Why is Good Coding Important to Your Business

So you’re an entrepreneur, or you plan to become one soon, but staring at a wall of computer coding isn’t what you really want to do? You want to innovate, market and build your corporate empire, not think about code. But did you realize that good coding is frequently one of the most important keys to business success in the 21st Century?

After all, this is the “Digital Age,” and your business will rely on coding (in part) for its ability to succeed in a high-tech marketplace. Here are 3 ways coding quality impacts your business and 3 reasons you should learn at least some basic coding yourself:

How Does Coding Impact My Business’ Success?

1. Optimal Web Design & Function
Maintaining an online presence is a necessity, not a luxury, these days. If you want your website to outshine the competition, good coding is ultimately what will make that happen. Interactivity and visitor engagement, easy site navigation, a seamless checkout process, 100% mobile friendliness, and quick load times all depend on coding, at bottom.

2. Optimal Online Advertising
Beyond the content and SEO performance, your online ads will need coding experts to ensure they are optimally run and placed in front of your target audience in the most effective ways and at the most likely times to get a response. Links, advertising funnels and landing pages that all lead prospects back to your website are best handled by people who know computer language as well as human language.

3. A Stellar IT Department
If your business needs an IT department and you want to develop proprietary in-house software (or if your company actually develops and sells software), coding is obviously basic. You may not be doing much/any of the coding, but you will need to make decisions like whether to opt for TypeScript vs. JavaScript, whether to use “the cloud” for at least some business needs, and how many/which kind of IT staff to hire. That requires you have some familiarity with computer coding and “techie” issues, if only to effectively communicate.

Why Should I Learn Basic Coding?

1. To Make Better IT Hires.
As already mentioned, you need to know at least a little bit about coding to peer into the IT world enough to know how to interview IT department applicants. You need to have a clue on how to distinguish top talent from mediocre and on what kind of tech skills are needed to accomplish your business’ IT and coding related goals.

2. To Be a Better Manager
Learning computer code is like learning a foreign language in many ways, except it is the language of machines instead of people. But people, of course, invented it and use it. Thus, to move more confidently in a business environment filled with computer systems and computer coders, and to communicate and manage effectively, you need to know basic coding. Otherwise, you will be like an “outsider” lost in a foreign land in your business.

3. To Empathize With IT
Similar to the point above, you need to have a window into the coding world so you can understand, sympathize and even empathize with your IT workers. If they are struggling on a project and getting frustrated, you want to get frustrated with them and not at them. Well, at least, you don’t want to misunderstand them or reprimand good workers, or conversely, put up with lazy ones because you can’t tell the difference. Your tech-oriented employees will appreciate any efforts you make to understand them.