In fact, experts predict that one-third of the world’s workforce will be working from home on a regular basis by the end of 2021 - and this is where the right digital product can help today’s businesses embrace this new digital age.
A digital product (see the full definition below) can help you stay connected with your colleagues, clients, and customers, complement your non-digital offerings, extend your reach in the online space and, ultimately, help you survive during this ongoing period of economic uncertainty.
Digital products are also a solid investment, compared to physical products and services, as they drive performance gains and provide you with a competitive advantage. In fact, research has revealed that digital product development is expected to increase business efficiencies by 19%, reduce time-to-market by 17% and facilitate the reduction of production costs by 13% over the next five years.
What’s more, a digital product can reach a global audience, driving competitiveness and providing you with valuable IP, regardless of what you sell. Plus, a digital product lasts forever, is never out of stock, and is often easier to manage, sell and deliver.
With all the above benefits, it’s easy to see why digital products are becoming increasingly popular!
Digital products are code-based assets that deliver a specific value proposition to the end user. This could be a web or mobile app, for example.
They are different from digital goods, which do not have an interactive element to them, and may be implemented in a physical form as well. Examples here include eBooks, video tutorials, and so on.
For example, if you’re a great public speaker or just like sharing your thoughts on video, you could create a series of video posts to engage with your audience and share your market knowledge.
The e-learning market is another burgeoning area in the current climate. So, you could even create a series of online tutorials for your users or use gamification to boost engagement levels and help people learn in a fun and intuitive manner. Or you could sell short films, animate other people’s video intros, or professionally edit other’s videos.
Depending on your skillset and industry, digital art and audio content are popular options, where you could offer jingles, ringtones, songs and sound effects, for example.
Online apps are another popular option, where online games and other exclusive functionality can help you reach your customers in new and interesting ways. Browser plugins, website themes, templates for specific sites and code snippets are other examples.
Or your knowledge and expertise could be another digital commodity entirely; in which case, you could offer online language lessons, mentoring sessions, career consultations, sewing patterns, nutrition plans, workout sessions, and so on.
Whatever your ambitions, developing the right digital product or products is a lot to take on board, particularly if you don’t have any in-house technical expertise – and this is where the right digital product development company can help.
At Make IT Simple, we’ve helped many businesses innovate and pivot their ideas to develop the right digital products to meet the market demands. Here are five ways we can help yours, too:
A major benefit of working with a digital product development company is the expertise they can bring into your business from day one.
This means that you don’t need to spend time and money on recruitment and can instead rely on a team of experts to design and develop the best digital solution for your business.
The right team can help you develop a tailored solution which meets the exact needs of your business, helping you to hit the ground running and accelerate your digital products to market.
A digital product development company can also help you build a solution that precisely addresses the needs of your target audience, by taking a data-driven approach.
They’ll have the latest research and analysis tools to help you identify and understand your pain points and be able to survey your existing or target customers on what does and does not work with your current digital product range, while identifying new solutions.
This helps you achieve a competitive edge where, for example, you can use these insights to personalise your products or provide other value-added benefits to your customers.
A digital product development company will use state-of-the-art tools to better design and validate your products. Wireframes and similar ‘mock-up’ tools, for example, can help you visualise your digital product, helping you understand its functionality and the user experience early in the design lifecycle.
At Make IT Simple, we often build one or more prototypes for our customers, helping you to understand how a particular function works and how it adds value to your organisation.
Data analytics and AI can also help businesses optimise the development process and achieve better customer-centric designs.
These wireframing and prototyping tools expedite your development process and reduce costs, helping you to identify any issues early in the product development lifecycle, at the same time as streamlining your product development and optimisation processes, where you don’t necessarily have to spend money on excessive physical tests to get better performance.
The right digital product development company will additionally use efficient agile development methodologies, and, due to the iterative nature of agile development, you can maintain control over your product range and USP.
You’ll also be able to review the latest product developments at the end of each sprint (usually once every couple of weeks) and the entire development process is broken down, providing you with clear visibility of your projected costs and timescales.
The rate of cyberattacks continues to escalate in size and complexity, and cybercrime is now the third-highest risk for businesses in relation to COVID-19, coming after bankruptcy and long-term unemployment.
Businesses must mitigate the cybersecurity risks associated with any digital product or data-related workflows. This often requires significant investment in the relevant protective measures.
A digital product development company can help mitigate these risks, identifying and putting the right cybersecurity measures in place – and providing ongoing support to protect your business.
The right digital product can help your brand extend its reach within the digital ecosystem, and the right digital product development company can help your business by sharing its knowledge and experience, expediting your time to market and digitally enhancing your business to make it stronger.
If you are looking for a bespoke software development company, please get in touch by phone by calling +44 (0) 1905 700 050 or filling out the form below.
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