The majority of companies develop software using their in-house IT departments, as opposed to outsourcing.
This was revealed in the ITWeb/Airborne Consulting Software Development Survey, which ran for two weeks from 9 to 23 August, attracting a total of 195 respondents.
While just over 54% of the respondents rely on in-house staff, almost 27% say they both make use of in-house IT departments and supplement their skills from other providers. Of these, 7.74% say they outsource from multiple service providers for all their software development needs, while just over 4% said they stick to a single partner when outsourcing.
Brian Harding, chief operating officer at Airborne Consulting, says many companies stick with their own IT departments mainly because of historical factors.
Nonetheless, he says very few up-and-coming companies are building and staffing their own IT departments. “They generally have the bare minimum in-house and outsource the rest. However, for companies with existing IT departments, this is a big task and involves outsourcing their entire division or part thereof. For many, this is too big a divide to cross,” explains Harding.
The survey also asked the respondents to specify whether their suppliers have an industry standard software development process (SDLC) in place. While 63.69% said they do have, almost 20% said they didn't, with 16.67% saying they don't know.
Commenting on why SDLC is popular, Harding says software development has moved on tremendously and it's essential that any company undertaking software development follows internationally accepted best practice. “Failing to do so will generally ensure inconsistent and often disastrous results,” he reckons.
The survey also determined that organisations take different time frames in commissioning their projects. While 30.86% said their projects take from four to six months, just under 26% revealed their projects take less than three months. Another 23.46% said they take six to 12 months commissioning their projects, while those with projects going beyond a year formed 19.75%.
Harding says the time varies depending on the scope and what is being undertaken. However, he points out that deliverables should be forthcoming sooner rather than later.
“Multi-year projects where deliverables are only received down the line are a recipe for disaster. Projects are usually broken down into smaller chunks which are manageable and attainable. It is seldom that a software development project should be longer than a year,” he argues.
The survey also asked respondents whether they prioritise developing, or buying products and customising as their first choice. While 64.67% said they develop their own software with or without partners, 30.54% purchase products and customise. Only 4.79% said they buy products and change their business processes to match the product as far as possible.
Commenting on this discovery, Harding says: “This was interesting but again this is probably influenced by who answered. However, it has been proven that if handled correctly, it is often cheaper to build your own software to exactly your specification than it is to buy a product and customise”.
On the causes of failures, the bulk of the respondents (36.75%) said their projects fail due to unclear specifications, with just over 15% saying it is because of unrealistic expectations. Another 12.05% revealed that it's because of lack of business buy-in.
Harding concludes by saying that software projects seem to be relatively successful based on the number of respondents and also that most are using fairly up-to-date technologies and processes.
“It was also interesting to see that 50% of respondents use SQL as their database of choice. This reflects Microsoft's growth in this space in recent years but it was quite a surprise to see how dominant they are compared to other options.”
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