Category: Product Development

Series: Choosing The Right Outsourced Product Development Partner – Part 1

We are glad to publish a short series on ‘Choosing The Right Outsourced Product Development Partner‘ which will act as a guide in helping companies, entrepreneurs and individuals choose product dev partners wisely. It will also be published as a whitepaper shortly.

Part 1.

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It may have started as a cost saving business proposition, but outsourcing today is a business decision that requires profound strategic thinking.  A research by Harvard Business Review estimates offshore centers can deliver an additional 4-6x value above labor arbitrage[i]. This means besides cost advantage due to lower wages, there are several other advantages for the companies opting for outsourcing. Obviously, the value multiplier for these advantages depends on how smartly the outsourcing related decisions are made and implemented. One of the most critical decisions in outsourcing related matters, especially for building software and mobile products / apps, would be that of choosing a right partner for outsourced product development.

Choice of partners for developing outsourced products has always been one of the most critical outsourcing related decisions for the companies. If the partner fails to deliver the product quite as per the expectations, the development of the product has to be reassigned to the in house unit or re-outsource to yet another product development partner, resulting in loss of time and opportunity, and increased costs. Therefore, choice of a partner becomes a critical decision for the companies.

Let’s consider a couple of scenarios to understand how the outsourcing over the years has changed and how it is impacting the role of outsourced product development partners.

Consider scenario 1. This is a typical traditional outsourcing arrangement, where objective is no more than to save time and cost.  For example, an IT company outsourcing one of its current function to another IT company with the objective of saving cost and time. In this arrangement the company outsourcing the product possesses good knowledge of outsourced function and hence it has,

  • More clarity on time lines required for the project
  • Clarity on processes and know-how the partner should possess
  • A system to review the work in-process by partner and closer quality checks

In a nutshell in this arrangement companies have greater governance over the partners.

Now consider scenario 2. This is a modern outsourcing scenario where objective for outsourcing is business problem-solving. As a company, in this sort of outsourcing requirement, you will first segregate all the business functions, identify the function(s) in which you lack expertise or managerial bandwidth and outsource that function(s). You will rely on your partner to solve this functional business problem for you. In this arrangement,

  • Outsource partner is provided with a business problem and not product specification. Product specification are developed in collaboration
  • There is high reliance on partner to come up with innovative suggestions.
  • Partner is expected to have flexibility to accommodate changed requirements.
  • Partner must align itself to other business functions.

Though partner selection is critical in both the scenarios, clearly in scenario 2 partner selection is backbone of entire outsourcing arrangement and success of the business. Scenario 2 requires greater amount of trust in partner at lower level of governance.

In the next part, we will evaluate the questions and attribute a business needs to consider before outsourcing the end-to-end development of a product.

[i] http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/03/offshore-centers-can-offer-more/

image source – http://depositphotos.com/

Confluence Of Big Data and Mobile – The Next Revolution: Part 2

Part 2 of  Confluence Of Big Data and Mobile – The Next Revolution by Vishwas Mudagal, CEO of GoodWorkLabs

Internet of Things

Mobile Big Data doesn’t always have to come from people, it also comes from background services and devices themselves that leave a trail of information capturing our every action. We call it Internet of Things (IoT). IoT has the ability to effectively ease the current big data projects. The IoT is a concept which explains how Internet will expand itself when the physical objects, like healthcare sensors, wristwatch displays, home entertainment systems, smart posters and many more, will be connected to the Internet.

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(image courtesy)

As experts describe the IoT, actuators and sensors embedded in the physical objects – from racing cars to pacemakers, are linked through resourceful networks (both wired & wireless), often using the similar  IP (Internet Protocol), which power the Internet. When objects will start sensing the environment and communication, they will become valuable tools for understanding the complexity and responding to it hastily.

It’s predicted that The Internet of Things has the power to make the current big data projects look tiny and miniscule. Paul Bachteal, the senior director of the Americas technology practice for business intelligence vendor SAS, said that “billion is the new million” when IoT moves from a concept to reality.

Applications of Mobile Big Data in diverse industries  

Let’s take a look at some of the hot trends in a few industry sectors.

Retail

Big data has started to play a significant role in delivering insights into shopping behaviour of consumers and many smart retailers are introducing changes in their stores in order to deliver what the customers expect from them. Mobile Big Data has started giving retailers a factual and precise understanding of the buying patterns of different shoppers, how they move around in their stores, what they look out for and what attracts them. Social media inputs through location enabled services provide valuable data as well. Utilising this information, retailers can benefit more from their existing and potential customers while improving their bottom line.

To be concluded in Part 3.

DNA of GoodWorkLabs

Of late, several people have asked me this question- ‘What is the DNA of GoodWorkLabs? How do we consistently deliver top quality stuff?’

I will try to answer it in the shortest and most impactful manner.

Our DNA consists of four powerful beliefs or principles –

DNA

 

#1 – Beauty. Everything we do has to be beautiful, easy to use, efficient. Aesthetic and practical design is the core of our work.

#2 – Scalability. Every piece of code we write has to be tough, bug free, optimised and scalable.

#3 – Agility. Everything we craft is done iteratively with passion, love and honesty. We are always ready to take feedback from the market/users and change our course to bring out the best possible product that will succeed in the market.

#4 – Innovation. We believe in questioning the status quo. We believe in pushing the limits. We believe in changing the world through technology and design.

That’s it! This is the foundation of our company. These are the principles we live, breathe and dream.

I must also add that these shouldn’t comprise the DNA of folks just at GoodWorkLabs, but this should be followed by any developer building any product.

Let’s make the world a more beautiful and efficient place!

Cheers.

Vishwas Mudagal

CEO, GoodWorkLabs

Book: Understanding Big Data – Chapter by GoodWorkLabs CEO Vishwas Mudagal

The book: Understanding Big Data was launched by Simplify360, a leading social business intelligence firm, and Big Data Tech Conclave 2013 that was held in Bangalore, India on 6th & 7th December 2013.  The book comprises of chapters from industry experts and research specialists on various topics on Big Data.

The book covers a chapter on ‘Confluence of Big Data and Mobile–The Next Revolution’ by Vishwas Mudagal, CEO of GoodWorkLabs.

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Here is a snippet from the beginning of the chapter –

Confluence Of Big Data and Mobile – The Next Revolution

By Vishwas Mudagal, CEO, GoodWorkLabs

The next decade is going to be the decade of data explosion. Even today, data and information have become the most significant aspects in every area of the global economy. Companies are continuously churning out burgeoning volumes of data pertaining to their customers, operations, processes and suppliers. All this data which is being getting collected worldwide is broadly termed as “Big Data”. What is driving Big Data? Will the confluence of mobile and big data trigger the next revolution? I would say Yes. Everything at this point in time directs us to take this conclusion. So, let’s talk a bit about the drivers and the impact of big data on mobile for different industries.

To begin, let us first define Big Data. Big Data refers to an unending accumulation of all types of data, whether structured or unstructured, whose confinement, storage, management and analysis is beyond the ability of any typical relational database. According to some experts, big data is data set that meets three attributes – Volume, Variety and Velocity. And of course the fourth V, Value. No one would bother to store and analyse data that cannot be valuable.

Big Data on Mobile OR Mobile Big Data

The mobile devices, especially since the launch of iPhone and now the Android platform, have become major contributors in the collection of Big Data, as these are used by people to practically do everything. Mobiles are tailor made devices for Big Data Innovation. Be it accessing social networking platforms, shopping, maps, read books, measure fitness, watch television shows or using it for traditional purposes of communication using voice, text and chat. To highlight this point, let’s consider the largest social network on earth—Facebook.  48% of Facebook users log in daily through mobile and 49% of Facebook’s revenues are coming from mobile ads. This mobile usage reveals significant information about the users and their behaviours in diverse scenarios. Imagine billions of people on mobile every single day, producing such humongous data that if we analyse it in a right way it would take humanity to the next level, like nothing else ever has. Because never before there was an opportunity presented to humanity to measure what we collectively do or like/dislike in our daily lives.

Drivers

So what are the drivers? Of course smartphone sales growth is a top reason and the smart phones themselves are becoming superior, and they pack a ton of computing power to do practically everything that a laptop could do and much more. According to the IDC reports, the amount of data created will grow by a factor of 44 from 2009 to 2020 and mobile and ‘Internet of Things’ will be at the forefront of this data generation. According to another IDC report that analyses the worldwide smartphone market for 2013–2017, it is believed that smartphone vendors will ship a total of 918.6 million smartphones in 2013. From there, shipment volumes will grow at a CAGR of 16.0% before reaching a total of 1.5 billion units shipped in 2017.

To read the complete chapter and the rest of the chapters, you can order for the book. Contact us for a copy.

GoodWorkLabs is a top outsourced product development company that is providing cutting edge consulting, services and product development in the mobile big data space. We are helping companies push the limits in big data and we are witnessing a strong growth in this sector. For consultation on big data on mobile, contact us.

Top 7 traits of a GoodWorkLabs Superstar

Top 7 traits of a GoodWorkLabs Superstar –

goodworklabs-technology-superstar

#1 – We are innovators. We are constantly looking for bright minds, innovators and awesome programmers to join us.

#2 – We are passionate people. Passion drives us. We need passionate RoR, Java, iOS, Android and UI developers who want to make a mark in industry.

#3 – We are problem solvers. All our positions need excellent problem solving skills and indepth knowledge of data structures and computer programming concepts.

#4 – We are Agile animals, all the way. If you have Agile Software Development (Scrum) experience, it’s a plus.

#5 – We are Extreme Programmers. Experience in Extreme Programming methodologies of pair programming, TDD (test driven development), continuous integration and the like are a plus.

#6 – We are an evangelist of open source technologies. If you have contributed significantly to open source, we definitely want to hear from you. Share your GitHub link with us.

#7 – Age or experience no bar. Your code and algorithms do the talking. Period.

Experience levels described in careers section are just an indication. We are interested to work with passionate problem solvers whose coding does all the talking!

Become a superstar. Join us.

We have some exciting opportunities, take a look at our careers section.

Ready to start building your next technology project?