Build Your Software Team (A Dream Team) At a Price You Can Afford

Building a Software Team That Suits Your Needs

Imagine having the resources you need to satisfy your software development, support and maintenance needs? Imagine a universe where you don’t have to recruit, interview and house a software development team to fulfill your vision for a consumer or business application? What if you could have the right resources available at the right time without having to wait for your team (or an IT partner) to find the time to address your needs or ideas?

‘A Build Your Own Team approach assures that the business has the skills, knowledge, resources and access it needs to complete its project on a timely basis. This personalized approach is not simply a staffing, recruitment or shared workspace approach.’

CIO.com recently published research that outlines the primary reasons for project failure. Among the top reasons for failure, they list two primary factors relating to resources:

Not Enough Resources

Underestimating the resources and talent required to do the work and the amount of work required to complete the project.

Inexperienced Teams

Failure to provide experienced project managers and specific skills and talents required to complete the project.

Even if your business has a skilled in-house IT team, it is likely that they are already overwhelmed by existing projects, support, and maintenance of the existing infrastructure. Add to that the fact that new technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), and new platforms, frameworks, coding techniques, and other factors can make it nearly impossible to keep your staff trained and sustain the skills you need to address every requirements.

But when your business needs software and application development help, it is often difficult to find a service provider that will satisfy all business needs and do so in a timely, skilled fashion. If a business chooses the wrong service provider, it is likely to face one or more of the following issues:

  • Cookie-cutter solutions and teams that provide some, but not all, of the skills required to support business needs.
  • Delays in achieving milestones because the right resources are not available at the right time.
  • Inflexible team and resource availability to address changing or evolving requirements leads to uncertain results.
  • Out-of-date or incomplete skillsets.
  • The need to find, interview and select a vendor, sign contracts and establish relationships for each new project.
  • Resource instability. Changes and disruption in the team demand re-training, and result in lost resource skills and project knowledge.
  • Failure to protect Intellectual Property (IP), Data and User Privacy.

And even if you CAN find a vendor or partner with the right skills, many businesses report delays and gaps in the actual delivery of completed projects. A skilled developer may be pulled from your project to satisfy another client and, when it is time for that developer to work on your project, they may not be available. You may find that the vendor is unavailable on certain days or during certain hours because of time zone differences or project overload.

Build Your Software Team Without Investment and Get the Right Skills and Resources

A Build Your Own Team approach assures that the business has the skills, knowledge, resources and access it needs to complete its project on a timely basis. This personalized approach is not simply a staffing, recruitment or shared workspace approach. By combining experience in software development and project management, and a unique understanding of the software lifecycle, training and skills requirements, with a deep and broad network from which the partner can draw you are assured of the right skills, experience and talent – without delays or default.

‘When your business needs software and application development help, it is often difficult to find a service provider that will satisfy all business needs and do so in a timely, skilled fashion.’

Contact Us to find out how our software application development services and find out how you can Build Your Software Team to support YOUR needs and ensure consistent, professional, skilled technology and knowledge. Explore our free articles here: ‘Build Your Software Team For Cross-Platform Apps Project,’ and ‘Ensure Success And Engage A Software Partner To Build Your Own Team.’

Case Study: Elegant MicroWeb Case Study – AI Image Recognition Technology Transforms Fire Safety Inspections and Compliance

This U.S. company specializes in fire safety equipment maintenance and compliance management. Its mobile application product automates the process of fire safety inspections, allowing businesses to efficiently record and submit inspection reports to regulatory authorities, streamlining inspection workflows and ensuring consistent compliance for clients. This product is accessed through a subscription plan.

Should I Choose Cloud-Based or On-Premises Business Intelligence?

Choosing Between Cloud and On-Premises Augmented Analytics

Your business may be upgrading a business intelligence solution OR it may be considering the implementation of business intelligence (BI) for the first time. Either way, you will be faced with numerous decisions as you navigate the augmented analytics market and look for the right product and solution for your team and your organization.

Considerations include pricing, features, ease-of-use, data storage and data management location, and the capability of the solution to support upgrade and growth. When it comes to the technical foundation of the product and services, you will need to decide whether to choose a solution that resides on premises or one that is cloud-based.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of this decision is advanced planning and anticipating the changing needs of the organization. If you are choosing an advanced analytics product, a business intelligence or augmented analytics solutions, you may wish to select a vendor that allows you to choose an on-premises OR cloud-based approach, with the flexibility to change your approach in the future WITHOUT having to change the software your team has adopted – the one they now understand and use on a daily basis.

On-Premises: Software is hosted onsite using enterprise hardware and infrastructure. Some businesses choose this option because they wish to retain control and provide assured security.

Cloud-Based: When a business chooses this option, it relies on third-party servers to support the software and data and accesses information via secured internet connections using cloud. This option provides a flexible, scalable approach and allows the enterprise to access software and features without the need for its own resources, IT support, and hardware expense.

Gartner Has Predicted that, ‘Demand for integration capabilities, agile work processes and composable architecture will drive continued shift to the cloud.’

On-Premises vs Cloud-Based BI Tools: Consider Your Enterprise Requirements

To choose the right solution, work with your IT partner, to consider:

  • Strategy for Business Growth
  • Industry, Government Security Compliance
  • Availability of and Access to Technical Experts
  • Ability to Easily Manage Data Sources, Data Access, etc.
  • Cost of Solution and Support and Maintenance
  • Performance, Scalability, Flexibility
  • Support for Upgrade, Future Needs, Digital Transformation (Dx)

Look for a flexible, low-code, no-code analytics platform with scalable technology infrastructure and architecture that offers on-premises, private cloud or public cloud implementation for Amazon, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and other options. Your IT consulting partner will help you decide on your approach based on data velocity, data sources and locations, data security and governance policies and your desired return on investment (ROI).

Contact Us to discuss your analytical needs and to find out more about Smarten Technology, Architecture And Infrastructure, and the process of choosing the right Analytics Solution for your business. Explore our White Paper: ‘Enabling Business Optimization And Expense Reduction Through The Use Of Augmented Analytics,’ and our free article, ‘How Does Low Code And No Code Development Support BI Tools?

Engage an IT Partner to Build a Personalized Software Team

Build Your Own Software Team with Expert Skills and Experience

No matter the size of your business (large, medium or small), no matter the reach of your enterprise (local, regional or global), technology is a part of our life, a part of the day-to-day work of your team and a part of what feeds your strategy and goals.

Even if you are a part of a global, multi-million dollar organization, with a substantial IT team, it is difficult to source, hire and retain the right resources to staff all of your needs. From maintenance and support to deployment of new software solutions, to security, governance, data migration, management and reporting, there is often too much to do, too little time and too few resources.

…and when your team conceives of a new business software solution for consumers or for team members, or when you wish to integrate software solutions or upgrade tools and processes, your project team is likely to find its vision delayed behind a multitude of day-to-day needs and other projects that are languishing on the ‘to do’ list.

If you have recently decided to consider IT outsourcing for a project, or for ongoing needs, here are some interesting statistics to support this option:

  • IT outsourcing can preserve up to 40% of the organizational budget. (MSBU)
  • Hiring a third-party IT representative can speed up development cycles by 50%. (Number Analytics)
  • Business organizations experience a 30% shortage in tech talent related to cybersecurity and privacy. (Robert Half)
  • 93% of organizations anticipate entrusting aspects of cybersecurity to specialized service providers within the next two years. (Forbes)

Whether your business needs help with a new software project, or wishes to upgrade security standards, integrate existing solutions with new software, create a more comprehensive support and maintenance roadmap, or satisfy any other need, you can achieve these goals with dedicated assistance from an IT outsourcing expert.

Your management team and IT professionals may believe that IT outsourcing is undependable and expensive but, the right IT partner can provide flexible, dedicated resources to fulfill your requirements and you can Build Your Own Software Development team to quickly and easily complete your project.

If you are contemplating a new software solution, you can build a team with the skills to design a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and prototype and test features to avoid missteps and market mistakes.

Minimum Viable Products (MVP) Produces Better Business Start-Up Results

If you have an idea for a business solution, you can work with a dedicated team and dependable resources to develop requirements, obtain management, IT and user feedback and design, develop and create a solution using the right technology, frameworks and platforms.

Every resource assigned to your project will be curated to provide the right skills, experience and knowledge. Your team will not fight for the attention of assigned team members but rather will work with this assigned team and enjoy assured availability.

Your enterprise will enjoy:

  • Timely Project Delivery
  • Cost-Effective Solutions
  • Proven Expertise
  • Team of Skilled, Highly-Trained Developers
  • Efficient Project Management
  • Application Outcomes Aligned with Use Cases and Objectives
  • Solutions and Services That Meet Industry and Government Standards
  • Cutting Edge Expertise in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Low-Code, No-Code (LCNC) Platforms, Advanced Analytics etc.

This approach provides resources to  maintain, support, enhance and upgrade software, migrate data into new environments, support and enhance existing applications, and your team has total control to assign work tasks and manage day-to-day team activities for the offshore software team.

If your business is struggling to keep up with technology evolution and software development and integration, Contact Us to discuss your needs and to explore how your business can Build A Dedicated Software Team to satisfy all of your needs.

Why on Earth Would I Want to Be a Citizen Data Scientist?

What’s a Citizen Data Scientist and Why Should I Care?

In 2015, Gartner coined the term, ‘Citizen Data Scientist’ and since then, the data analytics community and global business markets have never looked back! The results of Citizen Data Scientists initiatives were spotty, at best, in the early days, principally because enterprises did not spend enough time planning for the roll-out and anticipating cultural, technological and resource issues.

Gartner Analysts Predict that organizations can truly benefits from implementing a Citizen Data Scientist strategy and their research reveals that ‘…citizen data scientists will surpass data scientists in the amount of advanced analysis produced, and that,  ‘Early adopters of augmented analytics have the potential to realize more strategic and differentiating business benefits from their analytics investments than those who wait until these technologies are widely adopted.’

‘With additional skills and knowledge, you become more valuable to the organization and the team and your visibility and leadership in the use of data and analytics will position you well for career advancement.’

Today, the Citizen Data Scientist community is thriving and local, regional and global businesses are reaping the benefits. But, what about the impact on business users? Are there real benefits to team members who embrace the Citizen Data Scientist role, or is it all smoke and mirrors?

The Advantages of Saying ‘Yes’ to Being a Citizen Data Scientist

Benefits for Business Users

  • Improve Your Data Literacy – If you are curious about the use of data, or you consider yourself a power user and love to learn new technology, you will be motivated and challenged by the use of data analytics and you will improve your data literacy. Any and all new skills you learn within your role in an organization can help you advance your career and keep your day-to-day tasks interesting. Today, data literacy and comfort with technology is crucial to personal and career success.
  • Expand Your Career Opportunities – With additional skills and knowledge, you become more valuable to the organization and the team and your visibility and leadership in the use of data and analytics will position you well for career advancement. Using data to make fact-based decisions and recommendations and to present options to management is a great way to get noticed!
  • Collaborate with IT and Data Scientists – Expand your reach across the organization and make your skills known by collaborating with IT and data scientists. When your day-to-day analytics is noticed, and your management team needs to advance strategic initiatives, you can collaborate with IT and data scientists to share and create the insights your team and management.
  • Add Value to the Organization – Discover and explore data and create analytical approaches and formats to share with your team members. Help the organization avoid missteps in the market, identify buying behavior, conceive new products and services and to create a competitive advantage with measurable results that will help you AND the enterprise.
‘Today, data literacy and comfort with technology is crucial to personal and career success.’

If you wish to know more about the Citizen Data Scientist approach and how augmented analytics tools and your industry and market knowledge can position you for success in this role, Contact Us today to find out how our team can help you to improve business results and increase team collaboration, data literacy, productivity and competitive advantage. Get started today with our self-paced FREE Online Citizen Data Scientist course.

Augmented Analytics Can Support a Large User Base

Support Your Large Business User Base with the RIGHT BI Tools

According To Finance Online, Allied Market Research reports that small and medium businesses are driving enterprise use of analytics, but World Data Science Initiative reports that 80% of global companies are investing in data analytics, thereby revealing analytics growth across, small, medium and large enterprises.

For your large enterprise, data analytics can and will be a definitive issue impacting your business and market growth. Choosing the right solution to support data democratization and improved data literacy across the enterprise will ensure that your team can create, share, collaborate and report on data, make recommendations and suggestions based on fact, and use data-driven metrics to ensure that strategies and operational decisions are relevant, accurate and effective.

‘While many large organizations are daunted by the idea of implementing analytics across the organizations, it is completely feasible to plan for an deploy this software and to modify business processes to build on fact-based decisions.’

Today’s self-serve augmented analytics and modern business intelligence solutions are designed to support users across the enterprise, and a solution that is built on the right technology platforms, will enable rapid implementation and user adoption and requires very little training or transition time. Auto-suggestions and recommendations allow users to work on their own, no matter their skill levels.

To support a large user base, you will want to select an augmented analytics solution designed with a low-code, no-code, artificial intelligence and machine learning environment to ensure scalability and seamless, responsive, mobile access.

Contrary to Some Opinions, a Large Enterprise with Many Users CAN Adopt Augmented Analytics

Your team can untangle quality and maintenance issues, refine customer targeting and marketing optimization, make appropriate financial investment decisions, and even use external data to analyze trends and patterns and make forecasts and predications.

Real-time data management lets users connect to data sources in real time, and compiles data for fast performance to deliver real time analytics. Cached data management caches data and performs pre-aggregation and other computations for superior performance and analytics, and refreshes data from data sources at a defined frequency.

Your enterprise can choose on-premises or private or public cloud-based data management to access the analytics solution from any business location around the world, or for remote workers or those working on the road, in hotels or airports.

‘For your large enterprise, data analytics can and will be a definitive issue impacting your business and market growth. Choose the right solution to support data democratization and improved data literacy and use data-driven metrics to ensure that strategies and operational decisions are relevant, accurate and effective.’

While many large organizations are daunted by the idea of implementing analytics across the organizations, it is completely feasible to plan for an deploy this software and to modify business processes to build on fact-based decisions. Work with your IT partner to plan a reasonable roll-out and address cultural concerns, and to budget for and implement an affordable, dependable analytics solutions across the enterprise. No matter how many business users your business has, you CAN adopt and leverage self-serve augmented analytics to support your business, improve competitive advantage and gain crucial insight into data for planning, problem-solving and identification of trends, patterns, issues and opportunities.

Ensure appropriate Technology, skills and knowledge, Cutting-Edge Features and an advanced approach to Augmented Analytics And Business IntelligenceContact Us to find out more about the Smarten suite of products. Explore our free white paper: ‘Enabling Business Optimization And Expense Reduction Through The Use Of Augmented Analytics.’

Start-Up Businesses Can Leverage Minimum Viable Products

Is a Minimum Viable Product Good for My Start-Up?

Typically, the start-up and entrepreneur organization does not lack great ideas or innovation, but they often DO lack the budget and the resources to affordably and quickly bring their vision to life and to select the right technology to support their business ideas. Engaging an expert IT consulting partner can help the start-up expand resources without hiring and housing its own team, and it can add expertise and knowledge to get the job done.

When engaging an IT partner, the start-up organization must choose a software development team that understands the start-up culture and has experience helping this type of enterprise to thrive in today’s digitally advanced world by offering custom software and services. Choose a partner that has experience working with Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) to speed your market entry and ensure that you avoid missteps and expensive mistakes.

‘MVP products are designed with just enough features to test concepts and idea and allow early users to provide feedback that will then be incorporated into the final, comprehensive product development project.’

Gartner defines a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) product as, ‘A minimum viable product (MVP) is the release of a new product (or a major new feature) that is used to validate customer needs and demands prior to developing a more fully featured product. To reduce development time and effort, an MVP includes only the minimum capabilities required to be a viable customer solution.’

Start-ups have the capacity to revolutionize the industry because of their innovative outlook. However, digital growth, stability, and keeping up-to-date on the latest market trends are of paramount importance and can be challenging.

MVP development and MVP agile development are perfect for the start-up environment looking for an investor and for beta users who are tasked to pursue a concept or idea.

Minimum Viable Products Are the Secret Weapon for Start-Up Businesses

MVP products are designed with just enough features to test concepts and idea and allow early users to provide feedback that will then be incorporated into the final, comprehensive product development project. This is a cost-effective way to engage prospective investors and/or to gather feedback on a product, and assure product-market fit and it allows the start-up business to avoid a lengthy, costly product development process that may result in failure, or that may include features or functionality customers do not want, or may leave gaps in functionality that are important to customers and clients.

When considering an IT consulting partner, choose a partner with experience in Minimum Viable Products (MVP) – a partner that understands and has worked with start-up businesses and can support your enterprise with affordable, effective services. Your partner should be skilled in a wide spectrum of technologies, domains, and proven delivery models to cater to your specific requirements to create trailblazing software, seamlessly utilize data analytics, and provide talented developers to support your needs as your grow.

‘MVP development and MVP agile development are perfect for the start-up environment looking for an investor and for beta users who are tasked to pursue a concept or idea.’

Contact Us to find out how our software application development services and our Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Services can help your Start-Up Business gain traction and enter the market quickly and dependably.  Explore our free articles here: ‘Ensure Start-Up Success With Expert MVP And App Development.’

Smarten Support Portal Updates – October – 2025!

What Are Citizen Data Scientists Doing Today?

How Has the Citizen Data Scientist Role Evolved?

Ten years ago, the term ‘Citizen Data Scientist’ was coined by the world-renowned technology research firm, Gartner. The term refers to business team members whose expertise and role are not focused on analytics as a primary job function. Using self-serve analytics solutions, these team members can leverage analytics to create models, reports and analysis to collaborate, share and make decisions. Gartner predicted the emergence of this role within businesses as part of the growing importance of data analytics and data-driven decisions within the business environment.

A decade later, it is worth reviewing the status of this role in the business enterprise and within the average organization. Is the Citizen Data Scientist role a standard role within most businesses today? Does a Citizen Data Scientist replace or work independently from a Data Scientist or Business Analyst? Has the Gartner prediction come to fruition?

While there are no current statistics regarding the number of companies currently using a Citizen Data Scientist approach, the trend toward data-driven planning and forecasting is clear. As with many other business trends, the larger organizations usually take the lead. They have the budget and the depth of resources to plan for and deploy changes across the enterprise and to test theories and enforce cultural changes.

Here are some statistics that reflect the growth of the Citizen Data Scientist movement and the supporting technologies that engender this approach:

After Ten Years, Is the Promise of Citizen Data Scientists Fulfilled?
  • Studies reveal that the number of Citizen Data Scientists is growing five times faster than the number of Data Scientists.
  • Automation technologies support the growth of the Citizen Data Scientist approach with over 40% of data science tasks automated through augmented analytics and/or machine learning.
  • The Machine Learning (ML) market is growing at a compounded annual rate of more than 15%, reflecting the need for data analytics capabilities within self-serve solutions.
  • By some estimates, interest in the Citizen Data Scientist role has tripled in the past decade, as medium and small enterprises embrace new, intuitive, more affordable technologies to support the Citizen Data Scientist concept within their organization.

As this concept became mainstream, the industries saw a trend toward increasing data-driven insight while reducing dependence on Data Scientists.

While the Citizen Data Scientist role began as a basic initiative to gather data and create simple reports, today’s Citizen Data Scientists are now using business intelligence (BI) tools and augmented analytics with Natural Language Processing (NLP), machine learning, low-code and no-code platforms and other technologies to leverage limited technical skills and create sophisticated analytics with clear results. Reports, dashboards and data sharing allow team members to create and use data models and to increase data literacy and data democratization.

Team members can use smart data visualization and assisted predictive modeling to gain insight and solve day-to-day problems, advise management and collaborate with other team members to understand trends, patterns, challenges, and opportunities and leverage metrics to make fact-based decisions.

This evolution of the Citizen Data Scientist role within the organization can free Data Scientists to perform more strategic activities without the daily distraction of simple report requests. If and when a particular data model or analytical approach must be refined to be more strategic, the Citizen Data Scientist can work with the Data Scientist to achieve that goal.

Using this approach, the enterprise can empower team members with the tools to analyze data and to use their knowledge of the industry, market, customers and business environment to make decisions and improve results.

When we consider the last decade of Citizen Data Scientist evolution, we see that businesses across all industries are working toward a more data-driven approach to decision-making, and embracing data democracy as a means to improve productivity and the quality of decisions and to reduce re-work and missteps.

Contact Us to discuss your analytical needs and to find out more about Citizen Data Scientists, and the process of choosing the right Analytics Solution for your business. Explore our free White Papers: ‘The Potential Of The Citizen Data Scientist Approach And Augmented Analytics,’ ‘Enabling Business Optimization And Expense Reduction Through The Use Of Augmented Analytics,’ and ‘A Roadmap To ROI And User Adoption Of Augmented Analytics And BI Tools.’

Mobile BI Supports User Access and Adoption and Improves Results

Why Adopt Mobile BI? Data Access and Data Democratization

The global business environment has changed dramatically. With employees working remotely, and even in other countries, it is mandatory to provide technology and tools your team can use to complete tasks and, hopefully, to add value to the organization on a daily basis.

If you have not yet adopted a business intelligence or augmented analytics solution, it is wise to consider one now. Your competitors are already implementing these solutions! If you HAVE adopted a BI tool or self-serve analytics solution, but you have yet to provide your team with mobile business intelligence, it is past time to consider this addition because your competitors area already implementing THESE solutions as well!

‘Out-of-the-Box Mobile BI can provide natural language search analytics, clickless analytics for quick, easy analysis, key performance indicators, dashboards and reports, dynamic charts and graphs, and intuitive visualizations, with self-serve features that are suitable for every user.’

According to Market Research Future studies, ‘The Business Intelligence market segmentation, based on Technology, includes Mobile BI, Cloud BI, and Social BI…’ This market is…’is expected to grow and expand during the projected timeframe as it will help businesses make data-driven decisions, boosting the overall market growth.’ This study estimates that the business intelligence market will grow from USD 33.12B in 2024 to USD 78.42B in 2032.

The reason for that growth is simple. Businesses, large and small, are discovering the value of fact-based decision-making, and the wise business owner, executive or manager understands that their competition is actively involved in improving productivity (to do more with less), in improving customer satisfaction (with targeted products and services), in decreasing re-work and increasing collaboration, and above all in increasing the data literacy of its team through data democratization, easy access to crucial data and improved user adoption of technology.

Access Data From Anywhere with Next Gen Mobile BI Tools for Business Users

But the old methods of BI tool installation can no longer support strategic goals. Your team may be spread across countries, regions or cities. They may work in the field. They may be meeting with a client or a supplier. Any or all of these scenarios require mobile tools that provide your team with the information they need to make the right decision, to review historical data or transactions and work with others to create a pricing strategy, check on stock, understand customer buying behavior etc.

If you truly wish to make your team more productive and effective, it is crucial to give them access to data and the information they need to do their job, no matter where they are working (in the office or remotely). Easy-to-use, self-service tools ensure user adoption and can move your team members toward a Citizen Data Scientist role, with advanced analytics that is intuitive, interactive and flexible.

Out-of-the-Box Mobile BI can provide natural language search analytics (NLP), clickless analytics for quick, easy analysis, key performance indicators (KPIs) for metrics and results, dashboards and reports, dynamic charts and graphs, and intuitive visualizations, all designed for ease-of-use with self-serve features that are suitable for every user.

With these tools, your users can easily find and analyze information, working from anywhere, at any time of the day. They will not have to guess at information, or carry copies of old reports that are no longer relevant.

‘If you have adopted a BI tool or self-serve analytics solution, but you have yet to provide your team with mobile business intelligence, it is past time to consider this addition because your competitors area already implementing these solutions.’

If you want to support your business user team and provide a foundation for BI tools that will better serve your team and your customers, explore Smarten Mobile BI benefits and features, with powerful functionality and access for your business users including out-of-the-box Mobile BI and advanced analytics for every team member. For more information on Mobile BI and Augmented Analytics, read our article, ‘Mobile BI Business Use Provides Real Advantages,’ and take a moment to watch and listen to this informative webinar, ‘Smarten Mobile BI.’