In these days of “big data,” where should you start to gain insight about your business and its customers? Start small.
The notion seems to have taken hold that data insight requires all the possible sources of information. This starts with simple sales and expense figures and ratchets up to a multitude of IoT sensors on everything from your inventory to the shelves from which consumers grab products to put into their shopping baskets. You must know the weather, demographics and what people were Tweeting about to understand your business and its market.
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Independent software vendors increasingly find customers want a modern business intelligence and analytics solution integrated with their core application. Your customers don’t want the hassle of figuring out how to make a third-party BI tool work with somebody else’s application and their data. Read More
Your users have pushed for better dashboards and self-service functionality. They’ve tried working with their own IT for new dashboard designs. They may push your organization for dashboards with more impactful reports and data visualizations. Neither option is scalable. 
How can an ISV retain customers in the fast changing SaaS environment? Only by demonstrating innovation in its applications and service can it hope to keep existing customers happy and attract new customers. 
Development of software inherently carries risks, so it should come as no surprise that every developer and product manager at an ISV or any company creating an application has to address these threats. How successful our business can be will depend on how well we mitigate these risks. 
Now that your software product has taken off and customer expectations continue to change, you probably are discovering that the legacy BI tool – and maybe even your application – aren’t scalable and require too much developer time to maintain. It’s time for an upgrade and with a team of developers in-house, you may be tempted to take on this project yourself. 
CEO David Heinemeier Hansson said that right after his company launched a new version of BaseCamp, signups doubled. That didn’t mean those new customers suddenly had new projects. He advised companies to reject those “
Developers pride themselves on having long technical resumes that contain plenty of technical skills. Sometimes, it is a good idea to show a potential employer that you have some other dimensions to yourself by adding additional skills that make you stand out among the other candidates. 
It seems that everyone has figured out the best way to get direct customer feedback: a questionnaire. You get them at the grocery store, you get them at the drive through, you even get them at the movie theater, so why shouldn’t you be giving one out as well to see how your business is doing? Here are some best practices for creating your own B2B survey to see how your customers think that you are doing. 
As 2015 comes to close and we head into 2016, now is a natural time to reflect on where we’ve been and where we are going. Software developers and executives can take the time to not just reflect, but also plan for the New Year, considering: 