Software Development Consulting: How it Can Streamline Business Processes

Software development consulting services market growth with the trend for digitalization among various companies. More and more businesses are considering or maintaining the process of adopting software solutions for multiple reasons. To prove our point, the software development consulting market annual growth rate is expected to stay around 12.1% from 2024 to 2030.

However, these numbers only represent trends and don’t explain the importance of business analysis, as well as the overall benefits or challenges of software development and consulting.

Therefore, to understand the reasons and benefits of software development consulting, we must examine what it offers and how it can help with business improvement.

What is Software Development Consulting?

To summarize, software consulting involves seeking advice from third-party specialists or businesses with extensive and proven experience in software development and optimization.

For instance, it can be a standalone senior software developer who has become an expert in your industry, found on freelance platforms, or an outsourced software consulting and development company with case studies to examine.

The easiest way to find reliable software consultants is to contact outsourcing software development companies. Despite the variety of freelancers, who offer the same services, it is hard to:

1. Check their background and prove their expertise
2. Find a freelance consultant, familiar with the required type of software consulting

At the same time, any software development consulting company shows its expertise in case studies. Besides, there are numerous B2B platforms like Clutch and GoodFirms or their alternatives, where you can read the reviews and feedback of their previous clients.

Eventually, almost every software development consulting firm will offer both software consulting AND development services, making them better software and technology solutions experts. Besides, you can check the company’s previous case studies and find the one that suits you best by software development consulting types.

Types of Software Development Consulting Services

On the one hand, most software consulting and development practices are the same in most projects. However, software development consulting services are also divided by the type of your project:

• Web development consulting
• Mobile app development consultations
• SaaS development and integration advisory
• Cloud software advising

The reason for such division is simple: technologies and some development practices are different for each type of app development. Thus, software consulting companies must have expertise in the demanded app development to give the best advice.

Web Development Consulting

Web development consulting aims at web-based software projects like websites, web applications, PwAs, etc.

In addition to solutions for further improving and scaling existing web applications, web development consulting companies can advise startups on choosing the most suitable architecture or application type, designing the IT infrastructure, helping to set various under-the-hood processes, etc.

Besides, it can also partly include other types of software development consultancy, like advising on cloud software adoption or using SaaS solutions.

To simplify, web software development and consulting services are primarily aimed at web development but can include other software consultations if they benefit your particular case.

Mobile App Development Consulting

All the foregoing is similar to mobile app development consulting. Yet, this type of software development consulting services also includes expertise in platform distinction:

While web development is unified, mobile apps can be hybrid and native to different OSes, primarily iOS and Android.

Different operational platforms have unique requirements, benefits, and limitations. They support various programming languages and development tools, offer distinctive features, and vary in target audience and development cost.

So, finding a software development team with exceptional and rich experience in mobile development is preferred. As a result, dedicated software development and consultancy specialists can help you choose the best OS and technologies for your mobile project and define the other related factors to ensure success.

SaaS Development Consulting

Consulting software development related to SaaS solutions is used not only to create a Software-as-a-Service solution but also to choose and integrate existing software to meet expectations.

For instance, a business might hesitate to choose a path to covering the requirements and tasks with software, which can involve either developing from scratch or using an existing software system distributed by a third party.

SaaS software consulting companies can estimate the pros and cons of each approach, define which one is more beneficial, and, if third-party SaaS is more suited for the company, choose the best offer on the market, examining the advantages and limitations of each solution.

Besides, SaaS software development and consulting services can examine existing software and decide whether it is possible and reasonable to transform it into a SaaS.

Cloud Software Consulting

Finally, cloud software solutions consulting covers various aspects of cloud computing, including:

• Migration to cloud
• Choosing cloud computing services (AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc)
• Cloud integration
• Infrastructure redesign

In a nutshell, cloud software development consulting firms offer many solutions and software advisories covering all cloud aspects. Probably the best consulting software development candidate for cloud computing is a company with DevOps services: apart from offering process automation and streamlining, they also include cloud computing.

How Software Development Consulting Can Help?

In addition to technological expertise and valuable advice on improving or adapting specific solutions, software development consulting services can also benefit other business processes.

Business Process Analysis and Optimization

First of all, any software consulting and development includes business analysis.

On the one hand, it helps to choose the best software improvement approach by targeting the most important business needs and requirements. To define these vital aspects, a software development consulting firm must perform a business analysis. Additionally, analyzing business processes helps to specify their strengths and weaknesses, making the consultation even more efficient and targeting software optimization and improvement.

Moreover, after analyzing the business, a consulting company shares its findings with the client, highlighting aspects to improve that might be unrelated to the software. This is another benefit of software consulting and development services, which helps with business growth and optimization.

Software Solution Recommendations

Consulting software development obviously involves recommendations on software solutions, regardless of whether the project involves developing a new product or integrating an existing product.

Either way, software development consulting services MUST provide clients with recommendations on achieving business goals using software. However, many software development consulting firms also offer dedicated teams capable of developing and integrating the most suited and customized solutions that will serve the business goals and logic.

Automation of Repetitive Tasks

Software development consultant can analyze the undergoing processes and pinpoint the most suited for automation.

Processes and task automation are among the most popular solutions in the modern IT industry. They help save money and human resources by streamlining routine and repetitive tasks and avoiding human factors or other mistakes.

Defining and pinpointing repetitive tasks suitable for automation is among a software consultant's most basic and straightforward responsibilities. However, implementing such automation solutions is not simple.

Integration of Existing Systems

Software consulting and development company can also take care of integrating existing systems and maintaining their migration.

However, suppose you are willing to get advice for the future instead of setting up the process right now. In that case, they can also recommend how to make it most efficient or even suggest various tools and approaches to perform such tasks on your own.

Improved Communication and Collaboration

Finally, a business analysis and a study of your case will help define the most vulnerable aspects of your business.

In fact, many companies lack efficient communication and collaboration practices. Combined with the fact that most typical software development consultancy clients are businesses that plan to scale or increase the number of services, problematic communication can become a real deal-breaker.

Each software consulting and development company commonly cooperates with various teams and businesses located elsewhere. Thus, they have more experience in outsourced team management and communication. So, don’t be shy about asking for suggestions on how to improve your internal collaboration environment.

The Software Development Consulting Process

In a nutshell, the software development consulting process consists of 4 main stages:

• Project assessment, analysis, and estimation
• Custom strategy development and planning
• Solutions implementation and execution
• Project support and maintenance

Initial Assessment and Needs Analysis

As mentioned, software development consulting requires a previous business examination: making an efficient strategy and offering valuable software consultancy without knowing the context is impossible.

Thus, the first and most crucial step in software solutions consulting - is a discovery phase. As a business owner, you should provide a software development consulting company with all the requested information.

Clear, faithful, and complete cooperation during project discovery results in accurate estimation and the definition of what can and should be improved. You also should be prepared that some of your needs and requests might be ignored in favor of aspects that demand improvement for business improvement.

Developing a Customized Strategy

After highlighting and choosing the most critical software aspects and demands, you and the software development consultancy agency you hired can plan and build a software improvement, integration, and development strategy.

At this step, you will discuss the priority tasks, create a road map, plan the development, etc. It is essential to pay attention to as many details as possible, even though not always everything goes according to plan. Still, having a detailed strategy allows you to adjust to new requirements and other changes.

Implementation and Execution

After setting a plan, you can proceed with implementing and executing it.

Frankly, this stage varies greatly, depending on your needs, the results of software solutions consulting, and the overall context of the project. So, what actually matters and is general for most projects in terms of software solution implementation is the planning stage and post-execution support.

Ongoing Support and Maintenance

Regardless of your chosen path and solution, your software consultant must ensure everything works correctly. Even if it is a SaaS integration, it is important to maintain the implementation of the software solution.

In addition to setting up the must-have processes, this stage also includes explaining and training the in-house or other support team on how to overview the progress and efficiency of software solutions, providing them with tracking and management software and methods, installing various monitoring tools, and showing how to use them properly.

Key Considerations When Choosing a Software Development Consultant

One of the most critical aspects of software development consulting services is to find a reliable consultant. Once again, there are two ways to find software solutions consulting:

• Finding a freelance specialist
• Hiring an outsourced software development and consulting company

Either way, the key considerations when choosing a software development consultant are similar and include:

1. Experience and expertise of a candidate
2. References, case studies, feedback, and reviews of a candidate
3. Discussing the terms of cooperation, how the consultation will look like
4. Defining the way of communicating during the consultation

Evaluating Experience and Expertise

Monitoring specified platforms is the simplest way to evaluate your software consultant's experience and expertise, apart from interviewing them.

In fact, if you are aiming to cooperate with a software company, you will definitely have to examine various B2B platforms like Clutch and GoodFirms or their alternatives. Finding freelance experts is the same, yet the platforms differ (UpWork, Toptal, etc.).

Most platforms offer features such as ratings, feedback, and case studies, which make it easier to track a company's or candidate's success.

You should also pay attention to the length of time software consultants have been in the field (the longer, the better).

Checking References and Case Studies

Don’t underestimate the importance of references and case studies. Clearly, they can’t give you the desired information about the software development consulting company. Still, it can help you to define the main types of software development projects it participated in.

Besides, having a list of the most exciting projects is a great advantage when interviewing the candidate: you can ask for more information and explanations from the company’s representatives to understand better whether the expertise matches your needs.

Understanding Their Approach and Methodologies

When interviewing potential software consultants, don’t forget to ask about their approach and the methodologies they use.

Software development consulting can take place in multiple ways, and it highly differs depending on the consultant's perception. Knowing how they work helps you plan better and estimate cooperation.

Such insights allow you to figure out what data your partner needs and how long it will take to analyze, as well as make assumptions and suggestions on what can and should be improved.

Assessing Communication and Collaboration Skills

Last but not least, discuss how you will communicate and collaborate.

This includes not only scheduling meetings and standups or choosing the central communication platform but also evaluating how satisfying this communication is for you.

Poor communication or misunderstanding can cause even more problems. Thus, ensure that you and your contractor are on the same page.