Importance Of Application Support And Maintenance For Your Business

You may have hired one of the best IT companies in Kuwait to develop a software application for your business. And you may also have a stellar promotional strategy in place to attract consumers. But your work with the technicalities and functionalities of the app does not come to an end. At any point of time, there can be an unforeseeable technical glitch or managerial shortcoming. Do you have the information you need to address these issues and put an effective maintenance and support plan in place?

IT leads today’s world. Software applications have been quickly driving business growth, transforming user experience, and trying to target a wider customer base. IT software has arguably become the most important element of all organizations. Hence the increasing need for Kuwait IT companies that provide application development, support, and maintenance services, which not only adds value and improves business outcomes, but has become a crucial requirement for all businesses.

Software applications are usually developed to either automate an internal business process or address a common business challenge. The development of a custom solution for any organization involves the stages of planning, creation, testing, and deployment. Application maintenance, then, is a process that immediately follows the development stage. It involves a continuous update, analysis, modification, and re-evaluation of the application. Application maintenance is about fixing bugs and errors but it’s also about modifying the product post-delivery and constantly striving to improve performance. In fact, one of its goals is to take preventive measures that eliminate any bugs and glitches that may appear in the future.

This is what a software maintenance process looks like:

Identification & Tracing - The type of software modifications or maintenance are determined. These are either user-generated or identified by the software app developer.
Impact Analysis - The suggested modifications and its potential effects are analyzed. A cost analysis is used to calculate the financial feasibility of this change.
Design - The new changes are designed using requirement specifications.
Change implementation - The new modules are implemented by programmers.
System Testing - The system and the software, including the module, are tested before launch.
System Release - The software is installed or updated, and the changes reach customers.

Benefits of application maintenance:

Bug fixes - In order to keep your application running smoothly, you will need to treat bugs and glitches as and when they arrive. Whether it is the hardware, software, or the operating system that is facing the issue, your maintenance expert will fix any errors in the code without disturbing any existing elements of the software.
Capability Enhances - The software market is highly competitive and ever-changing. To keep evolving with it, you will need to implement changes in your solution’s features and functions. Regular maintenance will help you enhance your software, upgrade hardware, tweak compilers, and improve work patterns.
Eliminating Outdated Functions - Features that have turned obsolete are essentially useless. They occupy unnecessary space and hinder efficiency. Application maintenance will get rid of any such elements in the code and keep you up-to-date with the latest tools and technologies.
Performance Improvements - App developers in Kuwait can detect issues and resolve them for better system performance. Coding restrictions and reengineering are also important components in the prevention of hacking and other vulnerabilities.
Scalability - Timely maintenance helps make your application more scalable and allows it to simultaneously sustain larger work loads and maintain high performance.
Expertise - Domain experience across different industries like marketing, healthcare, e-commerce, manufacturing, financial services, etc., and across different application lifecycle models improves the overall quality and experience of end-users.
Customer satisfaction - The improvement in the quality, online presence, and response time of software applications through regular maintenance, results in happy and satisfied customers.

Application support on the other hand, is a service that:

Responds to emergencies like application shutdowns, logic errors, crashes, etc.
Fixes normal and frequent bugs and glitches that have low severity.
Assists as support staff by answering application related questions to new and existing users.
Responds to changes by helping with transitions from one operating system to another.
Complies with all major and minor documentation updates.

The Future

As user expectations have escalated, it has become incredibly important to develop flexible, scalable, and intuitive user interfaces in applications. Application development and maintenance is no more restricted to mobile and web apps. Advanced marketing technology software, cloud-based mobile apps that utilize IoT, and enhanced data management solutions are a part of every successful company’s arsenal. Most app development companies in Kuwait make use of the latest tools like Visual Studio, TFS, and SQL and technologies like .net, jQuery, CSS, etc.

A lot of application support and maintenance companies are also catering to the trends of fast-changing digital applications through automation. This innovation leverages native monitoring and pre-built big data analytical tools to create self-healing bots that ultimately reduce manual work. As we move forward, we will witness the adoption of even more emerging trends. These means:

Security practices will be implemented as code itself, instead of being implemented at the post-development stage.
Cloud application development will become a popular way to meet user requirements.
Automation will eliminate the need for organizations to build custom deployments.

To land the perfect application maintenance and support company, be clear about your needs, research the company you wish to partner with, choose a platform that fits you the best, and put in place processes that implement continuous improvements, iterations, and bug fixes.

From designing to coding to debugging, application maintenance and support services help businesses take care of their software product in the best ways possible. We, at Design Master, one of the top software companies in Kuwait, believe in delivering effective post-development support services which has, over the years, helped us retain our valuable clients. We are always available for our customers and provide different levels of support depending on the nature of the issues. Our Annual Maintenance Contracts are designed to provide technical, functional support options based on the unique requirements of our customers. Additionally, irrespective of time and place, we provide 24x7 support for critical issues. Our app developers and support providers are skilled and efficient in resolving any user queries and have a thorough knowledge of the product.