition.