Businesses in every industry are continuously looking for new ways to stay one step ahead of the curve. One way to do this is to find ways to speed up software development and delivery to meet the pace of technological innovation and remain on top of constantly increasing demands for agility and scalability.

There are several elements to achieving this while enhancing user experience and productivity: adopting a customer-centric approach; recognising the importance of security; and simplifying the development process.

Technological advancements have ushered in a profound transformation in the way business operations are conducted, particularly in the realm of programming. Traditionally, programming was orientated towards products, with programmers primarily focusing on product launches and the creation of new prototypes.

However, the landscape has evolved significantly. In the increasingly competitive field of software development, programmers are now placing a greater emphasis on the demand side of the equation rather than the supply side. This fundamental shift signifies that programming is becoming increasingly customer centric.

Customer-centric development

But what exactly is customer-centric software development? In a nutshell, it revolves around a framework that considers the customer in all aspects of operations. Its primary objective is to design and adapt products or services with a keen understanding of what customers need.

Various methodologies can facilitate a customer-centric framework. Initially, basic prototyping may stem from direct customer input, where ideas are derived from the customer base. However, a more common scenario involves programmers embracing customer-centric development in later stages, refining their concepts based on consumer behaviour. The result is software that keeps customers happy and fosters satisfaction and loyalty.

Customer-centric software development can be characterised by three things:

Flexibility, or the ability to adjust to shifting customer behaviours and requirements.
Agility, or the ability to provide regular updates and incremental changes to keep up with customer expectations as the evolve.
Engagement, which considers customer’s feedback through all the levels of development.

Reducing friction

When it comes to simplifying the development process, developers need solutions that reduce friction and frustration for engineering teams – and enhance their productivity at the same time. However, there are a slew of challenges that frustrate developers along the way, particularly in terms of starting new projects or onboarding current ones.

For instance, they might be tasked with starting a new project or creating a new microservice to do something. This could be handling a new API, working with a new database, or something else entirely. One of the most common frustrations that occurs almost instantly is simply getting it up and running, as this involves finding permissions in one place, filing a ticket in another, considering which technologies need to be used, and where to request access to the test cluster.

After all, engineering teams and IT projects involve a tailored development environment. This repository of tools, services and configuration is usually maintained by convention and transmitted by from one member of the team to another.

However, with LSD Open and Red Hat, developers have access to the Red Hat Developer Hub that can help them simply the development process and become a more productive developer instantly.

Developer portals

Developer portals can be used to help teams curate, manage and replicate these environments. Behind the scenes lies an open-source, cloud-native computing foundation project used to build developer platforms and encapsulate tools, services, documentation and best practices in “golden paths” to streamline onboarding and everyday development work. Developers are armed with a unified and open platform that streamlines the development process and provides a wide range of tools and resources to help them build high-quality software more efficiently and rapidly.

Security is another critical factor. In today’s fast-paced world, deploying new software at the “speed of operations” needs total trust that the software is compliant, of the highest quality and built with automated security measures.

Practices such as “test-driven development”, “continuous integration” or “continuous deployment” promote a culture of DevSecOps and foster trust. However, while this is easy in theory, enforcing these practices is quite different. Even when teams have good intentions, ensuring they do the right things is hard even without development guardrails.

Shifting left

This is why LSD Open and Red Hat recommend implementing DevSecOps starts with a “shift-left” approach to security that introduces security checks and balances at every stage in the software development life cycle (SDLC) to protect and secure the software supply chain. This enables developers adopt practices that enable integrating security simpler and straightforward, and guarantees trust in the software supply chain.

A trusted software supply chain gives businesses DevSecOps practices and tools that ensure security for the software components early in the SDLC and then automate security practices at each phase of the process. Having a security-focused software supply chain means customers and users can have more trust in the software they are using, which in turn builds customer loyalty and strengthens brand reputation, all while lowering the risk of vulnerabilities and threats being introduced once the software is already running in production.

About LSD Open
LSD was founded in 2001 and wants to inspire the world by embracing open philosophy and technology. LSD is your cloud-native acceleration partner that provides managed platforms, leveraging a foundation of containerisation, Kubernetes and open-source technologies. We deliver modern platforms for modern applications. For more, visit www.lsdopen.io, e-mail [email protected] or visit us on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or GitHub.

About Red Hat
As the leading provider of enterprise open-source software solutions, Red Hat offers a broad portfolio of IT solutions. The company’s signature products, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, enable businesses to leverage the power of open-source technology and give them the means to expand their IT capabilities and explore new product and market opportunities. Red Hat is committed to collaborating with open-source communities to develop software that takes industries forward, and is reliable, secure and innovative. For more, e-mail [email protected] or call +27115134109.