ISG to Publish Study on Next-Generation Application Development Services

Upcoming ISG Provider Lens report to show how outsourcing providers are delivering agile development, continuous testing and DevSecOps services

STAMFORD, Conn., July 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm, has launched a research study examining next-generation application development and maintenance services, including agile development and continuous testing.

The study results will be published in a comprehensive ISG Provider Lens report, called Next-gen Application Development & Maintenance (ADM) Services 2020, scheduled to be released in October. The report will look at ways service providers are leveraging application programmable interfaces (APIs), microservices and low-code and no-code platforms, containers and cloud-native approaches to build nimble, manageable applications and accomplish their speedy release.

Many providers are increasingly adopting agile development practices for their service delivery, driven by customer demands for increased speed, more frequent updates and feature-led interactive applications, says Jan Erik Aase, director and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research.

“Clients are looking for new ways to leverage software capabilities to solve business problems and gain competitive advantage, coupled with the increasing need for speed-to-market,” Aase said. “Service providers are augmenting their traditional ADM base with emerging methodologies, technologies and collaborative frameworks to meet their clients’ objectives.”

Enterprise buyers will be able to use information from the report to evaluate their current vendor relationships, potential new engagements and available offerings, while ISG advisors use the information to recommend providers to the firm’s buy-side clients.

ISG has distributed surveys to more than 180 next-generation ADM providers. Working in collaboration with ISG’s global advisors, the research team will produce six quadrants representing the services and products the typical enterprise client is buying in the ADM space, based on ISG’s experience working with its clients. The six quadrants that will be covered are:

• Next-gen ADM, encompassing a wide range of services, including consulting, design, custom development, packaged software integration, DevOps, agile, operations, security, application maintenance and testing. The scope, delivery mechanism and outcome for such contracts pivot around a value-based approach where the focus is on achieving enterprise agility and solving business problems.

• Application Maintenance Services – Midmarket/Niche, comprising end-to-end managed services covering application support and maintenance functions, including application monitoring, managed changes to applications, scripts delivery to integrate patches and release, defect identification and resolution and database management. Services span monitoring, bug fixing and troubleshooting across level one, two and three support areas.

• Agile Development, focusing on the frameworks and principles of agile, a collaborative way of working together under uncertain circumstances. In software development, agile is the incremental and iterative approach to application development with the ability to adapt and respond to change as key tenets. Because agile encompasses frequent, short development cycles and early releases of software product, it is being viewed by enterprises as a medium for attaining enterprise agility and includes frameworks such as Scrum, extreme programing, feature-driven development and the dynamic systems development method.

• Continuous Testing – Large Accounts, focusing on delivering quality assurance at speed, using various aspects of automated testing such as shift-left and end-to-end automation across each phase of the continuous delivery process. Beyond automation-based testing, it also involves people and processes for greater collaboration among QA and development teams to sync with sprint cycles, feature-driven testing, responsiveness to change and greater client involvement.

• Continuous Testing – Midmarket, encompassing service providers with focused operations to help clients achieve cost efficiencies on application testing functions. The providers serve niche testing requirements comprising various types of testing such as automated, regression, functional and performance testing. Providers develop testing requirements for clients and also work with large service providers to execute application testing requirements for them.

• DevSecOps, covering a software development practice that combines development and technology operations in tandem to shorten and integrate security within the software development lifecycle. DevSecOps involves three key principles: system thinking, feedback loops, and continuous experimentation and learning. Some of the methodologies involved in DevSecOps include lean management, continuous delivery, and people-over-process tools. Cloud-native applications are built end-to-end and managed in the cloud using technologies such as containers and APIs.

The report will cover the global ADM market and examine products and services available in the U.S., Germany, the U.K., Brazil and the Nordic countries. An archetype report also will be published as part of this study. This report, unique to ISG, is the study of typical buyer types of ADM services as observed by ISG advisors.