The pandemic may be near to end, but its adverse effects on our economy will likely persist. According to some economists, the world is leading to a massive global recession, and the pandemic is one of its leading factors. In times of recession, businesses cut costs and tweak their strategy to tackle financial difficulties.
While this may be vital to other aspects of your business, compromising your web presence would hamper your success. With the prevalence of digitization, leveraging custom web development services has been a norm for businesses around the world. The IT sector, despite the recession, is likely to flourish. And having a web presence will be more than necessary for companies even during the recession.
The Internet has become a significant part of our lives and will continue to be. Therefore, a website is imperative for companies to stay ahead of the competition and drive revenue. That said, web development is expensive, and you definitely want to avoid burdening your business with such massive expenses while facing financially challenging times.
So, how do you build a custom website during times of recession? By following these best tips and best practices.
Tips for web development to beat the recession
As per some experts, the world is heading towards a major recession. It is a time when, as a business, you want to cut costs. Web development is an expensive feat, and if you’re going to hire developers for your web development project, these tips will help you build websites during the difficult times of recession.
Find a competent web development team
Hiring a dedicated developers team is the first step for a successful web development project. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of qualified web developers. It is often hard to find a professional with all the skills listed on their resume. Hiring in-house developers or third-party resources takes time, energy, and cost. So, you don’t want to leave the slightest scope of hiring an incompetent team for your website development project. Making this mistake means you drain your web development expenses.
When building a website in a tight economy, you must take careful decisions and hire dedicated developers with the right skills and experience to complete your project. So, to acquire the right talent, you must conduct a thorough review. Well, for a non-technical person, this is a challenging task. How can you evaluate a software developer if you don’t know the job? Through research. Research the business the best you can. Talk to their previous clients, get references, check out case studies, ask for demos of their last projects, and research the stability and viability of the company you’re hiring. This will help you identify the right partner for your project.
Avoid taking technical risks
The second thing you want to avoid when developing a website during a recession is taking technical risks in terms of experimentation. Many business owners like to try on new technologies as they seem more promising. In our decade-long work experience in the IT industry, we have seen many projects being rebuilt because owners were impressed by the buzz of the latest platforms or frameworks. And converting the website from one technology to another is almost the same as building it from scratch. This often costs a fortune, which is the last thing you want in these turbulent times.
In times of recession, you should take a less risky path for your web development project. This means choosing tried-and-tested technologies. While experimentation is a good thing, this is not an ideal time for new approaches. Instead, this is a time to sit with your development team and determine the solution that would be best for business today and many more years to come. Your choice of technology should be a careful balance of speed of development, availability of resources to improve and maintain your site, and proven history of previous success.
Pay attention to project management
Project management is an essential part of the success of your project, and it is more crucial now than ever before. Ideally, two project-oriented people will work from both sides during software development. An in-house person from the client side interfaces with the project manager from the developer’s side.
They keep direct contact, streamlining the communications between both parties. A good project manager will create timelines and plans and then organize these materials to deliver consistent results. They will communicate with utmost transparency and brutal honesty. A project is unlikely to succeed without two individuals with an open line of communication.
Stick to the plan
Showing success early and continuously in your project development is imperative. A demonstrated early success helps in building comprehensive specifications. This often happens during the discovery process or other similar phases of web development. If you have gone through that process, you should strictly stick to the plan. Considering unnecessary pivots, work orders, and other distractions only add to the timeline, which results in a delayed market launch. And as competition increases, you want to launch your website on time.
As mentioned in the previous point, a good project manager will ensure that your development process is on task. They will alert you when potential distractions arise and help you stay organized. The product should go to the market in its decided time, even with flaws, if they are minor and don’t hamper the site’s core function. It’s better than staying in a never-ending feedback loop. Based on user feedback, products should be shipped fast and iterated with new releases.
Focus on building ROI-related features
When building a custom website in a recession, you want to focus more on the business aspect of your project. An important thing to think of is the return on investment you are making to develop it. This varies depending on the type of software or development process. Sometimes, creating a simple solution is better than your competitor’s handling of things so that your entire project offers ROI. Other times, it might be features that distinguish you from your competition.
Whichever case you have, now is the time to focus on differentiating factors, features, or functionalities that get you more return on investment. Along with this, you also need to focus on the marketing aspect of your website. There is no point in getting a beautiful website with high-end functionalities if your target customers can’t find them.
Wrapping up
In the difficult times of recession, having a web presence is more important than ever. It indeed costs quite a lot, but in the long run, it proves to be an investment that gives incredible returns. Moreover, considering these tips may also help you cut some costs from web development in a recession. If you want to know more about this or hire dedicated developers for custom web development services, feel free to contact us at info@hkinfoway.com or +91 9408382596.
