The software development industry has become one of the fastest-growing sectors, witnessing steady growth in recent years. Just imagine that the expected revenue is set to reach an impressive $702 billion by the end of 2024.
You might ask how all those businesses gain a competitive edge and thrive in such a tough technology sector. The answer is pretty obvious: they offer their customers a well-thought-out custom product. Let’s take a look at the secrets of developing effective go-to-market solutions. But first, we’ll explore the three main decision-maker types as “it all starts with users”.
Three Types of Users
Customers are different, and treating them all the same way is impossible. For business customers, primarily using tailored solutions, McKinsey & Company researchers identified 3 decision-maker archetypes based on their preferences and needs. These users are consistent across countries and sectors worldwide, meaning companies can adjust their go-to-market approaches to serve their customers better.
Here are key decision-maker types:
- Adapters are highly relationship-oriented. They are slower to try new channels and prefer to follow familiar patterns and suppliers, even when the experiences could be more satisfactory with another vendor.
- Innovators opt for newer technologies and are present on all digital channels like gen AI to research suppliers.
- Seekers expect an omnichannel experience online. If they don’t get what they want, they choose a new supplier.
When it comes to customer behaviors and preferences, there is still no single-channel user. Top businesses test different scenarios to communicate with their clients and build their own paths to stay afloat. Below, we’ll highlight the most common approaches leading organizations already use.
What Tactics Do Reputable Companies Implement?
Users’ expectations may differ during different stages of the buying journey. Yet, McKinsey & Company uncovered that the winning companies outperform their counterparts using these tactics, disregarding geographies, industries, and company sizes:
The Rule of Thirds
This rule is that a third of customers expect face-to-face interactions, a third want remote interactions, and a third prefer digital self-service options.
While we started from user types, adapters would rather choose in-person interactions. Innovators and seekers expect to have remorse or digital experiences. However, in-person forms of engagement shouldn’t be neglected: 40% prefer such channels when making a first-time purchase. This means we should adjust our approaches to all 3 customer types.
Product, Set, and Match
The pathway to growth has never been clear. Tech business leaders emphasize that they invest productively in all innovation capabilities. They typically achieve revenue growth both in their core businesses and by expanding into adjacent customer segments, industries, or geographies. Innovative companies tap into one or more clear opportunities, primarily in areas such as digital and sustainability.
They acquire legacy solutions or similar products from different technology market segments. And then, when the technical capabilities have been improved, the joint venture goes to market with several special editions and one-time “special event” offers that are well received by users.
Cloud Computing
We also see that cloud-based software combined with other digital transformations is a major market driver.
Cloud computing replaces traditional internal server structures that contain business data and local applications for data storage, analytics, and networking. It allows companies to use and store data and applications on the network rather than on a hard drive.
The growing tendency to cloud migration brings businesses significant benefits such as convenience, agility, reduced infrastructure costs, and improved collaboration. However, it also increases existing security risks. To mitigate them, companies implement quality control at every stage of development and adopt security best practices such as data encryption, regular data backups, and security audits.
Gen AI
Beyond the cloud, nearly 30% of leading innovators are already implementing generative AI, with 19% of B2B companies achieving success. For example, data-driven teams that combine personalized customer experiences with gen AI are 1.7 times more likely to increase market share than those that don’t.
Business leaders are integrating gen AI across all processes, from development to delivery, and using real-time data to make fast decisions. As a result, they are 8 times more likely to increase their innovation advantage over their competitors.
Custom Software Development
Technology has become so fundamental to a company’s competitiveness that leaders now view it as a source of strategic advantage and use custom software development as a way to implement technology initiatives. A McKinsey & Company analysis found that 20% of leaders plan to spend more than $100 million on technology infrastructure, compared with about 8% of laggards. But rather than spending big, they are spending smarter so that their companies can innovate and scale quickly.
Conclusion: Why is Custom Software Development Your Go-to Strategy
Providing great solutions has always been a challenge for any business. However, custom software can provide capabilities that standard products may not have and attract more customers.
Additionally, knowing your customer types and the corresponding tech innovations is also important. Companies open to new initiatives, such as migrating to the cloud or using gen AI, are more likely to become number one. But in any case, the tactics we have discussed here can help you achieve your full potential.
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