The problems most companies have with software development are due to poor requirements definition rather than to poor coding.

Developers know how to code but the business requirements are most often incomplete and fail to communicate the business’s needs effectively. 

Poor requirements gathering and writing leads to 82% of the software re-design and maintenance efforts causing companies to waste millions of dollars a year on ineffective software implementations and lost product to market opportunities.

Studies performed at companies including GTE, IBM and HP have measured and assigned cost to errors occurring at various stages of the lifecycle.  Studies were run independently and all reached the same conclusion.   

If a unit cost of one is assigned to Coding, then the cost to detect and repair an error during the Requirements Gathering stage is between five and ten times less. The cost to detect and repair an error during the maintenance stage is twenty times more.  As much as a 200:1 cost savings results from finding errors in requirements versus finding errors in the maintenance stage.

Therefore, it is important to gather and write effective requirements and perform formal inspections and sign-off phases with the business community.