Mendix, a Siemens business and the global leader in enterprise low-code, announced key findings from a survey designed to capture attitudes and perceptions held by enterprise software developers. The data uncovered is critical and timely as technology and business landscapes are changing quickly. The Mendix-commissioned survey has found that some ideas and mindsets around the separation of work between business and IT teams appear to be entrenched in a previous era causing serious issues for companies attempting to adapt business processes to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
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More specifically, the survey revealed that both business and IT professionals place a low priority on the need for developers to understand business needs. At the same time, business professionals say they are willing to tackle application development themselves, if they have access to the right tools.
Other key findings indicate a pressing need for greater cross-functional collaboration between the business and IT sides of the enterprise, and for sharper focus on the user experience. The online survey was completed by 1,000 business and 1,000 IT professionals.
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Under-prioritizing the business problem
Just 9.4 percent of business professionals surveyed believe developers need to understand the business — a significantly low percentage. But IT professionals themselves seem to agree — just 11.4 percent say understanding the business is a necessary developer skill. And yet 66 percent of business professionals say they expect developers to help them solve their business problems. These numbers reveal a gaping discrepancy between what businesses need and expect and the skills valued in developers to deliver on those needs.
Dissecting the Disconnect
Clear communication between business units and IT teams is essential as businesses embrace digitalization, and is often highlighted by leading industry analysts as imperative for successfully launching innovative technology solutions and user experiences. Despite the recommendation though, only 24 percent of business professionals say they consider developers communicative, and just 35 percent believe developers are collaborative (whereas 48 percent of IT professionals describe developers as collaborative). Over half (54.2 percent) of business respondents believe that the IT team is solely responsible for software development, which would indicate a pervasive lack of involvement by business stakeholders in the development process.
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