7 strategies to drive innovation into software development

The saying goes that you can’t solve a problem with the same thinking used when creating it in the first place. This applies to the world of business as much as anywhere else: to continue growing, companies need to think outside the box. In order to survive and reach new heights, all businesses need to evolve and try new things – they need to innovate, especially when it comes to software development.

Software development has grown exponentially in the last few decades. The technology is now so powerful that to scale your business. you need to drive innovation into every product and service that you create. Today, innovation is more than just a buzzword – it’s the thin line that sets successful businesses apart from everyone else.

Though most businesses are born from an adventurous and entrepreneurial mindset, they tend to mellow with time. They become less forward-thinking, more cautious, and can eventually find themselves in a bit of a rut. To stay at the top of their game, businesses need to step out of their comfort zone and breed a culture of innovation among employees, encouraging them to be creative in ideas.

This is particularly crucial in software development. Instead of getting stuck in that rut, let’s look at a few different opportunities to drive innovation within your business.

1. Build your own offshore software development team

Rapidly changing markets have driven a need for ongoing innovation. That, in turn, has helped popularise the concept of offshoring, which has become a go-to strategy for companies that want to optimise innovation, execution, and cost.

Countries like India, Ukraine, and Brazil produce world-class engineers in software development. By recruiting software engineers and building your offshore team in one of these countries, your business significantly reduces development costs (thanks to the lower cost of living) without compromising an inch when it comes to the quality of output.

It’s no coincidence that more companies than ever are investing in research and innovation: they’re trying desperately to get ahead of the curve and take their place on the bleeding edge of technology. Investing in developing your own offshore team gives you a powerful resource of developers who, since they cost less to hire, can spend more time pushing boundaries in your industry.

2. Give your employees ‘thinking time’

Innovation requires time and patience. When your staff spends 100% of their hours delivering client work, it leaves them without any time to just think and breed creative ideas. And that’s where a lot of innovation happens.

Recognizing this flaw, a growing number of software development companies are now building ‘thinking’ or ‘creative’ time into their employees’ schedules. The hope is that this helps generate innovative ideas to drive the business forward.

One option is to hold innovation days where employees can come together and participate in conversations and brainstorming sessions around being more creative with the products they build. Accenture Ireland ran their 'festivals of ideas', an employee engagement activity where 1,400 employees brainstormed on creative ideas for their business: after the event, the top 10 ideas were implemented across the company!.

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At The Scalers, we help innovative global businesses build highly talented software development teams in Bangalore — the second largest tech ecosystem in the world.