Outsourced Product Development and the Enterprise

Today’s enterprise is seeking those solutions that can easily address the issues of their SaaS business models efficiently. From effective usage of Agile methods to shortening product development cycles, enterprises are on the constant lookout for solutions that can help them augment the quality of their products drastically while being economical as well. Therefore it’s no surprise that enterprises look for outsourced distributed software development providers to relieve their own personnel from the constant pressure to develop new products and software. The idea is simple: opting for a cost-effective service can ensure faster turnaround time for the enterprise and can also reduce risks. Choosing an outsourced product development service provider can decrease risks for the enterprise and yet offer enterprises better quality and performance for their software product.

Outsourced product development services and solutions can assist enterprises in developing innovative products and also in converting and perhaps even re-engineering their existing products in a much better and more inventive manner. With most solutions providers ensuring comprehensive quality checks right from testing tools and design to ensuring some of the testing product support services are customized for certain clients, enterprises can rest assured of getting the best. While the requirements of different enterprises may be as diverse as wanting a horizontal, vertical or even a system kind of software to be custom developed for an enterprise, these product development service providers promise to deliver what is required with their specialized set of skill, tools and technologies.

On the software product development solutions’ checklist of enterprises’ first and perhaps the most important element is manageability. Enterprises need such outsourced product development solutions that are essentially built on multi-tenant architecture that can ably support clients from a single instance and thereby reduce infrastructure costs, as well as hosting and management expenses. Performance comes in next on the list. Enterprises often feel that a solution that can offer ways and tools to ensure distributed data caching and the best ways of code optimization can be a definite asset. Such a solution can not only enhance the performance of the enterprise but also make response time that much swifter. Scalability of open source software deployment solutions are also on the checklist of most enterprises. Security will also remain a key element and enterprises need a solution that can offer the best security model that is both multi-tiered and multi-layered. Time taken to market is yet another element that often figures in the checklist of enterprises because this would mean shorter release cycles. Other essentials remain compatible across different browser platforms, all around availability for continuous service and best up time.

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The Benefits of Open Source Software

Typically, the most reliable, secure and efficient software is usually under an open license and not owned by a company. Open source software was developed with the source code freely available to the public. It may be a unique way of developing software, but it is surprisingly common and effective. It can be downloaded by anyone, and the necessary changes can be made with the hope that any improvements made by individuals will be committed back to the main source tree, thereby benefitting everyone by the modifications.
The commercial replacement cost of free software is high and to deploy a commercial solution it would be necessary to trim back for a significant buy. Not all of the benefits of open source software deployment are in the form of cost savings. Most of the benefits are is in terms of capabilities gained. Some of the other benefits are

Security
Open source allows anyone to examine software for security flaws. The incessant and broad peer-review enabled by publicly available source code enhances security through the identification and elimination of flaws that can be missed. Gartner, recommends the open source Apache Web server as a more secure alternative to closed source Internet Information servers. The availability of source code also facilitates in-depth security reviews and audits by government customers.  

Fast deployment
With open source software consumers needn't wait years to deploy a solution. Open source software is predominantly apposite for inter-agency collaboration, rapid prototyping and experimentation and can be “test driven” prior to procurement. Both known and unanticipated users can be swiftly provisioned.

Reliability
As open source is peer reviewed software, it is more reliable. The infrastructure of the Internet is largely composed of open-source programs such as DNS, send mail, Apache and languages such as HTML and Perl. They have proven to be both reliable and robust under the most strenuous conditions, like the fast growth of the Internet.

Low-cost
Open source software is often developed through community forums and collaborative. Developers volunteer their time and expertise, and are coordinated by fewer paid programmers. The lower overhead costs translates into substantial savings, as does the fact that open source software typically does not have a per-seat licensing cost. According to Gartner, open source is even more attractive to businesses during tough economic times.

Lower virus vulnerability
Traditionally, an open source OS's have fared better than other operating systems. A virus infection on a network server can be devastating in terms of data loss, down time, and staff time required for reconstruction. Open source servers that are less vulnerable to virus infections provide cost savings in terms of diminished liability in these areas.

Open Source Software may not provide a solution for every computing requirement, but it is a well established part of the computing ecosystem that plays a critical role in Internet and business infrastructure that enables companies to access expert resources and components that accelerate software product development  and release processes.

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Outsourced Offshore Custom Healthcare Software Application Development

Despite several changes in the healthcare sector, healthcare enterprises realize they have to put systems into place that can enhance application maintenance effectively. There is a fair amount of information constantly in transaction between healthcare enterprises and insurance companies, and healthcare enterprises need to safeguard this data and be assured that they are abiding with compliance regulations as well. Such enterprises want to reduce the costs of clinical and administrative product support services yet they also want to provide enhanced services to their patients and customers. Therefore the healthcare industry quite obviously turned to IT for effective solutions to the demands of enhanced government regulations, reduced healthcare costs, rising expectations for patient safety, etc. The basic idea is to use IT in such a way that healthcare processes can be streamlined and the overall efficiency of healthcare advisory services can be improved.

Healthcare enterprises have to deal with many issues when it comes to systems that involve the maintenance of electronic health and other medical records, practice management, office document management, ambulatory care management, laboratory information management, computerized physician order entries, forms management and other clinical informatics and analytics. For all such systems, healthcare enterprises can rely on outsourced partners that can offer optimized and customized healthcare software application development solutions.

Custom healthcare software application development can make wide positive changes in areas of pharmaceutical, medical and other life sciences by providing assistance in research areas. So be it quality and compliance solutions, maintenance of medical records or even patient surveys, custom healthcare software application development solutions can offer assistance in all such areas and more. When outsourced to a dependable solutions provider, an enterprise can get help with a wide range of health care activities from insurance claims maintenance to financial transactions and integrations. Custom healthcare software development solutions can also make a difference to everyone involved in healthcare, be it doctors, physicians, clinics or health care enterprises.

The advantages of such outsourced  product  development solutions include streamlining of processes, making information flows swifter, reducing costs, fulfilling regulatory compliance requirements, managing scientific information and removing medical errors. These solutions offer ways and means to deal with integration and interoperability issues to handle HIPAA requirements or issues associated with data interchange using TCP/IP streaming, healthcare file transfers between electronic medical records, government data repositories and data warehouses. These solutions also assist in sorting out issues related to data integration, pharmacy systems integration, legacy systems integration and even medical equipment interface issues.


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Challenges in Outsourced Product Development

The initial challenges which a company looking to outsource product development for the first time faces and tries to put to rest some of the myths associated with these challenges.

Longevity of the product team with the development partner

Myth:It is difficult to motivate and retain crucial team members for long in the team. They tend to move out by the time they acquire enough expertise to contribute effectively.

Reality: Yes, and No. No if you choose the right product development partner. Offshore companies focused on product engineering services have realized that longevity of team members in the team is a very crucial factor in making any relationship successful. In contrast to companies doing traditional outsourced software; these companies understand that the onus for a long term commitment lies with them and not the customer. They understand the fact that a team member who has spent 2 years with the product becomes nearly inseparable with it. For this reason, they have their compensation and bonus policies focused on retaining key team members for long in the same project. Moreover, with employees in different cultures being driven and motivated by different factors, it might also help to retain a project/people manager offshore so that he/she can take the right actions to motivate the team and keep it intact.

Processes used for development and project management
Myth: The software engineering vendor would have separate set of processes than we have, and we would have to embrace them to effectively work with the vendor.

Reality: It is the software engineering vendor who aligns it with the partner's processes so that the partner does not
feel any difference while working with them Outsourced Product engineering companies make it possible by create mini organizations inside called VODCs (Virtual Offshore Development Centers), one for each partner that they work with. The processes and functioning of this VODC is exactly similar as the vendor would have done onsite on its own, including processes for development, project and people management and time and expense reporting.

Visibility in product roadmap
Myth: Vendor teams are better managed by providing work on daily basis

Reality: Providing a long term visibility in the product roadmap helps the vendor teams to focus on work effectively and utilize resources better. Moreover, this reduces the overhead of the management team member at the partner's location.

Communication
Myth: With the product visionary team onsite and the implementation team with the Ecommerce solutions vendor, it is difficult to communicate and share product ideas and vision. Day to Day project related communication may not be interpreted or captured correctly.
Reality: Product Engineering vendors realize the challenges that exist in doing distributed product development. To ensure quick and accurate communication, they are geared up with the state of the art facilities when it comes to E-mail, IM, phone, VOIP, fax, integrated development environments and Video/Audio conferencing. Product Engineering teams are available most of the time on published hours on Email/IM and Phone. All project related unstructured discussion (on phone/IM) is always followed up with a more formal and structured manner on email, so that the teams are in sync with each other.

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product lifecycle management

Benefits of SaaS Application for any Company

Software as a service (SaaS) is a revolutionary approach for building web applications. As organizations today want to focus on their core business, they usually outsource other work to specialized organizations. Besides being a cost effective option, companies expect their business portals to be handled by a specialized third party IT firm who can take complete responsibility and ownership. SaaS redefines the software deployment model from packaged applications with upfront licensing fees and lengthy implementations to one subscription based internet delivered service relationship.

The benefits of SaaS for any company are numerous. Some of them are:

• Zero Infrastructure

Expensive infrastructure is not required as the application is hosted by the service provider. All large initial investments on hardware, licenses and databases, ongoing overhead of employing and training IT staff, software and hardware maintenance and upgrades are managed by the IT Team. Aging technology does not have to be upgraded as there is no local infrastructure, and there is also total protection from unforeseen expenses.

• Reduced TCO

Most licensed software models incur huge costs in deployments. The total cost to operate in SaaS is fixed and known in advance. SaaS vendors typically will bundle all of the necessary hardware, software and support advisory services, such as implementation, training, help desk, troubleshooting, upgrades, security, and business continuity, into a single fee.

• Pay for What You Use

IT organizations generally overestimate the actual software utilization by the end user community. With SaaS, corporate buyers only pay for the active users of the system and not the forecasted user community.

• Easy to Switch Vendors

The corporate buyer has significantly more power and control with SaaS as these applications are sold on a subscription basis for a monthly recurring fee. Clients that are not satisfied have the option of cancelling their subscriptions and transferring to different applications without purchasing and licensing costs.

• Easier Upgrades

As SaaS vendors manage the upgrade process, they are responsible for administering any new releases and future enhancements. Users of SaaS-based applications can always be certain that they are using the latest version of the software provided by the vendor.

• Improved Security

As  SaaS application provides uninterrupted and reliable services, vendors understand that data must be backed up religiously and that information security is of top-most priority. Skilled resources, network redundancies, stand-by power, up-to-date security and intrusion detection are mandatory infrastructure required to provide an enterprise class service.

SaaS has the potential to totally change the way in which companies run their IT infrastructures. Mobile application development also allows companies to streamline and simplify their IT infrastructures, improve application deployment in geographically dispersed locations and realize significant cost savings that are traditionally used by larger organizations.


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Challenges In Developing Leasing Software

A variety of software solutions exist to automate lease pricing and management processes. Since this industry is highly regulated, leasing software is subject to frequent upgrades and changes. Additionally, there is a huge need for a software product to be flexible enough to accommodate the requirements and processes of multiple lessors.

Some of the major challenges in distributed software development for the leasing industry are discussed below.  

Software Customization  
The leasing industry today is saturated with software vendors who provide a single line of leasing products to all of their customers. Although in some cases software vendors are creating specialized versions of products for individual customers, this customization can itself become a problem when vendors are forced to maintain multiple software releases and variations for each of their customers. If they choose not to maintain these customized software versions, then their customers are “stuck” with that version and cannot take advantage of any ongoing upgrades that are made to the general product.  

Ever Changing Business Requirements  
Customers must have a software product that is flexible enough to handle the changing requirements of the market, as well as the growing competition within the overall business environment. One such need is that of internationalization and localization. With the concept of a global enterprise quickly becoming commonplace, there is an enhanced need to internationalize software products. A world‐ready product offers many benefits, including increased revenue, reduced international development costs and lower support costs.  

Integration with Other Software or Products  
A leasing product almost always needs to integrate with enterprise backend and pricing applications. These integration requirements demand a software product that has been build accordingly from the ground up.

Proposed Solutions
Only a few years ago, lessors faced the choice of building a custom solution or purchasing an “off‐the‐shelf” system, possibly with a few modifications. Custom solutions were more expensive and riskier but had the potential to produce a solution that more exactly matched the company’s operational requirements. “Off‐the‐shelf” solutions were more affordable and proven but required the lessor to accept the limits of the system or pay the vendor to modify the software.  

This decision is no longer black or white. Innovative software providers are now creating a “middle ground” by developing systems that use components and flexible configurations. Although these systems are not 100% user‐definable, they are much more flexible than traditional systems and are available at a fraction of the cost of a fully customized solution.

Configurable systems accomplish this flexibility by writing callable components and by using definable screens, report writers and a workflow language to link everything together. Below we discuss how software vendors are delivering customized, adaptable products faster and more cost‐effectively.  

Software Product Customization  
While the core system remains the same for every customer, the data capture, user interface requirements and processes are manipulated from customer to customer without running into version control issues. Workflow software and Rules Engine are used for customizing the product for different customers. Moreover, a Rules Engine solves the problem of making products flexible enough to handle changes in the customer’s business requirements.  

Software Product Integration  
Lenders and lessors need a solution that provides end‐to‐end integration for dealer portal, proposal management, business account management, credit management, automatic decision making, contract administration, data acquisition and management, payments collection and several automated functions Software control over processes enables the re‐design of these processes in line with changing business needs. Business processes can be automated in whole or in part using a workflow software and Rules Engine. These tools set procedural rules to pass documents, information or tasks from one resource (human or machine) to another for an action. Moreover, a leasing product that uses XML at its core and performs most functions through web services can be integrated easily with legacy systems in a structured manner. This type of leasing product blends sea

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Using Workflow and Rules Engines For Leasing Applications

Meeting the software needs of the leasing industry is no easy task, as every change in legal requirements, market forces and strategy gives rise to a number of challenges.
Finance companies are demanding innovative software products that are ahead of the market, such as solutions that enable users to change their business processes without time or financial constraints. Although these demands are part of a greater paradigm shift in the leasing industry, using workflow and Rules Engine can help software vendors meet some of these needs.

He we discusses how leasing software can be made flexible and adaptable to constantly changing market needs by using workflow and a Rules Engine in conjunction.  

Leasing Process  
Together, a Rules Engine and workflow can be used to automate the conditional workflow processes of the system, as well as the movement of items between different nodes. This setup can help in managing the life cycle of leasing deals. It can also isolate the bulk of the application code from changes in the life cycle of deals.  

Approval Process  
The approval process for leasing deals involves approval at various levels. The type and number of levels can vary from time to time and from customer to customer. A combination of Rules Engine and workflow can be used to define the approval process for the deals so that the sequence of approvals can be governed.  

Leasing Documents  
The importance of tracking documents cannot be undermined in leasing. Required documents for a lease may vary based on entities like vendor, equipment and approval level. In such cases, Rules Engine can be configured and used to specify the required and optional documents for various entities.  

Escalation and Notifications  
User actions in leasing software might trigger a notification or even lead to an escalation in certain cases. Workflow provides a convenient way of sending notifications to the users based on different actions.

Dynamic User Interface and Authorization  
It is typical for applications to have different categories of users and thus a different user interface for each of them. For example, due to security reasons, some information may be hidden from one category of users and available to another. Such dynamic user interfaces can be dynamically configured through rules.  

Pricing Calculations  
In almost all financial applications (including leasing), it is common that calculations
(e.g., EMI calculations, subsidy calculations, tax calculations, etc.) may be different for different vendors, dealers and locales. Rules provide an easy mechanism to implement
such scenarios.

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