Summary Results | April 2019
Optimizing Application Development
Summary Results | April 2019Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
Survey Summary▶ Between February and April 2019, Gatepoint Research invited selected executives to participate in a
survey themed Optimizing Application Development.
▶ Candidates were invited via email and 206 executives have participated to date.
▶ Management levels represented are predominantly IT and application development team senior
decision makers: 7% hold the title CxO, 13% are VPs, 50% are Directors, and 30% are Managers.
▶ Survey participants represent firms from a wide variety of industries including business services,
construction, education, financial services, healthcare, media, manufacturing (primary, general,
high tech), mining, retail trade, transportation, utilities, and wholesale trade.
▶ Responders work for firms with a wide range of revenue levels:
▪ 27% work in Fortune 1000 companies with revenues over $1.5 billion;
▪ 18% work in Large firms whose revenues are between $500 million and $1.5 billion;
▪ 55% work in Mid-Market or Small companies with less than $500 million in revenues.
▶ 100% of responders participated voluntarily; none were engaged using telemarketing.
Summary Results | April 2019Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
Executive OverviewApplication development teams across all industries are responding to the demands of their
markets. Newer, faster, smarter applications need to be developed for web and mobile use. Re-
utilizing code for different purposes and hand-coding requires extensive testing, slowing the time-
to-market cycle. What are organizations doing to speed up application development?
This survey asks respondents to report:
▶ Is application development handled in-house?
▶ How significant is their application development backlog?
▶ How confident are they in the web and mobile app development skill level of their development team?
▶ Are they familiar with low-code development?
▶ What changes are they considering to increase application development productivity?
Summary Results | April 2019Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
What percentage of web/mobile applications are developed in-house?
Most respondents (61%) develop the majority of their web/mobile apps in-house, but a significant number (14%) outsource or contract all web and mobile application development to specialists.
14%
19%
16%
22%
29%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
0% (outsourced orcontracted)
1% to 25% 26% to 50% 51% to 75% 76% to 100%
Summary Results | April 2019Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
How concerned are you about your application backlog? (Rate 1 to 5, 1 = not at all concerned, 5=extremely concerned)
Backlog in the app dev area is of high to extreme concern for more than a fourth of respondents. A mere 18% can say they have no concern at all.
18%
23%
32%
19%
7%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
1 2 3 4 5
Not at all concerned Extremely concerned
Summary Results | April 2019Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
Does your department have any concerns with “shadow IT” in the organization?
Shadow IT activity increasing or masking security risks worries 61% of respondents, and more than half also fear a loss of control over the infrastructure, leading to other problems. Only 16% see it as a workload relief.
61%
53%
26%
16%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
Data security risks are elevated and/or undetected
Creates a loss of control over the infrastructure
It may reduce our IT budget funding
It's a relief, offloads development work from IT
Summary Results | April 2019Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
Which of your legacy systems costs you the most to maintain?
The three most central systems in any enterprise are, not surprisingly, also cited as the most costly. 43% of respondents identify their ERP as the most expensive to maintain, whereas CRM is most costly for 27%, followed by BPM systems (22%).
Enterprise
Resource Planning
(ERP) system
43%Customer
Relationship
Management
(CRM)
27%
Business
Process
Management
(BPM) system
22%
Other
8%
Summary Results | April 2019Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
What is the level of web and mobile development skill in your app dev organization?
Mobile application development skills are not as advanced among surveyed organizations as web app development skills. More than half (57%) of respondents say they have very high to “world class” web app development skills, twice as many as those with the same level of expertise in mobile app development skills.
6% 7%
28%
39%
18%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
20%22%
28%
20%
8%
Web App Development
Skill
Mobile App
Development Skill
Very low
skills
World class
skills
Very low
skills
World class
skills
Summary Results | April 2019Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
What are you doing to improve developer productivity?
72% of respondents say they are up-skilling developers through training to achieve higher productivity levels. Others will hire more developers (37%) or provide incentives (14%), but nearly a third are considering the use of low or no code development to up productivity.
72%
37%
31%
14%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Training
Hiring more developers
Using low/no-code development
Developer incentives/MBOs
Summary Results | April 2019Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
How familiar are you with low-code application development?
Low-code development technology is only well known to 27% of those surveyed, nearly as many as those with no familiarity at all (33%).
Not at all familiar
33%
Somewhat familiar
40%Familiar
25%
I'm an expert
2%
Summary Results | April 2019Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
Which improvements to your application development platforms and processes would support your productivity goals?
Respondents list a number of ways to achieve better productivity, with 64% agreeing that being able to more easily integrate new or changed code to existing environments ranks first. Minimizing hand coding (51%), and being able to customize the UI (48%) round out the top three productivity ideas.
64%
51%
48%
41%
39%
6%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
Easy integration of new/changed code into the existing
environment
Minimized hand coding; able to reuse code
Ability to customize User Interface (UI) design
Ability to make coding changes on the fly
Mapping database objects to user workflows
Other
Summary Results | April 2019Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
Profile of Responders:
Industry Sectors
Responders represent a wide variety of industries.
Business Services
26%
Financial Services
20%
Mfg - High Tech
14%
Wholesale Trade
7%
Retail Trade
7%
Healthcare
6%Mfg - General
5%
Telecom Services
4%
Transportation
2%
Consumer
Services
2%
Media
2%
Utilities
2%
Mfg - Primary
2%
Construction
1%
Other
11%
Summary Results | April 2019Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
Profile of Responders:
Revenue
27% of those surveyed work in Fortune 1000 companies with revenues over $1.5 billion.
>$1.5billion
27%
$500 million -
$1.5 billion
18%
$250 - 500 million
3%
Summary Results | April 2019Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
Profile of Responders:
Job Level
70% of those surveyed hold director or executive level positions in their organizations.
CxO
7%VP
13%
Director
50%
Manager
30%
Summary Results | April 2019Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
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