Application Maintenance Cost – How to Make a Wise Deal?
Most of the companies that make an application do it with three objectives – feature it on Google Play and App Store, get millions and billions of downloads, and run it smoothly. So, three factors in a nutshell. But often, we see only the first two ones getting the necessary attention.
As per a Saffron Tech Survey, out of 1200 tech customers that the company surveyed, approximately 55% believed that they need don’t need app maintenance, and wish to spend more on app marketing and ASO. (Source – https://www.saffrontech.net/blog/how-much-should-an-app-maintenance-cost).
Of course, investing in marketing and making money from it are essential concerns. However, they aren’t the only ones. The app may become a runaway hit in the beginning. However, given the dynamic nature of technology, what future does the app have with its old features and functionalities?
It refers to a contradictory situation, where on the one hand, the company keeps pumping money in promoting it, and on the other, the users keep commenting about the app’s redundant functionalities, and the number of downloads keeps dipping. So, what is the point marketing something, when it isn’t capable of serving the user’s purpose, and competent enough?
For many, app maintenance forms an expense. But, more than an expense, it is an investment that adds to the sales value of the application through upgrades, competence, and enhanced user experience.
App maintenance certainly demands some part of your IT investments. But you don’t have to spend millions on it necessarily. You can control app maintenance costs and get the most out of it in terms of augmented functionalities, upgraded features, and higher downloads. So, it is all about how you strike a wise app maintenance deal, and complement it with your app marketing investments.
Here’s more on how to control your app maintenance cost, make a wise deal that saves you money, and helps you get the best out of your application.
How to Reduce App Maintenance Costs?
It requires a bit of workaround and involves reviewing a few essential factors before you start saving money on app maintenance. Partnering with an experienced app maintenance service provider will help you do the following. So, see what elements will help you control app maintenance costs.
1. Create an Enterprise Application Portfolio Inventory
Begin with taking stock of your activities and assets. Conduct an inventory check of the IT-supported applications to perform a baseline review of the service. If you already have an inventory in place, ensure that you refresh it to align with the latest requirements.
2. Perform a Review of the Existing Maintenance and Licensing Costs
A comprehensive review of the existing support levels and licensing arrangements can help you save some money. At times, you may not require a particular support feature or specific licenses anymore. Hence, spending on unnecessary elements will only keep adding to your app maintenance costs.
3. Review the Existing Service Levels
Review the current service levels for application changes. If you’ve got any internal Service Level Agreement, you must perform a thorough review of the existing expectations.
4. Reevaluate the need for Application Enhancement
Of course, application maintenance and enhancement are imperative from the viewpoint of sustenance. However, if you are looking forward to reducing costs, make sure you reassess your financial position and the need for application enhancement. A careful review and report of what you need and what you don’t in the current environment can also help you make considerable savings.
5. Reassessing Outsourced Maintenance Contracts
Reviewing the current application maintenance outsourcing rates helps a lot. Comparing the existing costs with the services you need and the ones you don’t need, enables you to make an informed decision.
6. Modular Integration
Over a while, rigid and ageing applications contribute to high maintenance costs. Given the situation, you must be able to flex out the application. Flexible solutions and apps can help you reduce maintenance costs to a considerable extent.
7. Get Cloud
Cloud is trending for many reasons. One of them is the efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the existing IT environment that it brings. The adoption of the cloud enables businesses to save a lot of maintenance costs. Besides, these applications offer seamless upgrades and updates, thereby proving a lot more useful in regards to saving time as well.
How to choose an Application Maintenance Provider?
Selecting the right application maintenance provider proves an essential factor in helping you save costs through the proper consultation, efficient app maintenance practices, and the use of the right technologies. These five tips will help you make the right choice, save money, and still get the best.
1. Define you Needs and Set the Right Expectations
Know what you need. Consult your technical and marketing team, and also assess past user feedback, along with the user experience factor to define your maintenance and enhancement needs. Set the right expectations from the prospective service provider.
Not knowing what you need cannot give you clarity on the cost part. Hence, enlist your requirements, and then the market cost for your requirements to ensure you strike a wise deal.
Ensure that you don’t put forth unrealistic requirements. Reducing the cost, on the one hand, and expecting world-class quality, on the other, isn’t fair, and not possible either.
2. Choose an Application Maintenance Partner that understands your Business Needs.
Application maintenance transcends maintaining the application’s operations. It extends to enhancing the application’s performance, developing and upgrading user-oriented functionalities, considering user feedback. It helps you ensure that you update your app to serve your user demands and optimize app performance.
To do so, you need an application maintenance partner that possesses the relevant experience and understands your business needs to deliver results that help you succeed and outperform.
3. Review of the Data Security Standards, Maintenance Workflows, and Quality Check Procedures
Some of the other essential concerns you must evaluate the vendor’s utility in your case include application maintenance, testing, quality check procedures, and data security. It will help you get a highly optimized, secure, and a thoroughly tested enhanced application.
Besides, check whether the company offers you all the five types of application maintenance services – emergency maintenance, perfective maintenance, adaptive maintenance, preventive maintenance, and corrective maintenance.
4. Check the Cost
Make sure that your prospective application maintenance partner offers a competitive cost. However, on the other hand, it also ensures that a low cost does not affect the quality of the work, delays support and results in unresponsiveness after a while. You are out to save money, but not at the cost of your business and your users’ satisfaction.
5. Check the Past Performance of the Vendor
While being in the business for a particular number of years is desirable, the performance, and success rate, all along, also matters. So, before you handover, the application maintenance part to the service provider, ensure that you also evaluate the past performance and success rate of the company. An amazing success rate in your industry and type of application is even more desirable.
Fideltech – Your Application Maintenance Partner in Japan
Fideltech is a Japan-based global IT company that offers an extensive range of services, right from software development to application maintenance and support. The company has been in the business for over a decade and continues to work with a broad array of clients across various business domains.
Fideltech nurtures some of the best application maintenance and support specialists, along with competitive workflows, latest technologies, and stringent QC procedures to ensure optimized application performance, and augmented features as per the client’s business needs
Connect with Fideltech at 03-6261-3309, or write in to salesfidel@fideltech.com
if you are looking forward to partnering with a comprehensive application maintenance partner, and cost-efficient app maintenance packages.