How to find your competitive advantage with software (and restore business faith in IT)

Learn how to build customer-focused software that integrates with legacy systems, drives business outcomes, and restores confidence in IT projects.

When it comes to transformational software, what should come first: technological innovation, or business need?  

On one hand, innovation can open doors. The arrival of new technologies often sparks conversations about how they can be used to enhance services, streamline operations, or offer fresh customer experiences.

On the other, technology that is onboarded without having a clear business need to answer is often doomed to fail. 

IT leaders often find themselves caught between these two positions. They face intense pressure to stay ahead of the curve, delivering new technologies to maintain a competitive edge, but can suffer from a disconnect with the rest of the business. 

Business leaders want to reap the benefits of new IT innovations, but see onboarding as an ‘IT issue’, not a business imperative. As a result, IT innovations are expected to deliver commercial results, without clear guidance on what success should actually look like.

Take the rise of generative AI. The potential is vast: language-first interactions, summarised insights, automated documentation, generative AI can power everything from customer-facing support bots to sophisticated self-service platforms. Yet without a clearly defined business goal or a way to measure impact, it can easily become an empty promise, failing to deliver what’s expected. Instead of driving outcomes, it underperforms, misfires, or creates more complexity, ultimately failing to live up to expectations.

IT leaders need to shift the conversation within their business, from what the technology can do, to what the business really needs. The opportunity lies in rethinking how software is planned, built and delivered, and how the wider organisation understands and interacts with that process.

Here, we look at how to find your competitive edge to develop bespoke software that re-establishes business faith in IT and drives measurable outcomes with impact. 

Start with the customer, not the technology

It may sound obvious but focus your efforts on solving real problems. Think about what people need or want, rather than what the technology can do. That shift in focus has a powerful effect: it aligns innovation to measurable value, connects teams around a shared objective, and increases your chances of success.

This is where many transformation projects go wrong. They begin with a technology, then look for a use case. The most effective digital leaders start the other way around. They identify what customers struggle with, where friction occurs, and how their competitors are responding. Then, they design a solution with the right mix of technology, people and process to make a meaningful difference.

The lesson here isn’t to ignore innovation, it’s to filter it through the lens of impact. As we frame it in the V5 framework: define the value, then build the vision. 

Competitive awareness, not copycat thinking 

Looking to the competition is natural. For banks, not replicating the approach of digital challengers such as Monzo and Starling would have been a catastrophic mistake, but imitation only gets you so far. If you simply match what others are doing, you're always going to be playing catch-up.

Instead, use the market as a benchmark, but set your own direction. Ask the right questions. How can we improve on the standard experience? What pain points are still unresolved? What would set us apart in the eyes of our users? Your competitive advantage will come not from doing the same thing faster, but by doing the right thing better.  

Customer experience is not a front-end feature 

Too often, customer experience is tacked on at the end of a project as a user interface consideration or marketing afterthought. Real customer-centric software embeds customer experience into the architecture. That means building platforms that are intuitive, accessible, responsive, and resilient, right down to the data layer.

This is where IT has the chance to lead. Design systems, component libraries, modular frameworks: these aren’t just tools for faster delivery. They are enablers of better, more consistent user experiences. When used effectively, they help build solutions that are not just functional but enjoyable to use.  

Test relentlessly and learn quickly 

No matter how well you plan, you won’t get everything right the first time. That’s why it’s essential to design development cycles that support rapid testing, short feedback loops, and constant iteration.

With every release, you improve and scale your offering to your users and your business. In our V5 framework, we call this Viability and Velocity: validating ideas early, refining, improving and scaling what works quickly.  

Collaborate across the business 

Software that transforms a business isn’t built by IT alone. It requires cross-functional collaboration, including product owners, operations, customer support teams, finance and compliance. Each of these groups interacts with software differently, and each brings a unique perspective on how it should function.

Bring in ambassadors from across the organisation. Involve users early. Understand their workflows, frustrations, and goals. The more involved they are, the better your adoption rate, and the less time you’ll spend justifying the project at the end. 

Design for the future, integrate with the past

Bespoke software gives you the chance to build exactly what your business needs, but it rarely starts with a blank slate. Most enterprise environments are a complex web of legacy systems, data silos, and brittle integrations. The challenge is building something future proof that can still connect cleanly with what’s already in place.

Modularity, interoperability, and scalability are key. Your architecture needs to support rapid change without breaking what's already working, particularly when critical capabilities are involved.

Take the lead to restore business faith in IT 

Many organisations are enticed by the promise of breakthrough technology, and it is the role of pioneering IT leaders to ensure that the business only onboards what will make a real commercial difference and doesn’t bow to pressure to take up new technologies without meaning. The next big thing is always exciting, but new technology without a business case is just another overhead. Every line of code should be traceable back to a real need and every tool should have a purpose.  

If your transformation starts with the customer and ends with measurable improvement, you’ll not only restore faith in IT – you’ll lead a capability that becomes central to business growth.

Our V5 framework supports IT leaders to develop transformational software with impact. Download our latest guide, First move wins: the value opportunity for IT pioneers, to discover a fresh approach to delivering value with every IT development.