Business today, irrespective of the segment they belong to are entering into the application segment. The application development segment is growing in large numbers. Developing applications involves a lot of planning and proper execution. An application is a long-term investment and proper financial design and budgeting is required to ensure the applications that is developed is well budgeted to accommodate the changes that would be required, in order to be successful. An approach to formulating a budgeting plan should include for factors such as hidden costs testing of applications, a regular upkeep and maintenance. Its highly probable that a business may sometimes underestimate the cost of developing and maintaining an application. It becomes vital that we have a strategic and well formulated budget in place.
A Game of Numbers
Today as we see a rise in the number of businesses using applications to reach out to their customers, we as a business also need to understand budgets and the cost involved in order to build a compelling application. Applications involve time as well financial investment. Before we start developing an application, we need to be aware of what it takes to build, test launch and maintain an application. While developing an application some of the key factors that contribute to the cost of building an application include:
- Business segment, size and finances
- Whether the application is going to be a native, mobile or web application
- The design and final outlook of the application
- Add on features like artificial intelligence and virtual reality applications
- Availability on iOS, android and web based
- Data storage capacity
- Room for change and upgrades and maintenance
- API’s and the design of the application
- Using the right tools for development
Back to the basics:
As the technology grows the features and elements added in an application are changing. Businesses earlier who had only a website are now converting their approach to develop and launch applications. In order to understand what functionality your application is going to serve you need to first understand what it is you want from your application and what is the purpose of developing the application. Deciding if you want to build the application separately for the iOS, android or the web is the starting step of your budgeting. The new buzz word is cross platform applications. Business can now decide if they want to either build an application on the native platform or develop an application that is neutral and then use it across the multiple native platforms.
Key Features of your application
Sometimes in our enthusiasm to develop an application we feel the more the better, hence we want to add all the features possible in the applications. The right number of features, the design, the outlook and testing of the applications are all factors that would contribute towards building your application. Also remember testing is an integral part of any application development as it helps you fix any problem that may arise so always budget for testing of your applications.
Long term planning
One vital element to keep in mind while designing is to always keep room to add on features upgrade your application and ensuring you planned enough to have solid back end support team. Also make sure you budget for the maintenance and upkeep of the application as sometimes we may tend to overlook this essential and important aspect. Budgeting also include for regular updates and bug issues.
Marketing Strategies
Marketing and advertising need to account for while developing an application. For an application to become successful every budgeting plan should have room for marketing. With competition sky high we need to ensure we have solid marketing plan to ensure that we reach out not only to our existing customers but to new markets and segments as well.
In the end every factor contributes to the Success
Developing and designing an application is not an easy task. We need to make sure we pay attention even to the minute of details. Ensure that your application has a strong foundation in terms of the data storage libraries that you use, the design is not a complex and complicated one , the user interface should be smooth and compatible on the platforms on which it is going to be launched on. A well thought out and structured budget will help you launch an application smoothly, connect with your users better and prove to be a good investment for the long-term growth of your business.
Our team at Octos Global has experience in building applications that are of superior quality all the while adhering to the clients’ budget requirements. Our clients are given exactly what they were looking for, as we not only customize to serve our clients better, but we are also flexible in order to accommodate our clients demands. Octos Global always aims to deliver to our clients needs and requirements.