I started my career as a software developer. For the first 3 years of my career, I was writing codes, testing them, and writing more codes.
However, never did I think about the business of codes.
Well, you call it whatever you want – software, a website, an app, or a network – it’s all codes.
The most loved products of our generation and the essential ones – from Instagram to Google, from Netflix to banking, from Cryptocurrency to Zomato, all exist because of large chunks of codes. Today, ~1.85 million apps are available for iOS users. Android users have even options to choose from with a whooping ~2.56 million on the Google Play Store (Source). They say that every company today is a software company. (I disagree! as explained later in the article)
It was towards the last 4 months of my software career that I got introduced to the other side of it. I was working for a wonderful company that made ATM software – where I was to demonstrate my piece of code (on a dummy ATM) to the sales team.
By the time the demo was over, queries were answered and requirements were discussed, I knew that there is another world, where I belonged more. 2 months later, I was an Assistant Manager – Business Development for a startup. My job was to convince business owners to get their business on the O2O app that’d help them grow their revenues and customer footfall. I was to build the supply side of the marketplace with an early-stage app on my mobile device.
From coding, I thought I had moved to business. Well, I couldn’t be more wrong. I was simply doing business development.
It is funny that when we are young and new in our careers, we think that what we do makes or breaks the product – we all believe that we are doing the heavy lifting which is the most crucial element for the business.
However, as we move ahead in our careers, it is important to realize that business is not just coding, or business development or marketing or sales or finance or operations – the business of codes is an amalgamation of all these elements – each functioning in perfect sync to make the business successful.
When you click that ‘Buy’ button on your online shopping cart, it sets into motion a set of technical and non-technical operations in each business unit so that you receive the product in time in the best possible shape.
Pick any successful or useful app – it is not built just by a coder or a marketer.
So companies are still about products and customers (as they should be), it is just the mode of providing the convenience or service that has changed. Yes, every company should pay utmost attention to its software team (that should be non-negotiable) but not at the expense of other teams.
Similarly, any individual who wants to succeed in the corporate world must start thinking about all these elements. You don’t need to be an expert in all of these.
Just like for going from point A to point B, you don’t need to manufacture each part of the car; you just need to know how to drive the car and you need to know where to go.
Every company is not a software company. It is not a sales company or an operations company. It is not even a content company (that’s another business trope trending these days!)
Every company has almost all business functions. The function with which the user interacts directly becomes the face of that company. But as employees, we need not bother about who is the face of the company. As employers, we shouldn’t give undue importance to one department over other.
In conclusion, I wish I knew the business impact of my work early on in my career. It would’ve made me give more attention to my work, and who knows I might have even stayed in the coding world.
For people who want to switch their careers from software to the business side of things, please remember that whichever profile and domain you’re working in, leads to the business side of things.
The question is how do you want to contribute to the business?
PS: I love my current profile (of being an anti-consumerism marketer) and don’t want to go back to coding. However, knowing what the tech-genius are building, helps me market it better to our TG.