How to secure an outsourced project

Despite our desire for simplicity, IT continues to become more complex. Distributed applications or client-server models have become the norm. Smartphones and tablets are pushing mobile computing into a new era and changing user behavior. Cloud has significantly altered the way we provide IT solutions and how we meet business needs with technical solutions.

Long gone are the days when a single person could master and manage an entire enterprise network. Today, many businesses lack the dedicated staff and financial resources to manage their ever expanding IT needs. Faced with this situation, a growing number of companies contract out part of their IT to external suppliers.

While many articles have explored the security issues linked with cloud services, there are still many people who fail to recognise the same arguments apply to other outsourcing services. In fact, the challenge of managing risks and security in a diverse IT environment remains the same; whether it’s cloud, outsourcing or managed services, the reality is you are handing control of your business’ devices or applications to someone else.

The security challenge

The challenge for many businesses is deciding the level of security controls and risks a company is willing to accept – one can choose a fully-dedicated environment where security levels are dictated by the organisation, or a public environment can be used in which the default setup is accepted.

For many businesses, the move to an outsourced model presents an opportunity to increase the level of network security. It could even be the trigger for a security upgrade.

Establishing an outsourced project

Outsourcers will generally set technical, physical and organisational security controls that will be applied across all of the outsourcer’s services. This creates a baseline and spreads the cost of security across its client base. It is essential to understand the outsourcer’s baseline and request additional security if the project requires it.

Before entering into an outsourcing agreement, it is also important to consider legal matters. If the outsourcer is providing a “standard” service, it up to the company to ensure that the legal requirements are met – for example, regional data storage compliance and confidentiality legislation.

Managing multiple outsourcers

Outsourcer management is often neglected despite the fact that many companies outsource different parts of a project to a range of suppliers. For example, one company might handle the telephony infrastructure, while another manages WAN. In this situation it is essential to ensure both outsourcers deliver the same level of security for their services. It is also crucial to establish clear communication between the various outsourcers and internal departments – especially during periods of disruption or change.

Incident management

Incident management (both poor and effective) has significant legal, reputational and operational impacts. It is essential to establish a process that dictates when a security incident is detected by the outsourcers; it is adequately evaluated, and reported to the organisation within a predetermined timeframe.

Before entering an outsourcing agreement, it is necessary to ensure that the outsourcer’s obligations are clearly stated and a check needs to be done to confirm the outsourcer doesn’t have any legal constraints that are incompatible with the business.

Conclusion

Whatever part of an organisation’s IT or process is outsourced, it is essential to ensure all security aspects are fully considered and met, and each outsourcer delivers the same level of security for their services. Detailed consideration of these challenges will allow businesses to benefit from the cost and productivity gains offered by outsourcing, while maintaining strategic security plan of the business.

What steps to take during Project Closure?

Introduction – A project life cycle includes steps from planning to the closing of activities that complete the work. Project are temporary, each project has a completion date whether the project is of Development, or simply support service. Project closure takes into considerations that the product you have delivered to the client is as per the requirement mentioned at the start of the contract.

What does a Team Lead or Project Manager do during the closure phase of the Project?

1. Ensure that all the deliverables have been implemented and  delivered to the clients
2. Confirm from the client that the project has been completed,  if possible take it in writing
3. Finalize the documentation – All projects include documentation from the project requirement phase to execution phase. Any documentation related to the project should be retained for future reference if necessary. Organize the documentation chronologically as the project progressed, so you or others are able to easily locate information in the future
4. Work with the client and schedule a Lessons learnt session, to know what we learned from the project. This will help improvise the services and analyze the pain points.

Thus, Project closure is an important part of project management and thus should be treated as an integral part of the project plan. Closing of a project means finishing all activities across all processes, formalizing the closure with internal as well as external client. Each step should be closely planned and executed because if the closure is not done completely the project might lead into a great expense.

 

Inhouse vs Outsourcing

Today’s challenging economic environment has led organisations to look at ways they can streamline processes, improve efficiencies and reduce expenditure. With Business Process Outsourcing contract counts at an all-time high and multi-process and industry-specific functions leading the way, outsourcing is fast proving itself as a compelling option for firms looking to unlock new levels of operational efficiency. In case of payroll specifically many small and mid market businesses to outsource their payroll function, in a bid to free them up to focus on their core competencies, which differentiates their business and will ultimately drive profitability.

Outsourcing minimises the administration burden within a personnel team by removing time-intensive processes and enabling employees to focus their resources on those business activities that will directly impact the firm’s bottom line. Having a dedicated outsource provider can also increase the skills set of an organisation by giving them access to experts that not only have an intimate understanding of the process, but who can also help the business navigate any important changes to the payroll system. It’s more important than ever that SME’s have the peace of mind that their payroll function is in a safe pair of hands.

Yet businesses that use payroll outsourcing to simply produce payslips each month are missing out on significant benefits. Decision makers need to identify business needs and what level of support they require to get the best possible return on investment, whether it be through a fully managed outsourced service, part managed or bureau service. It’s this relationship between a service provider and the customer that is paramount to the success of the service, ultimately dictating whether outsourcing payroll is the right option for supporting a firm’s business.

While the current economic situation will continue to force businesses to focus on driving efficiencies, the importance of developing a relationship built on understanding and trust with the outsource partner cannot be underestimated. It is only by finding a true partner that organisations will be able to realise approximately 30% cost savings on payroll that are possible compared to running payroll in-house. However, it is this significant level of savings that means payroll outsourcing is a trend that is set to increase.

Insourcing

In lay man terms it is opposite of outsourcing. In this scenario companies try to bring back work under its own facility (in other words under its own management). However, before insourcing company needs to answer following question:

• Is insourcing in alignment with their business goals
• Reason why company decided to outsource in first place and what has changed since then
• Does company want to perform full in sourcing or just partial in sourcing
• Is the company ready (in terms of resource and skill) to manage its IT Operations. This also includes technologies / applications that company wishes to deploy / enhance in near future
• Has company decided on how they will execute transition and by which date
• One-time cost of insourcing and maintenance post transition
• Will the decision be accepted to all personnel

Legal Process Outsourcing

Legal outsourcing, also known as legal process outsourcing (LPO) refers to a law firm or corporation outsourcing their legal support services from any outside law firm or legal support Service Company. It might be also any company in the market who obtains legal services from any law firms for the business. Legal outsourcing demand is growing rapidly these days & will be the next big thing by next year. People usually outsource their IT services out in the market, but that is only the one aspect of outsourcing. IT outsourcing is increasing continuously but at the same time, legal outsourcing has merely come to a halt these days. Outsourcing of law firms has been slower in the past year. It’s mainly because of the weak demand growth in business & rising expense growth which is mainly because of the rate at which expenses are increasing compared to the slow rate of revenues which inturn affect the profit margins.

Many large law firms today are facing a tough task whether to outsource their business or how to control the expense costs. There are certain areas where the expense cost may be higher but those are also the areas which generate profits for the organization. To be prepared & safe from the tough economic situation, the best way is to control your expense costs. The best way of reducing your expense costs is to outsource certain parts of your business to an outside service provider. This saves you from the trouble of increase expenses & also you don’t have to worry about the job positions & their salaries & other things that go with it in-house. When you outsource you just have to pay the vendor & the vendor takes the entire headache maintaining your business & keeping up the services up & running. Many law firms today are a bit hesitant when it comes to outsourcing. Instead they are giving opportunities to young junior lawyers by hiring them & getting their work done.
There has been a slower growth rate on the legal outsourcing front in the current year. According to one of the reports, it stated that “the legal firms are reluctant to outsource, however, business in the legal sector is growing rapidly & there might be future of outsourcing opportunities.” But the growth of legal outsourcing in foreign countries like US & UK has been on the negative side when compared them to the recent hiring modules for their business. Outsourcing however has been slowing down in 2012, there is bright future for outsourcing as the revenues are slipping down & the expenses are going up.
When it comes to legal outsourcing, there are various approaches to it. The concept of legal process outsourcing is based on the division of labor principle, prevalent in law firms, where various time consuming and onerous processes like due diligence are delegated to paralegals, document reviewers or interns. This allows the firm to address the various legal issues that arise on a daily basis while being able to streamline productivity.
Whenever you outsource, there’s a legal contract which gets signed between two firms. Some of the common ways in which these contracts can be signed are –

• Direct contract: This contract is directly between the outsourced legal vendor & the company needing legal services for its business. Simple & straight forward
• Managed legal outsourcing: Here a third party law firm comes to the fore. The contract is basically signed between the company & legal process outsourcer but a third party law firm is hired to manage the activities & governance of the legal process vendor
• Outsourcing essential: This phase is where the company decides that certain services of the company needs to be outsourced from a legal service provider & which sometimes is mandatory by the company. This helps in containing costs & effective service quality
• Multi-outsourcing: In this process, the company outsources its services to more than 1 legal process vendors. This helps in getting the expertise from different vendors in different domains & helps in reducing risks & taking advantage of each of the vendor’s strengths. This approach is sometimes very expensive in the long run & need a strong & effective governance processes to monitor all the vendors.

Outsourcing on a High!

IT outsourcing is rising considerably high in this year, according to the “IT Outsourcing Statistics 2012/2013” report. It says that the rise is because of the rise in IT capital & operational budgets. While outsourcing is showing growth, in the recession trenched market & mainly outsourcing is usually a way to reduce costs, but however the recession has also shown cost cutting in outsourcing as well. But the norm seems to be swinging in favor of outsourcing & organizations are now expending their outsourcing budgets to improve their investment in application development, more flexible infrastructure, and cloud-based applications. According to a recent survey, the recession has helped IT spending more on outsourcing & they are looking for service providers who will assist them. Outsourcing is usually done when the organization lacks skilled resources & also when they are reluctant to hire more permanent employees for that additional work. Outsourcing helps IT organizations to grow & organizations see this as an opportunity to become more competitive in the market. But for that there’s need to invest significantly in new technologies which will make them more productive, effective & flexible in the long run.
Other factors which also help outsourcing grow are –
1. The use of software-as-a-service (SaaS) is a substitute for IT offshoring & it continues to gain strength, making application hosting the fastest-growing outsourcing service in the study.
2. Another factor which is helping outsourcing grow is data center outsourcing. Data outsourcing technology is helping the economies of the data center operators as well as SaaS providers.
3. The other factor is the e-commerce systems & application development. Application development has the major part of it which comes under outsourcing.
These are some of the factors contributing towards the growth of outsourcing. Also since the inception of cloud services & SaaS has come to the fore, there has also been a need of expert resources on these fronts & hence offshore hiring is also growing. Also as the talent base grows of these technologies, more enterprises will take on deployment of these services in their business.
Also it’s important for the resources to be good in their soft skills. As technology is growing rapidly & so are their use in the business functions, the need for soft skills becomes higher. Experts these days not only need to know about the technical aspect but also on its functional departments & are able to communicate the same with the people who are operating within that department. Service providers have to keep all these aspects in the front while hiring resources & while training the existing ones. Also organizations these days have to be careful while selecting an outsourcing offshore provider. It’s more of a finding an appropriate provider for your business rather than saving costs. Some of the problems which you may face while selecting a provider are – language issues, culture, time zone barriers, work ethics & many more. Outsourcing thus is not only about saving money but also finding the right people to do your business.

An Ideal Vendor

Today customers are concentrating more towards industry standards & are also opting for vendors who will provide them these services & stay upto the mark. They are looking for more innovative ideas from the providers which will serve their business well in the long. On the other hand service providers are also looking for more width to expand their business by searching in new areas. The BPO industry is one such domain where most IT service providers are looking to venture in. They have realized the advantage of coupling both the BPO & IT services together under one roof to generate more efficient business. Many new IT service providers are venturing into newer domains & starting to develop BPO niches on specific domains where they have had some prior experiences from old clients. They are getting a head start & are beginning to put their footprints in the BPO domain along with their IT support services. Service providers are beginning to get a lead-in in the BPO industry & help develop their services. If a service provider is offering support services for an application by crunching some data, then why not also go ahead to develop & manage the application as one? It’s a sort of a win-win situation for both parties, the client & the IT service provider. Most firms like the financial, life sciences & retail firms are looking for some domain specific vendors to whom they can outsource their BPO services. These areas are basically the areas where there is opportunity for immediate labor arbitrage which is usually offshore & is also at a very low cost. Many companies today are opting for offshore BPO services to expand their business in various geographical locations. Also they are trying to reduce the work force on the onshore front by offshoring all their IT services. Firstly the offshore service is easier & cheaper compared to the onshore services & it’s easier to add scope within a BPO engagement offshore & also enables to hire staff onshore if there’s additional work that needs to be done. Secondly, these engagements are usually small when they incepted. There’s only an extension of the project as the scope increases with hiring of new staff to cover the scope. It also saves dollars as there isn’t any massive spending which goes into extending the contract offshore. These BPO domain specific vendor services are increasing the scope of existing engagements. Now the question is how well the vendor provides these services. Today’s customers are more demanding & are always looking for immediate solutions for their problems. Here comes the true test of the vendors wherein how well you deliver your services in t he end & which is turning out to be the real differentiator in the market. Also the vendors need to aware of the market pressures to maintain their profit margins while delivering these services. Vendors also need to be more careful while searching for talents in the market. Finding & investing in the talents which truly scale the market capabilities are becoming expensive which in turn makes their profit margins narrower by the day. Its upto the vendors now to nurture this talent & help utilize them to their best & also stealthily increase some verticals wherein they can gain advantage over their competitors. The vendor at this stage also needs to be patient & have a positive attitude towards the investment in this raw talent & also train the other resources accordingly to satisfy the customers & their demands. These services are growing rapidly in the market & we’re already seeing many new industry sectors are switching to BPO services. Today the domain specific knowledge is a key factor to the engagements success & to its business. Many models like the SaaS, cloud & ITO business models are incorporating the domain specifications with the existing business & combine it in one model which is more useful. Today the clients & vendors need to more specific in defining, developing & implementing end to end process solutions which can be incorporated in the business models along with their IT services. These models are coming to the forefront recently & the domain specific BPO services are becoming just one part of the entire business structure.

Vendor Selection & vendor management

1.0              Vendors are available in plenty in the market. You’ll find many around the corner.

2.0              But to choose an appropriate vendor suitable for your business needs is the biggest challenge

3.0              Before you select your vendor, you need to decide at your own end, first, if whether we need outsourcing &   second what are we going to outsource

4.0              Once the above picture is clear & if the management approves it then go ahead

5.0              There are 2 ways to go about vendor selection

5.1.1          Internal Selection

5.1.1.1    Gather internal data first, analyze it & then decide the pro & cons of it

5.1.1.2    Research in the market on your own for different vendors who will suit you needs

5.1.1.3    Follow the different procedures (RFI, RFP etc…)

5.1.1.4    Vendor visit

5.1.1.5    Due diligence & Finalize the vendor

5.1.2          Outsource Vendor selection Process

5.1.2.1    All the above 5 steps will take place in consulting with the third party provider

5.1.2.2    Here the entire headache will be of the vendor to handle all things (research, follow-ups with diff vendors, RFI’s, RFP’s & so on…)

5.1.2.3    Company will NOT contact any vendor directly but will be going through this third party vendor

6.0              Once the above phases are done, then select a few vendors & finalize on 1 of them

7.0              Companies usually prefer vendors with big names & better experience in the market

8.0              Eventually the company selects the vendor upon their personal preferences in the end(which ideally should not be the case)

9.0              Then comes the transition phase – where the internal resources help the vendor understand their business processes

10.0          Steady state optimization & relationship management

11.0          Contract Renewal

 

Vendor management

12.0            Once the provider is finalized, the provider’s performance needs to be monitored closely

13.0            Most IT companies are facing this provider management problem

14.0            They don’t really know how to handle a provider & to know how & when to rely on that provider

15.0            Company becomes judgmental about a provider & think they’re not functioning properly

16.0          “Good providers don’t always perform in a good manner & bad providers also don’t lack in their performance as they are imagined to “

17.0          We need to keep track (reports, checks, monitor)

18.0          This inturn keeps the vendor on their toes & they’re able to make claims in front of the top management that they are doing their job properly which has no basis to it in reality

19.0          In-house executives which work with the provider don’t have enough information about the provider on how he is performing. Thus they remain safe from any hindrance to their work ethics

20.0          This should not be the case. Companies need to be aware & move onto more advanced & sophisticated approach for provider management instead of sticking to spreadsheets.

21.0          This is where the Scorecard tool & other tools comes to the fore

22.0          These tools can be designed according to your needs & they act like a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application.

23.0          Tools are better than spreadsheets, save time & effort & also can be accesses from anywhere anytime remotely (24/7 support)

24.0          IT companies also need to be aware that providers are constantly gathering information about them in their repository like customer relationship management (CRM) system

25.0          Vendor Management module tools (e.g. scorecard) are inversely proportional to the customer relationship management (CRM) system where you store provider info

26.0          Managing providers & contractors, in today’s world is becoming more complex by the time

27.0           However you can measure all the things which are in context to the service level agreement (SLA), but there are also some cases where you need additional information to measure those metrics

28.0          So to be on the right path, you need to look back into these agreements & start adopting provider management practices wherein you can measure for yourself & get things done at the same time

29.0          There will be always a dispute about the performance of the provider if we don’t adopt the above methods or find your own for managing your provider.

Selecting a Software Development Company

Software development process life cycle is not that easy as the customers think it is. It’s much more complex & clients don’t often care to see in details of the process. The process includes writing thousands of line of codes every day. This process is more ephemeral. You can’t understand the entire systems right until the last line of code is written & can see whether this is what you intended in the first place during its inception. These processes are time consuming & can also be delayed due to several factors which hamper its progress like resources, skill, technology etc. Also during this process if you add some functionality to the current process then it might cost you spending more & also hamper the deadlines. So ideally it is best advised to select an appropriate vendor who will provide you with the best possible developed software which can meet your expectations.

Here are some of the key criteria’s which you should keep in mind while outsourcing your software development –

1)      Industry experience

• Check for projects executed by the vendor
• Size of projects executed
• Industry Clients for whom they have developed
• Type of technologies they provide & their experience in them
• Check on senior developers about their prior industry experiences

2)      Resource capabilities & specialization

• Which technologies they offer & for how long they have been offering
• Resource experience in technologies offered
• Count of resources technology wise

Sometimes the companies concentrate on some specific technologies & specialize in those areas. Or sometimes the companies take in any technologies as & when they come their way. This process is sometimes not upto the mark when delivering as their resources lack experience in these technologies & can backfire in the long run

3)      Prior client recommendation
you should always contact previous clients of that vendor & ask for their feedback & recommendations. The vendor will provide you with his own feedback but don’t always rely on that.

• Check from clients about project completion & implementation
• Check for quality of the developed software
• Timely completion of projects
• Quality of resources & technology provided

4)      Complete solution to your business

• Check if its providing end-to-end business models
• Whether he’s providing all the services on his own or whether he’s outsourcing some part of the services to third party vendors

5)      Governance

• Knowledge about project handling
• Suggested project life cycle is appropriate or not
• Timely governance of activities

6)      Technology

• Has up to date technologies to fit in for your business needs
• Choose the technology which will best suit your business requirements
• Check on technology experience & projects delivered successfully till date

7)      Communication

• How will the communication be organized
• Communication between the client & the project development team
• Requirement gathering communication between both parties
• How often will be the communication(e.g. Daily, weekly & so on)
• How influential will be the communication in the project.
• Language barriers & communication gap  (e.g. if your provider is on the other end of the planet then the views & thinking of developers might differ from the client. In this instances how is the vendor going to handle such cases)

These are some of the major discussion points which one should consider while outsourcing their software development initiatives.

Tips for Developing Business Apps

Mobile devices, in this day and age, have become a necessity and are no longer considered a luxury product. With companies like Apple and Samsung participating in the race of the higher end smartphones and the Chinese manufacturers bringing in cheap yet durable phones at the other end, the market reach for smartphones has increased immensely.

Many companies have realized that by creating apps for smartphones they can interact directly with their customers and get firsthand information with just a click of a button.

The ease of developing and launching apps on multiple platforms has not only helped enterprises get in touch with their customers on a daily basis, but small startups, as well.

Once the decision to build an enterprise mobile application has been made, there are certain steps to be followed to ensure that the application achieves its goal. Below are some points to keep in mind while developing mobile apps for an enterprise:

Top most App Development Tips

1. Right Platform: The most important point to consider is to choose the right OS for developing the mobile app. A decision has to be made whether to target customers using iOS, Android, Blackberry or Windows phone before developing the application. Choosing to develop a cross platform mobile app is also an option.

2. App Developer: Ensure quality and timely completion of the app by giving priority to the mobile app development team. Right team with the required skill set and access to the right development tools is needed.

3. Outsourcing Mobile App Development: If the in-house team is not skilled or lacks the qualifications to develop the mobile application, there is a need to look at outsourcing the app development. There are many app development agencies and freelancers available to develop mobile applications, but it is vital to run a check on the experience and skills of the developers before outsourcing the development work. This can be done by asking for a list of mobile apps that have been built in the past, for example.

4. Monetizing the App: Putting a right and justified price for the developed app is very important. A thorough analysis of the competitive space is a smart way to get the optimal price that a potential customer would be willing to pay. If the app is overpriced, it can lead to losing potential customers to the competitors and if it’s underpriced, it can easily lower the profits.

These are just a few important points to consider while developing an enterprise mobile application. Preparing a thorough business plan and making sure to keep a constant check on the competitive landscape while partnering with the right solution provider can be clinical in developing a successful mobile app.