A classic example of AI application in the financial sector is risk analysis, a common classification problem that highlights the power of Machine Learning. However, the possibilities extend far beyond that.

Today, advanced Deep Learning algorithms, Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, and even Generative AI are transforming how financial institutions operate.

These technologies enhance customer service, efficiently detect fraud, personalize services and products, support strategic decision-making, and boost security and competitiveness in the sector.

Explore the key opportunities, challenges, and essential considerations when implementing Artificial Intelligence in financial services.

AI Software development in Financial Services

We are in the golden era of AI, witnessing a variety of applications such as Machine Learning, Deep Learning, NLP, and Generative AI in financial services.

According to an NVIDIA report, 57% of financial services companies used Data Analytics solutions, while 52% adopted Generative AI in 2024. The same report indicates that these companies experienced a 5% revenue increase through AI adoption.

This highlights the growing demand for AI solutions, especially in software development. To fully realize this potential, the following factors must be considered:

Integration with existing infrastructures

Integrating AI into existing financial infrastructures is crucial to modernize operations without discarding previous investments. This approach enables a higher ROI from new technologies.

APIs act as bridges, connecting legacy systems to new AI solutions, ensuring secure and efficient communication. This integration facilitates functionality updates and rapid security improvements while maintaining operational continuity.

In the context of Open Finance, implemented in Brazil since 2021, the synergy between AI and APIs allows financial service providers to structure a much more efficient data flow, resulting in more personalized financial services and improved credit decisions.

Challenges in developing AI for Financial Services

While the adoption of AI in financial services presents clear benefits, it also introduces technical, regulatory, and strategic challenges. Scalability, data security, and integration with legacy systems are critical considerations for organizations investing in AI.

Security and regulatory compliance

Handling financial and personal data requires an extremely rigorous approach. Key regulations like Brazil’s LGPD and Europe’s GDPR establish clear protocols for data collection, storage, and processing.

Operationally, this necessitates strategies such as data anonymization, advanced encryption, and strict access controls to prevent regulatory breaches. Additionally, data governance must ensure transparency and traceability of AI models to mitigate legal and operational risks.

Software scalability and resilience

AI solutions must process large volumes of data in real-time, requiring distributed and flexible architectures. Poor architectural choices can lead to operational bottlenecks and security vulnerabilities, potentially compromising service integrity and brand reputation.

Integration with legacy systems

Modernizing financial systems requires balancing innovation and compatibility. Many institutions still operate on monolithic infrastructures not designed for AI flexibility. Open APIs and middleware can ease this transition, but data migration and system compatibility remain significant challenges.

Lack of specific AI regulations

Despite existing data protection laws, AI’s rapid adoption outpaces the development of specific regulations to address algorithmic bias and predictive model transparency.

Without a clear regulatory framework, financial services providers should establish internal compliance practices to ensure their AI systems adhere to ethical and operational standards. Ethical AI frameworks, security-by-design strategies, and agile integrations provide competitive advantages, making AI adoption more strategic and less risky.

Key applications of Artificial Intelligence in Financial Services

Explore how AI is already revolutionizing financial services:

1. Risk analysis with AI: Advanced algorithms assess vast data sets to predict defaults, allowing real-time adjustments to policies and credit limits. Continuous transaction monitoring also detects operational risks and suspicious activities.
2. Fraud detection: AI models analyze behavioral patterns, identifying anomalies like unusual access or atypical transactions. These systems reduce false positives and enable immediate defensive actions such as preventive blocks and enhanced authentication.
3. Financial process automation: Combining Robotic Process Automation (RPA) with AI streamlines tasks like invoice validation and financial reconciliations. For example, Banco Inter boosted productivity by 280% using Microsoft Azure AI solutions.
4. AI-Powered chatbots: NLP-driven chatbots enhance user experience, providing contextualized responses and reducing service queues. Personalized recommendations increase customer retention and open opportunities for upselling and cross-selling.
5. Personalized Financial Services: Algorithms like Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) models analyze user behavior to offer tailored services. Nubank, for instance, uses LSTMs to personalize credit limits and investment suggestions.
6. Predictive analytics in finance: AI processes large data sets to forecast market fluctuations, enabling institutions to optimize resource allocation and investment portfolios with increasing accuracy.
7. Automated compliance: AI automates audits and detects inconsistencies, reducing operational costs and enhancing transparency. Machine learning models adapt to regulatory changes, helping institutions proactively mitigate compliance risks.
8. Intelligent credit scoring: AI expands credit analysis by considering financial behavior and consumption habits, allowing fairer evaluations for underbanked and younger demographics.
9. Algorithmic trading and investment management: High-frequency trading systems analyze thousands of variables within seconds, identifying market opportunities and adjusting strategies almost instantly.
10. Digital onboarding with AI: Facial recognition and biometric authentication systems streamline account openings while enhancing security. Automated document verification accelerates the onboarding process and improves customer satisfaction.

Cybersecurity in Financial Services: how AI can help

As cyberattacks grow more sophisticated, AI systems quickly detect abnormal traffic patterns and potential threats. LSTM models, for instance, identify event frequencies and timings to enhance security measures.

Blockchain and AI: a powerful combination for financial security

Integrating blockchain with AI strengthens transaction security. Blockchain ensures immutable transaction records, while AI detects inconsistencies and risks, creating a highly secure and auditable financial environment.

Transforming Financial Services with AI: the future starts now

AI delivers operational efficiency, service personalization, and risk reduction—directly impacting institutional performance and competitiveness. However, the future of Artificial Intelligence in Financial Services hinges on the ability to integrate innovative technologies with evolving market demands.

Now is the time to evaluate your organization’s current AI initiatives and identify opportunities to maximize results. With the right support, your institution can turn challenges into competitive advantages.

SoftDesign can help guide this transformation. Contact us to discover how our custom software development solutions can drive innovation and efficiency with AI in your business.

Frequently Asked Questions about Artificial Intelligence in Financial Services

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Do you know what means DevOps culture and why it is so relevant? What are the benefits of adopting this philosophy in the company when creating a digital solution?  

In IT, it is difficult to combine such different areas as Operation and Development. While the first one is related to ensuring the stability of the environment or the infrastructure, the second one aims at delivering value with new features and improvements in the enterprise software. The massification of Agile Methodology, which promotes an iterative, incremental development format, highlighted this separation and demanded a new form of communication. 

What is DevOps?

We can say that DevOps is a set of practices aiming at strengthening the relationships between Developers (Dev) and Operation (Ops), allowing them to work in a unified and collaborative manner to deliver value to the user. Although the need to integrate teams has long been discussed, the term was coined only in 2009 during the Velocity Conference by O’Reilly. Patrick Debois, one of the attendees of this conference, is the creator of the DevOpsDay Event. 

It is possible to say that the DevOps embryo is called Agile infrastructure. To adopt this culture, it is possible to have tools that will allow this constant integration between teams. In this sense, it is worth highlighting that none of this will be effective if the employees are not willing to create this collaboration environment. For this reason, it is necessary to change the team’s mindset to an Agile Culture, giving maximum contribution to joint work. 

DevOps Practices

For the benefits of implementing a DevOps culture to be perceived by the organization, it is important to use practices from this philosophy consistently. The key guidance is the one we commented above: communication and collaboration, two of the four pillars of DevOps culture. In addition to them, we also have measurement (assessment) and automation. 

The first refers to measuring and analyzing as many items as possible, from performance to processes, because we will be able to propose enhancements from this analysis. The latter has the goal of automating all possible processes, reducing time loss and the risk of human faults. We have some disseminated practices in automation, such as: 

Infrastructure As A Code: to manage and provision resources automatically, instead of making a feature available manually. This practice increases speed and reliability when installing the software in a new environment, for example. 

This occurs because we have guarantee that all items were executed in the same manner. Additionally, this application maintenance also becomes effective.  Here, we can use some technologies, such as: Ansible, Chef, Puppet, Vagrant, Docker, Kubernertes. 

Continuous Integration: in this practice, we use a version control enterprise software such as Git, for example. The source code must be integrated as quickly as possible, several times a day, in a branch shared among project developers. 

This process allows them to have the updated code, avoiding possible conflicts both in the code and in business rules. In continuous integration, for each code sent to the repository a compilation is made and automated/unit tests are conducted. This ensures that it is ready for deployment. 

Continuous Delivery: the enterprise software deployment is offered in an automated, fast and safe manner. When we use continuous delivery, we must make sure that the main branch of the repository is in stable state, so we can deploy the software at any time. Usually, automated pipelines that compile, test and deploy are used. 

Benefits of Adopting DevOps Culture

From the definition we have seen previously, it is possible to see a series of benefits that adopting this practice promotes. One of them is the reliability of what is being delivered, whether new features or changes in infrastructure. Operation security is also benefited from the automation of compliance policies and other management techniques. 

Speed and ability to adapt to changes also increase. With the DevOps culture, it is possible to correct bugs and launch new features with more agility and lower risk of downtimes, for example. Additionally, the application scalability becomes more fluid and secure from automated processes and shared responsibility. This way, with areas working in an integrated manner, it is possible to make even better deliveries. 

Need help to build a DevOps Culture at your company? Fill the form below, so our specialists can help you.

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But what is a waste? It is everything that does not add value to the end product. In this case, value is the sum of the customer’s demands with the product needs, all related to functionality and usability. Therefore, creating Value Stream means linking only the essential work processes to achieve the desired results. 

Important Milestones in Lean Software Development

The Lean methodology has a long history, intertwined with the Administrative Theory and with relevant connections to the cultural traits of its origins. It started at Toyota in the 1950s, where Taiichi Ohno, Head of Production at that time, worked on an alternative method of organization.

Instead of copying the North American model, which greatly adapted to the production in scale, Ohno was concerned with creating a method that handled properly the complexity of post-war Japan: scarce resources, inconstant orders, and the production of a variety of items.

Because it was developed at Toyota, the methodology became known as Toyota Production System (TPS). Forty years later, with the publication of the book The Machine That Changed The World (1990) by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the model attracted attention from the market. Through research studies, it was proven that it was much more efficient than the traditional production model, and was renamed as Lean to represent a new paradigm. 

It is interesting to remark, however, that the Lean methodology developed at Toyota included not only an approach to manufacturing production (TPS), but also approaches for supply chain management (Keiretsu) and for product development. The latter was adapted to the Software Development when, in 2003, Mary and Tom Poppendieck published Lean Software Development: an Agile Toolkit. 

Since then, the methodology has become popular in the IT area. Currently, it is mandatory in the creation of innovative digital products. 

Lean Software Development Principles

The book by Mary and Tom Poppendieck established principles specific to Lean Software Development, because, despite sharing Lean values applied to manufacturing, in the creation of digital solutions the goal is not having a single product on a large scale (achieved through repetition). The goal is to have a unique software development suitable to the product context and to the users’ needs. 

In this sense, Lean in the IT area is much more related to continuous improvement and to increased efficiency, getting close to Agile Methodology.

The principles of Lean Software Development are:

• Eliminate Waste: it looks a lot easier to think about wasting material products than wasting software, right? But the truth is that the idea is the same: it is necessary to look at the entire creation process, from the moment the work started with the client order to the delivery of the digital product, and remove all unnecessary activities that do not add value to the project. An example are features that will not be effectively used but are developed by the client’s request or to please users. Here, it is worth remembering the importance of a good Product Conception to guide the Lean Software Development. It is also worth mentioning that this method sees intermediate inventories as waste because every inventory generates additional work for its management. Mary and Tom explain that, in software universe, inventory is every “incomplete” work. For example: specifications that are ready but not being used yet, are a type of inventory; the same is said about software that is ready but not in production. 

• Build Quality In: we know that Test Analysts have a crucial role in any project, right? With Lean, more than finding errors afterward, these professionals must work with developers to ensure the construction with quality beforehand. A way to execute this principle is to test each small implementation, not just the entire functionality when it is ready. It is the famous prevention, based on process control to avoid possible errors. A very strong concept in Lean is “stop the line”: the idea that, if someone finds any issue throughout the process, they must stop the workflow to resolve it before it extends. In addition to a change in the way of handling quality, this also implies a cultural transformation: everyone becomes responsible for quality. 

• Create Knowledge: the days of only developing what was planned in the beginning of the project are gone. Creating knowledge is about learning during the work, observing the market, receiving feedback from users and reprioritizing. It is important to create a culture of accepting changes, provided such changes are duly managed and shared among all team members. 

• Defer Commitment: before deciding, reduce the uncertainties. This means having concrete facts as guides, not being based on speculations. Commitments are permanent decisions. This principle is strongly connected to the principle of Create Knowledge that is: learn, see and listen to determine. 

• Delivery Fast: it is no use releasing on the next year a product that is necessary now, right? In Lean Software Development, speed is related to market volatility but also to quickly correcting mistakes and collecting feedback. Now, being fast cannot mean losing quality. For this reason, plans, processes, organization, standardization and cohesive team are mandatory to work in this principle. 

• Respect People: here, we must look at respect broadly. Obviously, politeness is essential, but trust is also included in this case. This means understanding the expertise of each team member and believing in their potential; it means listening to everyone and assessing their ideas equally, regardless of their role. A team that respects itself works better and in harmony. 

• Optimize the Whole:  here comes an aspect that is heavily addressed in Lean: the important thing is to optimize the whole, not the parts. Aristotle said: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The end product is not the result only of codes, tests and interface designs. It involves initial client service, all meetings, all processes and all lessons learned. Optimizing the whole is about constant improvements from the beginning to the end of a project journey. This item is very difficult to follow since we are generally taught to optimize the parts: we are asked about individual productivity from each step or each person. Following this principle goes through learning how to see the forest, not only the trees. 

Source: https://www.remoteprogrammer.com/

A Cultural Change

Lean thinking is revolutionary to Software Development, but it is not simple. It requires a cultural change, absorption of principles, and transformation of long-standing attitudes in our corporates. 

Many times, we see teams capable of implementing Scrum, but having the feeling that there is something missing: agile culture. Studying Lean and its principles is one of the most valuable paths to absorb this culture, because in it we do not simply get the definition of a work methodology but look deeply into the principles. It is like it enabled us to truly understand the reasons for agile. 

Need help implementing Lean Software Development at your company? Fill out the form below so we can help you.

*Related Content: What is Lean Change Management?

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What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a digital currency based on cryptographic technologies, which was created in 2009. To this day, it is not known who its inventor is, since the first publication on the subject was made using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto – the real inventor was never made public. 

What is Special About Bitcoin?

It is a currency without central regulation: it is not issued by a country/state. Thus, allows transactions to take place without intermediaries (banks) and in the most complete anonymity. You can use Bitcoin as a payment method in several establishments that already accept it.  

The currency is famous due to the huge amount of people trying to get rich at its expense, buying and selling Bitcoins – its value has increased significantly since 2009. And, although it seems complicated or distant, blockchain is an available solution that can be used in the most varied software development projects. 

What About the Blockchain?

Although we talk so much about Bitcoin, Blockchain is much more interesting. It is the technology that supports Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and that seems to be leading us to a new generation of Internet solutions, called Decentralized Web or Web 3. 

There is nothing incredibly new about this technology: Blockchain is based on the internet that we already know, combined with cryptographic concepts that also already existed. The difference is the architecture of the solution, which allows creating a decentralized network in which it is possible to trust the results, even without guaranteeing that all network agents are reliable. 

What Can You Do With Blockchain?

Blockchain is not only for cryptocurrencies, but for any solution that can take advantage of its characteristics: being decentralized, providing trust and immutability, keeping records. 

By now you might be wondering: Blockchain can be used for a lot! Let’s see: 

• Digital Identity and Authentication: it can be used to replace our identification solutions, from Passport and Driver’s License to your login on social networks; 

• Notary and records: it is the perfect solution for legal records, like the ones that notaries do today; 

• Contracts and smart contracts: it can be used to publicly register contracts, but more than that, it can be used as a basis for smart contracts where clauses are executed automatically; 

• Medical Records: we can use Blockchain to keep medical records safe and accessible; 

• Supply Chain: we can use it as a record base for a supply chain, thus ensuring transparency in records between the parties. 

How Do I Use Blockchain in a Project?

Although it seems complicated, Blockchain is an available solution that can be used in the most varied Software Development projects. However, to build a solution that uses this technology, you first need to identify what its features are and how Blockchain can help you with that, and then you need to assess whether it is best to use Blockchain, a Fork or even a platform on top of the Blockchain. 

A Fork is a Blockchain variation that changes some of its operating rules. Depending on the application, there are specific Forks that may serve better. A Platform is one of the thousands of solutions that are already being developed using the Blockchain but with ready-made functions: there are specialized platforms for Smart Contracts, for Identification, etc.

Were to Learn More? 

The most knowledgeable people here at SoftDesign suggest the following sources if you want to learn more about Bitcoin and Blockchain: 

• The Blockchain for Business book can help you understand Blockchain and its applications; 

• There are some interesting talks at TED Talks, such as this one by Dan Tapscott (who is also the author of good books on the subject) and this one by Bettina Warburg; 

• If you want to take a look at the concepts, it’s worth knowing Satoshi’s original article, which explains how the Blockchain concept applies to make Bitcoin work. 

Thinking about using Blockchain Technology in a digital product? Fill out the form below so we can help you! 

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That means that e-books, videos, podcasts, websites and online courses, for example, are digital products; as well as appls, platforms and enterprise software, despite the difference in structure and complexity between them. At SoftDesign, we work with Software Development, which is the basis of the last three items mentioned here and, therefore, we will explain all the concepts in this article.

But first, it is worth remembering that digital business is not synonymous with digital product. A digital business is one that works primarily in the online environment, often being exclusive to that space. Thus, a digital business needs digital products to exist, as the latter will replace physical experiences. Nubank, for example, is a digital business, as it was created entirely for the online environment – it does not have physical branches like other banks.

Mobile App

An app is a computer program designed to process data electronically, aiming at solving problems and facilitating the execution of tasks by users. It is built with programming languages and specific for cell phones, and can be used on Android (Google) and/or iOS (Apple) operating systems. 

The programming language that will be used to develop the app will define which devices it will be compatible with. Java and Kotlin are technologies for Android, for example; Objective C and Swift are iOS-specific; and React Native, Flutter and Ionic are hybrid technologies that make it possible to use the app on both operating systems. 

The choice of the ideal language considers the problem the app solves, who will be its users, what is its expected growth (scalability), if it needs to be compatible with other languages, etc. It is also interesting to understand that most apps do not work alone: they need to be accompanied by a Server System (also called back-end), which is responsible for business rules and data storage. 

An example of an application is WhatsApp. In it, messages sent between one user and another do not navigate directly from the sender’s cell phone to the recipient’s, they are sent to a server that then delivers the message to the users. That is, the data you have in your cell phone applications is probably also stored in the cloud, where the back-end of the applications you use is located. 

Enterprise Software

Enterprise Software is a set of elements that interact with one other. It is a network of interdependent components that work together to achieve a common goal. 

In the context of digital products, enterprise software is a program that performs communication between computers and users. It is normal to call enterprise software CRM, ERP and other types of software that support the execution of management activities or organizational process flows.

To build enterprise software, many technologies can be used, in addition to different types of architectures. For example, today there is a great distinction between monolithic architectures (faster to build, but less scalable) and microservices architectures, where software parts are decoupled for better management, scalability and independence. In a microservices architecture, it is even possible for several technologies to coexist, each one acting where it is most needed. 

Software Platform

A software platform is an online environment with various functionalities that connects different users, promoting valuable interactions. Usually, it is the realization of a business model that exists exclusively in that space. 

The platform can be considered a special type of app / enterprise software, which gets its name because the greatest value is not in the platform, but in the interactions it enables. Uber is an example of a digital platform, as it serves to connect people with available cars (drivers) to people who need to go from one place to another (passengers).  

Within this idea of enabling interactions, platforms can connect people, but they can also connect software and hardware, which leads us to the growth of APIs (direct connection interfaces between software). Thus, a platform is generally an environment that facilitates access to things (people, software and hardware) that would be difficult to access without it, also enabling the easy connection of new elements. 

In the universe of platforms, we use the same technologies as for apps / enterprise software, but, as the business model here generally provides for scale, there is a preference for microservices architectures. Also, remember that a platform is often made up of many parts: applications for users; web systems for other users and for the back office; back-end system to concentrate business rules and storage; and also APIs to facilitate the connection of new partners or elements to the platform.

Everything is Software

As mentioned, apps, platforms and enterprise software are digital products based on software. Software is a sequence of codes that are written to be received and deciphered by computers and their components, in order to perform numerous tasks. At SoftDesign, they are created by Product Teams. 

These digital products have been gaining more and more attention from corporates, as they are essential in digital transformation strategies. After all, in an increasingly connected world, they are responsible for creating connections between people, software and hardware, automating processes, facilitating activities and solving problems. 

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Its main healthcare software is an electromyography sensor that quantifies information from muscle data. The sensor captures the electrical activity of the muscles, both contraction and relaxation, and presents such data to the health professional.  

To boost innovation to its product, in 2019, Miotec joined forces with SoftDesign to create Mioflux, a piece of equipment connected to the electromyography sensor capable of measuring urinary volume and flow. The goal is to support pelvic physiotherapists in the treatment of children with urinary difficulties, people in the postoperative period, and adults with voiding disorders.  

We spoke with Fabiano Ergoni, CEO & Founder of Miotec, to learn more about the challenges and achievements of this project. Watch the video below and learn about the history of Mioflux. Don’t forget to turn on the subtitles.

Why work with SoftDesign? 

Miotec had an achilles heel: talent retention. The company set up internal hardware and healthcare software teams to develop its equipment. However, after a few months, the professionals ended up leaving the company and taking their knowledge about the products away. 

Fabiano Ergoni, CEO and Founder of Miotec, understood that this problem should not be his and that, as an entrepreneur, he needed to dedicate himself to business objectives and to the launch of new products. When talking to SoftDesign, he felt safe with the company’s transparency:  

“Osmar (A. M. Pedrozo – SoftDesign’s CEO) was able to listen to me and understand my vision of the future for Miotec. He didn’t want to sell me a ready-made product, he offered me a solution that could be expanded in the future, and warned me about the importance of making a conscious investment”.  

A Creative Planning Process 

With the partnership established, the first step was to start Product Inception a creative process that SoftDesign has been carrying out since 2016. Its purpose is to define the objectives of the project, plan the software development, and define the necessary investment.  

Initially, the idea of Mioflux was quite broad: a healthcare software that could receive several applications and serve the most different types of hardware. But, through market research carried out with health professionals, it was possible to understand the actual pains and needs of the personas.   

In this way, technical and design requirements were prioritized for the first MVP (Minimum Viable Product). SoftDesign’s team of Designers created the product prototypes, focusing on an easy and intuitive interface. The Product Manager, in partnership with the development team, focused on backlog estimates and release strategy. 

Focus on Healthcare Software Development 

While the Miotec team worked on the hardware, the SoftDesign team developed the healthcare software. A communication protocol was created in partnership, so the information transaction had the best performance.  

The SoftDesign team opted for development with Electron, a multiplatform web technology; and used  React to create the interfaces. The visualization of the graphs was done in  D3.js, and its creation in real-time uses HTML5 associated with Canvas. The database chosen was NeDB, as it is lightweight and allows working with documents (exams).  

Following the Agile Method, fortnightly meetings were held, in the sprint deliveries, for alignments and route corrections. Through the Jira tool, everyone was able to monitor the evolution and speed of work daily. According to Fabiano:  

“All of this provided transparency, both for Soft’s managers and for us, the project’s investors. So it was possible to fix problems quickly, and we achieved our goal. The product is already on the market and we have received many compliments”.  

The Future of Mioflux 

The Mioflux is a kind of scale, with a measuring cup, connected to the electromyography sensor (hardware). When the patient urinates in this equipment, it measures the time for the first drop to fall, the volume, and the urinary flow; and transmits this data to the system (software).   

With this information, the physiotherapist prescribes the appropriate treatment, which can often be performed with the aid of Mioflux. This is because the equipment also has a visual biofeedback: a screen with colored circles that the patient can follow to learn to relax or contract the pelvic muscle.  

Hundreds of physiotherapists already have the equipment in their offices. In a constant dialogue with users, Miotec receives feedback and works on the evolution of the product.  

The next step is to extend home care, as many people are not comfortable urinating in clinics. With that in mind, an application will be developed soon, which will enable the sending of information between the patient and the healthcare professional.  

We will continue working together with Miotec to support the implementation of its manifesto: taking care of subjectivity through technology.   

Let’s develop your digital product? Fill out the form below.

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Monolithic applications

With older technologies, the architectural pattern was to build a single, large, and ‘complete’ application. A single application handled all the necessary functionality for a given domain, for example: a management system, CRM, or sales force.

In addition, this single application was responsible for all layers of the solution – it ranged from displaying information to the user on-screen (front-end), processing information (back-end), to storage (database).

Why can monolithic applications be bad?

We are now going to discuss the two main pains of living with a monolith application that directly affect business: scalability and maintainability. 

Scalability

Scalability is the ability to keep up with demand growth. Therefore, that will only be a problem if your business is growing, and we hope it is. As the company grows or reaches a larger number of customers, it is normal to feel impacts on application performance, or even start experiencing unavailability situations – applications that ‘go down’ or stop responding to users.  

Monolithic applications can easily scale vertically, which consists in increasing the capacity of the server where the application is located. So we increase the memory, CPU number, and hope that will be enough.

Fortunately, today we have much more elastic cloud solutions – that is, it is easier to increase server capacity without the need for a lengthy acquisition and configuration process. But even so, every server has a limit, and it is not uncommon to find companies that have already taken their monoliths to the machine limit. 

The other alternative is horizontal scalability – being able to split the load between multiple servers. However, monolithic architecture is not friendly to horizontal scalability. Generally, because it is so intricate, the monolith does not allow running activities in parallel and independently. It requires processes to be executed sequentially, one process at a time, and with the entire application keeping the ‘status’ of that specific process that is running. 

Thus, monoliths have direct impact on the business, bringing performance problems that can generate a loss of revenue, operational efficiency, or negative impacts on the company’s image and customer relationship. In addition, these performance issues are not easy to solve and can become a bottleneck, and a limit to the company’s growth capacity. 

Maintainability

The other painful impact of monoliths is on the ability to maintain the application. The cost of software ownership goes far beyond its initial acquisition or development. The company needs to maintain the application by performing evolutionary, corrective maintenance, and also ensuring its availability through monitoring and maintenance of the associated environment and infrastructure. 

What usually happens is that monolithic applications are exceptionally simple to maintain at first. The code base is small, everything is in the same place, and it is easy to make a correction, or add a function.  

But over time, the code base begins to increase, and so does the number of people involved. As everything is together, not all developers will ‘put things in the right place’, and suddenly business rules that should be in the back-end layer are created on the front-end, or the function belonging to feature X is written alongside feature Y. All developers – each with a different task and goal – are modifying this same code base. Therefore, it’s easy to imagine that they will eventually make inconsistent changes, and end up creating new unforeseen bugs.  

The effect of this on business appears in different ways. One of them is when a new version that modified a specific part of the application presents errors in other parts that, in principle, were not modified. Another effect is the long lead time, each maintenance starts to demand much more time in the integration between the developers and in the tests, in an exponential growth of the maintenance complexity. 

Services and microservices

The solution to these problems is to segment and decouple. Create applications in smaller, independent pieces with clear responsibilities that talk to each other. So it’s worth decoupling the layers, a trend that already existed in architectural patterns like MVC and MVVM, but also decoupling the functions, creating multiple services. 

A service is a distinct enclosed system that provides business functionality in support of building one or larger products (Lee Atchison, Architecting for Scale).

What identifies a service are the following characteristics: 

• Separate codebase;
• Separated data: only the service itself manages its data;
• Provides capabilities for other services;
• Consumes capabilities from other services;

Assuming these characteristics are met, many authors use the terms ‘Services’ and ‘Microservices’ interchangeably. Other authors indicate that the term microservices refers to the tendency to increasingly reduce the size and responsibilities of services, making them more and more granular.  

In the image below, for example, each main function has been divided into a Service that contains its own database and its back-end with multiple endpoints related to that domain. It is also interesting to note that in this type of architecture, the front-end itself can also be broken, using a micro frontend strategy, and if your services are very granular, an intermediate back-end layer (the BFF: Backend For Frontend) can be useful too.   

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages of building a service-based application include:  

1. Granular decision: as each part is independent, it is possible to make decisions that are also more independent. For example, it is possible to apply different technologies according to the challenge of each part of the application. 

2. Division of work: it is more viable to divide the work into multiple teams, since each team can be working on a specific part. Each service is a closed system, so if a team changes the internal behavior of the service, it will not negatively affect the other services. 

3. Test: for the same reason, as they are closed systems, a service architecture is easier to test than a monolith architecture. 

4. Managed Complexity: complexity is controlled or, in a sense, contained within each service. Imagine a service that is responsible for doing a complex mathematical calculation: if this code is inside the monolith, to work with the monolith safely, everyone must understand how this calculation is done and how it interacts with the rest of the code. However, if it is contained in a service, whoever needs to use it just needs to know the input and output interface. 

But these architectures also have their disadvantages: 

1. Infrastructure complexity: instead of publishing an application (monolith), it will be necessary to publish multiple applications. Each service will have its own specific lifecycle and will need to be published and maintained. It is unfeasible to maintain an environment like this without the support of containerization tools and without an improvement in the DevOps environment to increase automation, in addition to monitoring tools. This requires specialized knowledge and a dedicated team. 

2. Higher initial cost: It is also normal to notice a higher initial infrastructure cost, also in development team. This higher initial cost will pay off through the ability to scale.

Conclusion: should I migrate to microservices?

As in all technological evolutions, there is no one-size-fits-all. That is, there is no solution that is applicable to all cases. 

So don’t rush out to migrate to a microservices architecture. First, assess whether the application you are maintaining or building needs to scale. Is it expected to grow a lot in terms of functionality or number of users? Some applications are made to meet a specific scenario and will have a stable number of users. Others are made for temporary use, with planned obsolescence.  

But, if you are working in a project that has an exponential business model, or if you plan to evolve the application to serve many “modules” or areas that are complex by itself, then we suggest that you do worry about knowing this type of architecture, to not let your application become a bottleneck for the evolution of the business. 

If you want to learn more about microservices and understand how we can help you, fill out the form below.

O post Monoliths, Services and Microservices: Business Impacts apareceu primeiro em SoftDesign.

But what kind of leadership is there at SoftDesign? How does the company foster a culture of innovation for employees and customers? And how do these characteristics impact the projects undertaken and the creation of new digital businesses?

We spoke with our CEO and founder, Osmar A. M. Pedrozo, to ponder these questions. After all, no one is better suited than him to explore topics that are so relevant to the world of startups and enterprises.

Where it All Started

SoftDesign – This November (2022), SoftDesign turned 25 years. Along this journey, a lot has happened, but how did it all start?

Osmar A. M. Pedrozo – It all started with a personal need. 25 years ago, I didn’t imagine myself as an entrepreneur, nor did I imagine where SoftDesign could reach. I worked as a contractor for a large technology company, which was developing a project for the Government at the Center for Information and Communication Technology of the State of Rio Grande do Sul (PROCERGS).

That contract ended, and so I was challenged to provide services to the Company, but I would need to compete with other companies through bidding processes. But at that time, I still didn’t have a company. Therefore, this was a period of learning, which resulted in the foundation of SoftDesign, in 1997. The first contracts arrived in 1999 when we won our first bid.

At that stage, we worked mainly for the government. Over the years, I decided to invite others to join the company. The first guest was Eduardo Farah, who is still our investing partner. In 2001, we were still working individually for several technology companies, acting in consulting – projects that we kept in parallel for some time.

In the fourth year, I realized that I had people skills. At that time, I was working as a programmer and I didn’t know I had this soft skill. That’s when they started looking for me to ask for professional referrals for specific jobs and projects. With this happening more and more frequently, I had the idea of offering this service through SoftDesign, which was also hired to supply a demand for IT professionals.

Expanding the Business

SD – How was this initial process of growth and expansion for SoftDesign?

OP – In 2002, with the evolution of the company, we started hiring employees. I concluded that our business had a lot of potential and that I could manage it along with other consulting activities. In 2003, SoftDesign grew even more, and I invited Rafael Paludo to join the team of partners.

This expansion led us to better structure the services provided. However, I make a point of remembering that when it all started, our first headquarters was my apartment. Farah and I lived in the same building, in Porto Alegre. This was the initial address of SoftDesign, which was born in the same way as many startups.

In 2004, we had more employees and many of these people became partners over time. Over these years, we have created many projects and delivered software to important clients such as Fundação Carlos Chagas, from Sao Paulo. At that time, web systems were rare and I remember that we developed an online test for the Foundation, our first “software factory” client.

Shortly thereafter, we bought SoftDesign’s first headquarters in 2005. The office was located at Rua Siqueira Campos, on the 11th floor. I can say that the beginning of our Brazilian software company was marked by problem-solving, entrepreneurship, team building, and a lot of collaborative work. We were a group of good professionals, all very technical, who got together on Saturdays to manage a software company.

The Beginning of the Climb

SD – How were the first 15 years of SoftDesign? What happened in this story that contributed to the evolution of the company?

OP – The history of SoftDesign is a history of learning. We were a group of excellent technicians, mostly programmers, but with little knowledge of management. We had to learn everything: how to run a Brazilian software company, hiring and firing people, and how to pay taxes. I can say that we made a lot of mistakes in this process, but we learned from our mistakes and evolved.

It is precisely for this reason that I talk a lot about transformation, because I believe that we were transformed at the same time that we were creating the company. Chronologically speaking, six years after the foundation we bought our first headquarters and I believe this is a great milestone in our history.

In 2009, we carried out the first evaluation of the MPS.BR Program (Improvement of the Brazilian Software Process) – a kind of ISO in the technology area – and we reached the G level. This was our first quality seal. In 2013, we reached level E, and we became the first technology company in Rio Grande do Sul to achieve this classification.

At that time, we also bought SoftDesign’s new headquarters, located in the same building, but now in a much larger space, which was completely renovated in 2014. In other words, the first 15 years were marked by great achievements: purchase of the new headquarters, formation of the new corporate structure, increase in share capital, and technical evolution of our employees.

Lifelong Learning

SD – After more than a decade of learning and evolution, SoftDesign went through many transformations that shaped the company. What were they?

OP – There are many important and decisive facts in the history of SoftDesign. As time went by, we learned. I, for example, in addition to acting as a technician, also had to become a good manager. Therefore, in 2011 I graduated in Accounting from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS).

This was an important step and, soon after, in 2011, I started taking a Postgraduate Studies Program in Controllership, at UFRGS. The search for knowledge is something that has always been in SoftDesign’s DNA. We didn’t stop in time simply because we opened a company and we were doing well. We continue to invest in training and this continues to this day. 

With that in mind, in 2016 I started a Master’s in Business Administration (UFRGS). At the same time, I also lived for a month in the United States, in California. My goal was to study and learn a little more about how things worked or should work in the world of a technology company. This exchange and the Master’s innovation courses changed my way of thinking and helped shape the new SoftDesign.

The year of 2016 was also remarkable, as it was when I took over the company’s strategic management in a more incisive way. I asked SoftDesign’s partners for a vote of confidence to start a major transformation. After all, we had been with the company for almost twenty years and things could be bigger and better, as there was room for growth.

It’s Time to Innovate

SD – After changing the company’s management model, what were the main changes that occurred?

OP – From the master’s degree, also attended by the Head of Product and Innovation at SoftDesign, Karina Hartmann, we began to debate a lot about how the company was and how it could be. I remember a time when we did a project on SoftDesign, and one of our professors said that because it was a Brazilian software company, we needed to have a bigger and better result. I confess that I was bothered by this, but I realized that he was right.

So, in the last five years, we started to innovate and improve processes. We had an agile revolution and left the traditional world of Project Management. Anyone who has experienced this knows that this movement represents a huge change in the organization and, in our specific case, it affected the way we think, sell, attract customers and deliver software.

In addition, with the arrival of Digital Marketing, we began to develop new short and long-term strategies. The fruits of these actions were harvested in 2019. At this stage, several areas of the company changed. Also, I really became a CEO, making decisions that were not so collegiate and more individual.

Another important change was training in innovation. We went through a process with PUCRS, which helped us to understand that SoftDesign was indeed an innovative technology company.

Welcome to the Startup World

SD – Another significant change was the beginning of partnerships with startups, right?

OP – Yes! In 2016, we started working with startups, and we experienced a strong wave of innovation in our projects. With that, we had to remodel ourselves to serve companies that didn’t even exist yet. This resulted in a more open working model. Our head office has become an even more collaborative space, bringing employees and clients together.

I felt that SoftDesign and I became more innovative as a result of these changes and transformations. These last five years represent that. We changed everything: processes, development, tools, and platforms. We also made room for a Culture of Experimentation.

With this new SoftDesign, new Marketing, Pre-Sales and Sales structures also arrived. In the areas of HR and ADM, we have adopted platforms to assist in the process of selecting people and managing them. One consequence of these improvements was the growth of the team. Anyway, I believe that nothing is by chance. Everything was thought and built to get us where we are today.

This period was more than a turning point. In a way, it prepared us for future challenges. When the Covid-19 pandemic began, we had already undergone many transformations in processes, that is, we were prepared to grow. And we grew a lot in 2020, 2021 and 2022 – which will be our best year in terms of revenue, new clients and internationalization. This was only possible due to investment in training decision-makers. Through knowledge, we change the reality of technology companies.

Technology and Humanity

SD – Those were years of many changes that took us away from the former SoftDesign. Therefore, in 2021 we started a rebranding process: we felt that our old brand no longer represented us. What was it like to participate in this project?

OP – For me, there were many different feelings involved. Looking back, I can say that it was a moment that helped to end this cycle of the last five years. The old brand, created in 2009, brought us here. However, we had already achieved our strategic vision, which was to be a Brazilian software company recognized for its technical capacity and commitment.

We discovered this during the research process carried out on the rebranding. Even so, it is difficult to go through the step of removing a brand from the wall and replacing it with a new one. At first, I was quite worried, but with the result we achieved in the repositioning, I realized that we managed to revisit the feeling we always had.

We were able to reproduce the purpose that permeates the entire history of the organization over these 25 years: transforming people and businesses. That’s what we’ve done all this time, and that’s what we like to do. We are very happy with the new brand, but it is clear that the process was conflicted due to everything that the old brand delivered.

Far Beyond the Code

SD – In August 2022, we launched our new brand, along with new positioning. What has changed? What are the new values and essence of SoftDesign?

OP – The new brand has a lot of what we’ve always been. We remain committed and in search of a position of recognition. In the past, our vision was more developmental, but we have matured. This maturing process made us realize that we want to participate in the entire innovation journey of our clients’ digital solutions.

We don’t want to be just a Brazilian software company that takes an order and delivers a product. We want to question and help our partners to see what we see during our innovation processes. This means that we want to help other companies be as trailblazing and authentic as we are.

These are values that we consider essential. After all, if we want to work with innovation, we need to be transformative, innovative and strategic. Technology plays a fundamental role in companies and should not be used only as a support for the operation, as it has the potential to leverage business.

That’s why we want to do it together, and this is a statement that was missing from our previous positioning. We want to be co-creators in light and human processes, as this is a fundamental condition for the new worlds that came after the pandemic. With that in mind, we promote adaptation to transform the client’s reality, while remaining responsible, experienced and specialist.

In addition, the relationship of trust and transparency remains the same and we want to further strengthen it to deliver transformative digital solutions. SoftDesign is a reference in the innovation journey, from idea to result. We understand that by putting these values into practice we will be able to achieve goals and create digital solutions that people love to use.

Follow The Leader of a Brazilian Software Company

SD – The innovation journey is a collective construction, but it is only possible with leadership. How do you deal with the challenge of playing the role of leader in a software company with more than 160 people spread across the world?

OP – I don’t do this alone. I have a very close relationship with several people who manage SoftDesign and that makes all the difference. What I seek is to have an alignment between how I would do things and how I would like them to be done. First, we need to believe in people and have good replicators, that is, managers who help make the company work.

When we work with transparency, without command and control, people tend to deliver their best. I see how these 25 years have transformed me into a leader of a Brazilian software company who doesn’t panic, who thinks calmly and reflects before making a decision. Also, I was able to reduce my impulsiveness by gaining more experience.

I believe there are excellent people working with me. I trust them and I hope they trust me. Through this relationship, I understand that I can help transform lives, finding a path for the professional development of each SoftDesign employee.

I think all the time about how to develop people, and that’s what positions me as a leader. I always liked professors who instigated me with challenges and, therefore, I try to replicate this behavior in the company. This is not a difficult task for me.

Inheritance, Authenticity, and Transformation

SD – Our culture of collaboration is only possible because of this trust. What leadership style do you exercise? What leadership style does SoftDesign, as a Brazilian software company have? How does it affect the development of the clients’ projects?

OP – I follow the democratic and situational style, which values an empathetic and questioning leadership, and which often causes a certain astonishment among clients and new employees. In Brazil, we have a very strong culture of direction. We came from a dictatorship that said what we could or couldn’t do, and for a long time we were trained to follow orders.

I don’t know how to give orders and my way of thinking can lead to conflicts with people who belong to a culture of hierarchy, and professionals who need someone to say what should be done. At SoftDesign we don’t do that, because we are horizontal. We believe that this way we boost high performance, as we share a more open, transparent perspective, of trust and courage, so that everyone can ask and express opinions.

In a conversation with one of our international clients, I was told that our differentiator in relation to other partners, from other countries, is precisely the questioning. This critical sense is very important in the process of creating digital solutions. After all, we believe that it is necessary to participate in the innovation process and not just execute it.

This behavior is a consequence of democratic leadership. I don’t feel better than anyone and I’m not. At SoftDesign, we give everyone a voice. I also use situational leadership a lot, that is, I am several people depending on each person and situation since I need to understand and connect with each one, respecting their moment and their career goals.

Knowledge Is The Secret To Innovate

SD – In addition to leadership and culture, innovation has also become a matter of survival in the business world. How do you see innovation at SoftDesign?

OP – I go back to that fateful year of 2016, when a master’s professor told me that “innovation is at the limit of knowledge”. I’ve searched my whole life for the discovery of new things to share my learnings. At SoftDesign, we have always contributed by paying for certifications, courses, undergraduate, graduate, master’s, programs etc. We always had in mind that we needed to know a lot to evolve. To survive, not only a Brazilian software company but all companies need to innovate, study and learn. I’ve seen this happening at SoftDesign since the beginning.

A culture of knowledge supports a culture of innovation. One does not occur without the other. Therefore, we continue to learn, experiment, create services and reflect on innovation. We work in search of continuous improvement; the Product Conception service, for example, is our creation. When we started offering it in Brazil, nobody did that, nobody called it this, and as a result, our method was copied several times.

We recently launched other services: Product Experimentation and Product Marketing Consulting. We understand that to achieve results we need to launch the product, not just find the market fit and develop it. I want SoftDesign to be even more innovative. We are working and developing an exclusive area of innovation, which will allow us to continue studying, learning, experimenting and adding new services.

Today, I still consider this process slow. Cycles are long, so I want to reduce the time to launch new services and process improvements. The main objective is to help our customers in their innovation journey. While we are learning, we will be innovating. That’s how a Brazilian software company stays alive.

Demystifying Innovation

SD – We often have the idea that in order to innovate we need to create something disruptive, capable of changing an industry, service or behavior in society. But innovation can be more subtle. How does SoftDesign propose to innovate in digital products for clients?

OP – I understand that in order to innovate in customer products we cannot only think about development, and here I am referring specifically to programming, for example. I believe that we need to unite a series of other types of knowledge to achieve the objective of innovating in digital solutions.

It is necessary to go through an exceptional product conception, composed of research with users, benchmarking analysis of existing products and creation of a business model. That is, to innovate we have to go deeper, and this requires knowledge about the business, customer, product or service we are creating.

It is important to understand that to innovate, we also need to test. That’s why we launched the Product Experimentation service, which proposes testing and simulations of low-investment strategies, such as low-code and no-code, before Software Development. In this way, we try to validate hypotheses that arise in the creation of the product to reduce the investment risk.

However, risk is part of innovation, as I mentioned in the lecture I gave at the Gramado Summit 2022. At SoftDesign, when we talk about innovation in digital products for clients, we are looking at the entire journey of creating a product or service and not just development. We participate from idea to result, sharing the know-how we have in the areas of design, technology, marketing, research, among others.

Many companies, depending on their size, do not have all this knowledge. Therefore, through our methods and specialties, we drive the innovation process in startups, scale-ups and corporates, creating solutions that generate impact.

The Future is Now

SD – And what can we expect in the coming years? How do you think technology and IT will impact future businesses?

OP – All technologies play a fundamental role in businesses. Especially IT, since today technology is the core business of many companies. I understand that more and more businesses will be impacted by this, and those who do not understand this relation, who do not learn to deal with current and future technologies – whether to support their daily operation or to build new services or products – will be obsolete soon.

It’s a matter of time: if you haven’t developed the ability to adapt, you won’t digitally transform. Digital transformation is about knowing how to deal with technology and knowledge. This is a complex path and we will increasingly have this strong dependence on Information Technology, which will represent much of the current operations of companies, whether in terms of what they sell or what they will sell.

There is no escaping this reality. Either we learn to deal with the concept of software development, or companies will find it difficult to evolve their own businesses, especially a Brazilian software company like SoftDesign. We saw a simulation of this in the pandemic, when many businesses ceased to exist, as they were unable to sell online and transform themselves digitally. This is not a fast process. It takes time, a culture of innovation and maturity.

In addition, there are many trends emerging in the technology market: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science are good examples. Most companies are using this in a very incipient way, but those who put these ideas into practice will have a competitive advantage. In Brazil, we are still working a lot in the process of computerization and creation of systems. There are many opportunities to grow and innovate.  

Start your Innovation Journey!

Investing in innovation is not an exclusive need for a software company. To keep business relevant and competitive in a changing society, having an IT partner is crucial.

With experience in the national and international markets, we are a company specializing in the innovation journey in digital solutions, from idea to result. Our Product Conception, Product Experimentation, Software Development, Consulting, and Outsourcing services drive the creation of digital products and services that transform businesses and simplify users’ lives.

If you are looking for an experienced, responsible, and innovative Brazilian software company, fill out the form below and talk to one of our specialists. Together, let’s start your innovation journey!

O post 25+ Years Delivering High-Value Solutions: Brazilian Software Company apareceu primeiro em SoftDesign.

Startups, scale-ups, and corporates have this goal in common. Therefore, through technology, they seek ways to improve, increase and innovate processes, products, and services. This is an exercise that requires expertise and a lot of discipline and, of course, extra doses of courage, authenticity, and entrepreneurship.

However, the innovation journey does not have to be undertaken alone. At SoftDesign, we combine experience, strategic vision, and a Collaboration Culture to deliver the best products. In this sense, in the following article, we explain how we can help your business become more innovative, from idea to result.

Startups: Developing Your New Digital Business

According to Ries, “a startup is a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty”. In other words, if the journey of creating startups is full of doubts and risks, it is essential to seek support throughout the entire process, from investigation and analysis, whether on market or target audience; up to software development. After all, the main objective is to drive new products and services to market-fit.

Finding a market and developing a product capable of satisfying it may seem like something simple, but it is not. Currently, about 90% of startups end up not surviving their first years. To minimize this risk, we offer services that support the entire journey of creating new digital businesses:

• In our Product Conception service, we develop the business model and the product idea, exploring the problem it solves, identifying users and defining the value proposition. To achieve this, we use Design Thinking, Lean Startup, User Research, and UX Design approaches.
• In Product Experimentation we create prototypes or No-Code/Low-Code MVPs to validate business models, considering the feedback from the first users, which allow us to test the product’s acceptance in the market.
• In addition, we also support startups in the Development of their digital solutions, using the best technologies, always with squads that work with the Agile Method.

To evolve through all these phases, it is important to have skills and expertise in different areas. Therefore, teams formed by multidisciplinary and diverse professionals are much more than a must-have to develop innovative businesses.

In real life, a startup is a world of possibilities, where everything happens simultaneously: the creation of new features, operational adjustments, attracting new customers, and marketing strategies. With the ideal partner, these challenges can be overcome.

Scale-ups: Accelerating Your Product

In the case study The Scale-Up Report, Sherry Coutu (2014) defines scale-ups as “companies that sustain long periods of rapid expansion”, as they have an average growth in job creation (or turnover) of more than 20% per year over a period of three years. For the author, this type of business drives economic advancement by allowing a greater number of companies to reach the stage of global scale. 

Unlike the startup, a company in the scale-up stage already has a validated and more sustainable business model. At the same time, scaling a digital product is a decision that implies changes and challenges. After all, once you reach this stage, growing pains quickly begin to surface. To overcome the limits of scale and boost the product, it is necessary to work on solving Design, Architecture, Product Marketing, and Cloud bottlenecks, for example.

At SoftDesign, in addition to the Software Development service, we also work with several Consulting services in these key areas:

• Design: we create or improve the experience of your users, through User Research, User Experience, and User Interface;
• Architecture: based on technical objectives to be achieved or impediments related to stability, continuity, or scalability, we propose possible solutions;
• Marketing: we evaluate strategies, personas, attraction, and conversion channels and suggest a specific go-to-market plan;
• Cloud: we promote collaboration between development and maintenance functions, working with the largest providers: AWS, GCP, and Azure.

To accelerate innovative businesses and create a competitive advantage over the competition, it is essential to scale safely and with quality. After all, growing digital products are under pressure, as they need constant deliveries. In this sense, it is necessary to develop methods and tools that help work organizations in such a way that it is possible to increase the rates of productivity and predictability.

Corporates: Digital Transformation In Practice

The search for innovation affects all types of companies, including well-established ones. Corporates also need to develop processes, while improving and expanding their offer of products and services. This is one of the main strategies to stay alive and competitive in a market full of players that were already born and fully adapted to the digital world.

According to Franco (1991), “a company is any entity established under any legal form for the exploitation of an economic activity, whether commercial, industrial, agricultural or the provision of services”. For these businesses, the challenge is to maintain the essence by sustaining operations that are already well-established and in operation, while creating a more disruptive future, capable of keeping the organization profitable and attractive among the next generations of customers. To achieve the best of both worlds, collaborative innovation is an important ally.

In this sense, we can support your organization with Agile Consulting, which accelerates the adoption of agile methods, through mentoring, to transmit our knowledge in frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban, and DevOps to your team.

In addition, we work with Outsourcing, completing development squads with high-performance professionals, who work in the areas of Software Architecture, Programming, Quality Assurance, UX/UI Design, Products, and Projects. This is an essential resource for companies with an in-house IT team, which suffer from demand fluctuations, often requiring a professional with specific hard skills.

We know that the challenges of innovating in well-established businesses are diverse, but being part of an innovative business team has its advantages. One of them is constant learning. With that in mind, don’t leave your corporate heritage and leadership lost in the past. 

Let’s innovate together.

We know that innovative businesses generate complex challenges that require a lot of understanding of the product or service in question. Moreover, in contemporary society, consumer habits and behaviors change as fast as the technologies in use. Therefore, understanding it in its essence is a key strategic factor that allows us to launch products that will actually be used by users.

Count on us to create transformative digital solutions with design, strategy, and technology.  At SoftDesign, we have the best option to meet your needs, as we work with startups, scale-ups, and corporates in a personalized way. Fill out the form below and chat with one of our experts. 

O post Choose a Strong Development Partner for Innovative Businesses apareceu primeiro em SoftDesign.

What is IT Outsourcing?

Onshore X Offshore

Advantages of Outsourcing

• Experienced and certified professionals;
• Complete teams in less time;
• Shared knowledge;
• Administrative matters under our responsibility;
• Agile practices and current working methods.

Let’s talk about IT Outsourcing?

O post IT Outsourcing: Differences Between Onshore And Offshore apareceu primeiro em SoftDesign.