In the digital economy, custom software lives at the intersection of business strategy, customer expectations, and market trends. For 25 years, growth-minded companies and organizations looking to seize new opportunities have turned to Highland for custom software development services.
We combine continuous customer feedback, human-centered design, and quality software engineering frameworks to develop new web applications, mobile apps, and digital products, as well as to revitalize or reimagine existing ones. Our focus is always on the end user - the person who’ll engage with your product.
Custom software development services
We’ve delivered hundreds of custom software solutions to enterprises, mid-size companies, and startups. Our expertise spans custom software applications, mobile apps, digital products, and UI/UX design. Our development process emphasizes validation, iteration, and agility, ensuring that the applications we develop are user-friendly, scalable, and deliver on your business needs and goals. The end result is a custom solution that you’d never achieve with an off the shelf software product.
Web application development
Custom web applications center around your business needs. We make sure each feature, business process, and interaction reflect your specific needs – providing unique functionality for your users while fuelling your differentiation. Our bespoke development process results in:
- Launching cost-effective, reliable software products that delights users
- Building cutting-edge software applications with quality architecture
- Create scalable, multi-tenant applications.
Mobile app development
Delivering a great mobile experience is paramount in staying ahead of your competition. Our dedicated team and rapid feedback process help you make critical mobile strategy decisions upfront and design a custom software solution that delivers on your unique mission and goals.
- Develop smart, mobile-responsive apps using the latest technologies
- Mobile first UI/UX design
- Cross-platform, progressive, or iOS / Android specific.
Digital product & Software as a Service development
Whether building a digital product or SaaS application from the ground up or re-architecting an existing one, our dedicated team is equipped to help you expand to new customers, create new revenue streams, streamline operating costs via process automation, and strengthen your business.
- Clarify your ideas and end user needs, and translate them into actionable design
- Incorporate user feedback and lean startup thinking to build the right thing quickly
- Test and improve concepts to ensure UI/UX syncs with user behaviors
- Implement a modernized single-tenant or multi-tenant architecture
- Launch a software application with scalability and growth in mind.
Case study
Archer Career Services work to simplify the job search process and provide helpful resources for job seekers. Aware of our expertise in building custom mobile apps for small businesses, they approached Highland for help. We worked together to harness the expertise of their in-person career gurus and launch a digital product that would help them transform their career coaching service into a scalable digital product that could be deployed to thousands of users.
“It is hard to feel that a service provider cares as much about your business as you do. Without question - Highland did. When we said, "It's just not right yet," they said, "we know - let's get it there!" What set them apart for our project was that they absolutely worked to create the deliverable that exceeded our expectations.” Pam Schilling, CEO and Co-Founder at Archer.
Working with a custom software development company
Our end-to-end process is collaborative from the start, partnering with clients and their in-house teams from ideation through design and development. We focus on creating digital solutions that are impactful and deliver lasting value to stakeholders and end users. With 25 years of experience, we’ve refined our custom software development project workflows to include:
Multi-disciplinary teams
We work in small, multi-disciplinary teams, uniting full-stack front end and back end software developers alongside UI/UX design, UX research, product management, project management, and strategy. Our teams work in varying technology stacks, programming languages (like React, Javascript, PHP, Python), and cloud environments (like Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, and Google Cloud). The exact composition of each development team is based on the nature and specific needs of the custom software application being created, ensuring we're building the right thing the first time.
Continuous delivery
We use an iterative, agile software development process and development methodology. We'll work together to create a prioritized plan for a successful first release, and then begin building the application in one or two week cycles. By rapidly producing working software, we gain real-time, real world feedback and are able to adjust and adapt throughout the design and product development process.
Constant feedback
End user and customer feedback is the lifeblood of successful software development and quality assurance. We seek out input and feedback from users and potential users throughout the development process, from early concepts through designs, interactive prototypes, to MVP and each stage of working software. In-depth feedback is vital throughout the product lifecycle. Learning early and often helps ensure we build software that users will find intuitive, valuable, and even delightful.
Controlled investment
There’ll always be more features that could be built. Software should produce a return on investment, and that means keeping control of your overall investment, and consistently choosing the next most valuable thing to build. We operate with a fixed budget and controlled scope approach. We'll agree on the right overall level of investment for the kind and scale of software you're building, based on our experience building over 300 applications. Then we'll work transparently with you to deliver against a prioritized, adaptable list of features within that fixed investment.
Holistic approach
Custom software applications are often part of a wider digital ecosystem comprising your CRM, e-commerce, cloud-based microservices and more more. We’ll work on seamless software integration using robust API, to the benefit of your business as well as the end user.
Collaborative and transparent
We'll be working closely together weekly or even daily to set strategy, confirm designs, set priorities, and review working software. We work in a fully transparent manner, as a single team, with shared communication and collaboration systems. We believe this is a best of both worlds approach, a combination of outsourcing and in-house expertise.
Custom software development projects are there to meet a business’ very specific needs. It could be part of a digital transformation and modernization strategy. It could be to streamline workflows or utilise new technologies like artificial intelligence, IoT or big data. We’ve worked with hundreds of businesses spanning healthcare, finance, public services, technology and beyond. We’d be delighted to work with you too.
