What is R&D and Why You Should Hire Experts to Do It for You

Technology has become an integral part of almost every business and industry. It is taking a much bigger role in literally every sphere of our existence, whether we like or not.

In order to survive in today’s climate, most companies are obliged to think of innovative ways to automate mundane processes, optimize costs, and develop simple solutions for complex issues that slow their business down. In addition to that, companies also need to listen closely to their clients and come up with innovative solutions that meet their demands.

This is where R&D enters the picture.

What is R&D?

R&D, short for Research and Development, is basically an investigation with the goal of coming up with something new - a discovery that will result in a new product or service, or one that will improve or enhance an existing offering.

Let’s focus on banks for example. In today’s world, banks can’t function properly without highly secured software anymore. Apart from helping them process money and control data, software helps banks operate in many different ways. For instance, it helps them provide better services to their clients. In 2019, online banking has become a regular part of financial services. Clients demand instant access to their personal and company accounts online. They want to check their balances, schedule transfers, and follow up on their expenses from the comfort of their home, at any time. Nobody wants to physically go to the bank and waste their valuable time standing in line.

In order to ensure that their clients remain satisfied, banks need to continue investing in the further development of their online banking services. Even though the sole concept and existence of online banking resolves a lot of issues for the clients, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the job is done. As the service continues to grow and evolve, people will continue to recognize aspects of it that are still clumsy and frustrating. This is why banks need to listen to what their clients’ feedback is saying and respond to their needs with adequate “improvements”

In 2019, R&D is slowly becoming the norm. Even though we are talking about R&D from a software and technological standpoint - every business that creates and sells a product or service could benefit from investing in a certain form of R&D.

Increasing number of companies are noticing tangible value and ROI when it comes to investing in research before committing to the development of actual products and improvements. According to Deloitte’s study, more than 50% of the subjects they reached out to have confirmed that their companies plan on allocating more budget to R&D.

The Process

Now let’s take a look at what the process of research and development implies.

Typical R&D activities include the following:

• Developing and designing new solutions that are supposed to increase effectiveness or functionality of the product/service;
• Developing enhancements/improvements of existing solutions;
• Designing and developing new testing methods/protocols;
• Developing improved technologies for manufacturing, production, processes, especially those that reduce waste and improve safety or energy use;
• Development of software for product or process improvements.

In the IT industry, R&D revolves around the idea of getting the most out of the client’s potential investment.

Regardless of what people think, developing a custom technological solution or modification is never a walk in the park. As we already explained on the website, every technological solution goes through three integral phases:

• Innovation
• Quality
• Technologies

To ensure that everything goes smoothly, all the aspects of this process have to be precisely addressed within the constraints of timeframe, associated costs, and available expertise. If not, the development process will most likely become nothing short of a nightmare where the clients will end up burning more money and other resources on a project that they can’t really afford.

Knowing just how easy it is to get stuck in development hell, we at Share IT always urge our clients to invest in proper R&D before deciding to invest in the creation of specific technological solutions.

Reasons to Invest in R&D

Beyond the obvious, there are many other benefits to why companies should think of R&D as their ally. R&D should be recognized as the first phase of any process leading to technological innovation. It provides a healthy foundation you can then build new solutions upon.

More specifically, R&D helps with:

• Providing trustworthy sanity check to specific plans and ideas;
• Understanding the type and scope of the work that needs to be done for a specific idea to become reality;
• Figuring out how to reduce manufacturing cost and improve specific processes;
• Coming up with precise financial estimation and learning which other resources will be needed for the project to come to life.

The goal of R&D is to ensure that the clients invest smartly in the development of new products or into further modifications of their existing solution. This way, unpleasant surprises are avoided and the project can start without unnecessary headaches.

Hiring a company that specializes in R&D to help you implement and manage such activities - makes all the difference. With the help of professionals who have a lot of experience creating custom solutions for all sorts of businesses, you will have the opportunity to ask all your questions. It basically means you’ll outsource your worries to external experts and easy the burden on your internal IT team, if you happen to have one. In addition to that, these professionals can help you integrate new concepts and processes in record time, without you having to spend a small fortune on devs.

In a nutshell, companies that invest R&D have all the tools they need to strengthen their position on the market and gain a competitive edge. Those that do not will most likely end up losing customers/clients over time or waste money on wrong investments.

Over to You

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. We hope it helped you better understand the concept of R&D and all its benefits. As you can probably see from everything written above, R&D plays a crucial role in one company’s future. No business that intends to remain relevant can afford to ignore this concept, especially if operating in fast-paced and saturated industries.

Once you truly embrace R&D, it will become an unavoidable part of your business. With the help of people who are experts in this field, you will see that proper prep work makes all the difference.

If you are interested in finding out more about research and development at Share IT or you have a project in mind, make sure to shoot us an email.