So, you’ve decided to build your enterprise applications on Pega. It’s a good decision. Pega’s platform makes it simple to create powerful apps and automate workflows, a process that will become even easier when Pega GenAI™ is released as part of Pega Infinity ‘23 later this year. No need to hire a consultant, right? I mean, Pega makes development so easy, you can do it all yourself, in-house.
Hold up. If that’s your position, you might want to rethink it. Because while Pega is a very powerful, intuitive low-code platform, there’s still a lot of value in hiring a Pega consultancy. Here are five reasons why working with an expert partner can make a huge difference in the ROI you see from your Pega investment.
- Business strategy: A strong Pega consultancy will not only have technology expertise, but they’ll also possess strong domain expertise so they understand your industry and its processes. That’s important because while businesses often have a decent understanding of the challenges they face, it’s not always apparent what capabilities and automation would best address them. A strong consultancy will have a well-tested process to work closely with your line of business and IT teams to uncover exactly what your organization’s requirements are and determine what kinds of apps you need to build.
- App development: While Pega makes it much easier and faster to develop powerful apps, these apps still require development, and good development requires planning and a process to deliver applications that truly meet your business’ needs. A Pega consultancy has likely built thousands of Pega apps, and they follow a well-worn, successful process (typically DevOps and/or Agile development) to work with you in an iterative way. Every week or two, the consultancy should deliver some functionality for you to try and get your feedback, which will be incorporated into the next development cycle. In the end, you get a better application in a shorter amount of time.
- Performance: Pega enables the enterprise to build robust applications that leverage AI, analytics and other advanced technologies to provide sophisticated capabilities. For instance, Pega can use predictive analytics to determine what interactions will best appeal to an individual customer based on past behavior.
These are powerful capabilities, and they require the right technology stack to achieve the level of performance you’ll need. A good Pega consultancy will help ensure that your apps are designed in a way to optimize performance and that your technology foundation can support it properly.
- Customer and user experience (CX & UX): Whether your apps are built for business users or customers, it’s critical that they have a high quality user experience. According to PwC, 59% of U.S. customers will leave a company or product that they love after several bad experiences, and more than one in six (17%) will leave after a single bad experience. Designing a superb UX is no simple matter, and doing it right requires expertise and a rigorous process.
A strong Pega partner will interview customers and end-users to gain a deep understanding of what they need out of the app and how the app can provide the best possible experience. Out of this research, the partner will design the UX and then repeatedly test it with end-users to identify how it can be improved.
As PwC says in the title of its report, Experience is Everything.
- Support: Software is complex and, from time to time, things go wrong. Functions may suddenly not work as expected or performance may wane. Whatever the problem, you’ll want to have the support of experts who understand Pega and the technologies with which it integrates to rapidly identify and address the underlying issues so you can get back to business.
At Hoverstate, we pride ourselves as a full-service digital innovation agency with specific expertise not just in Pega, but also in healthcare, financial services, and manufacturing. We have a dedicated team of CX / UX experts who can work with you to design experiences that will delight your customers and internal stakeholders. We’ve developed Pega apps for some of the world’s largest and best-known companies. And we’d be happy to work with you. Contact us today.