What does flawed software mean for supplier & user relationships?

Boeing is in the top 1% of organizations for building quality software; yet even Boeing struggles to avoid critical defects. It’s not a big stretch to conclude that defect-free software is an impossible aspiration for non-trivial systems.

Thankfully, the consequences of unreliable software are rarely as serious as faults in aviation control systems can be, but every enterprise business is now a software company; software is the differentiator in every market, and software reliability has become a primary strategic challenge for all. 

Some illuminating results from a recent survey by analyst firm Freeform Dynamics:

• 95% of software developers admit to their systems having unresolved defects as a result of the difficulty in reproducing the faults.* 
• Over 90% of software vendors regard the disruptive potential of a software failure and/or data corruption issue as significant.* 

Those are jaw-dropping numbers. Remarkably, most technology professionals are unsurprised by findings like this. We have become used to the idea that software failures, and the consequent business impacts, are a fact of life.

Major vs Non-Major Failures

We see news reports about crises resulting from major software failures, but surveyed practitioners are clear that the “disruptive potential” of non-major failures is also very costly. 

It is not really a surprise, but the responses confirm that software failures do not have to be catastrophic to have material negative business impact.

Unexplained Software Failures

When things go wrong, relationships between software vendors and customers are put to the test. Stakeholders were surveyed on what aspects of software failure resolution most impacted satisfaction.

In their responses, 9 out 10 software buyers said that user satisfaction and relationships are undermined when software issues drag on with no explanation of the cause. 

Understanding a failure leads to a plan for resolution, with time and cost estimates. Lack of explanation, on the other hand, is the #1 cause of dissatisfaction in the failure resolution cycle.

Switching to an Alternative Supplier

Asked about the circumstances under which they are likely to switch software suppliers, customers responded with a manifesto for customer success teams: Take responsibility, communicate transparently, be responsive, diagnose quickly, and minimize business disruption.

Surprisingly, failures that are rapidly diagnosed but take a long time to fix are not high on the list. Once again, there is evidence that explanation of failures is key to the relationship.

Rapid Resolution Builds Relationships

But conversely, when issues are diagnosed and fixed swiftly and efficiently, 84% software customers say the impact on business satisfaction is actually positive.*

SAP France’s CEO Gérald Karsenti recently discussed this topic of enterprise software reliability with a colleague of mine. His take on the topic was: 

“It is in the battle that the best relationships are formed.” 

- Gérald Karsenti, CEO SAP France

Diamonds are formed under pressure, a principle that seems to apply to the relationships between software vendors and users; but the key ingredient is rapid diagnosis and resolution of failures. Gérald Karsenti is right: Software defects are certain to manifest themselves. It’s how you respond to them that matters.

Troubleshooting

Below are some other interesting results in relation to software defect troubleshooting:  

• Software vendors and users agree that diagnosis requires collaboration
• Intermittent failures are a challenge. Traditional (ie not recording-based) approaches to resolution require the failure to be reproduced in a vendor lab.
• Vendor responses to diagnosis questions are more pessimistic than user responses

Thoughts from an Undo Perspective

At Undo, we believe that the secret to software defect diagnosis is machine-level recording of software systems. Just as blackbox flight recorders enable forensics for aviation incidents, so-called “Software Flight Recording” can capture every detail of program behavior for later analysis.

Complex software systems do exhibit failures; collaboration is needed between software suppliers and users to diagnose and fix those defects fast. The inability to explain the failure is the primary frustration between suppliers and users, and it is the major reason for extended and unpredictable resolution cycles. 

For more detail on how you can optimize your supplier-customer relationships, take a look at the full study report, produced by analyst firm Freeform Dynamics in partnership with The Register.

* data source: analyst report on enterprise software reliability commissioned by Undo (the leader in software reliability solutions based on software flight recording technology).