Hot and New: ADM &TestingServices

www.globalservicesmedia.com

Why Governments Are Treading Slow Pg 10

“WFM Has Changed to a Know-ledge-based Function” Pg 8

Android Accelerates Mobile Application Development Pg 22

The gateway to the global sourcing of IT and BPO services

September 2011

Hot and New:ADM & Testing

Services

Demonstration City of ChinasourcingHangzhou

Software Paradise, 后Hangzhou SourcingTo Combine the Global Resources and Facilitate the

Integration & Upgrade of the Global Service Capability

Hangzhou was defined as the “China Service Outsourcing Demonstration City” in February 2009. Hangzhou is also the

one of eleven software industry base cities in mainland China. It has currently formed the several industries including

telecommunication, software, integrated circuit, digital TV, animation games and E-commerce.

The revenue of software business in Hangzhou was achieved at 47 billion RMB in 2009, the software export revenue reached at

460million USD. There were total 112 enterprises passed CMMCMI, ISO27001 certification. There were 20 IT software enterprises

have list on public market, two companies ranked at Top 10 of self-brand software products, total 15 enterprises have list at the

key software enterprises name list of the national strategic planning.

In order to accelerate the development of outsourcing industry, Hangzhou Municipal Government set up the leading team

to draw up the development plan, issue the supporting policy to make the rapid development of outsourcing industry in

Hangzhou. The total delivered amount of offshore outsourcing business reached at 919mllion US Dollars, risen to 352%

compared to the same period of last year (2008).

Hangzhou government has put more focus on the financial service outsourcing that is considered as the medium and high end

outsourcing industry, Hangzhou now is creating to become the financial delivery center.

Sponsors:

Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China

Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China

Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China

Host City :

Hangzhou People’s Government

Official Promotion:

Hangzhou Municipal Foreign Trade & Economic Cooperation Bureau

October Trip in HangzhouChina Sourcing Summit & Delegation to China

International Financial Outsourcing Center International Financial Outsourcing Center

Promotion & Undertaker: Great-Idea International Outsourcing Consulting Center Contact: Tel-8610 85863613 Fax-8610 59081093 [email protected]

Please Attention

Hangzhou, ChinaA City of Financial Delivery Center

Demonstration City of ChinasourcingHangzhou

Software Paradise, 后Hangzhou SourcingTo Combine the Global Resources and Facilitate the

Integration & Upgrade of the Global Service Capability

Hangzhou was defined as the “China Service Outsourcing Demonstration City” in February 2009. Hangzhou is also the

one of eleven software industry base cities in mainland China. It has currently formed the several industries including

telecommunication, software, integrated circuit, digital TV, animation games and E-commerce.

The revenue of software business in Hangzhou was achieved at 47 billion RMB in 2009, the software export revenue reached at

460million USD. There were total 112 enterprises passed CMMCMI, ISO27001 certification. There were 20 IT software enterprises

have list on public market, two companies ranked at Top 10 of self-brand software products, total 15 enterprises have list at the

key software enterprises name list of the national strategic planning.

In order to accelerate the development of outsourcing industry, Hangzhou Municipal Government set up the leading team

to draw up the development plan, issue the supporting policy to make the rapid development of outsourcing industry in

Hangzhou. The total delivered amount of offshore outsourcing business reached at 919mllion US Dollars, risen to 352%

compared to the same period of last year (2008).

Hangzhou government has put more focus on the financial service outsourcing that is considered as the medium and high end

outsourcing industry, Hangzhou now is creating to become the financial delivery center.

Sponsors:

Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China

Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China

Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China

Host City :

Hangzhou People’s Government

Official Promotion:

Hangzhou Municipal Foreign Trade & Economic Cooperation Bureau

October Trip in HangzhouChina Sourcing Summit & Delegation to China

International Financial Outsourcing Center International Financial Outsourcing Center

Promotion & Undertaker: Great-Idea International Outsourcing Consulting Center Contact: Tel-8610 85863613 Fax-8610 59081093 [email protected]

Please Attention

Hangzhou, ChinaA City of Financial Delivery Center

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April 2011

features

29ENTErPrISE MOBILITy – FACTS AND MyTHS!!!

by Hari Haran, President, Persistent Systems, Inc.

32THE FuTurE OF SOFTWArE DEVELOPMENT

by Kumar Parakala, KPMG

35THE CHANGING FACE OF CuSTOMEr SATISFACTION IN OFFSHOrED IT SOLuTIONS

by Lalit Dhingra, President NIIT Technologies, Inc., North America

32A CEASE FIrE IN THE FuNCTION POINT HOLy WAr

By Nigel Hughes, Global Services Director, Compass Management Consulting

xperts

Forthcoming Specials:

n vox artiS on infraStructure managementn DeStinationS comPenDium

GlobAl ServiCeS DiGiTAl MAGAzine

8WOrkFOrCE MANAGEMENT HAS NOW CHANGED TO A MOrE kNOWLEDGE-BASED FuNCTION”

by Smriti SharmaOver the years, WFM has found its way into business process-ing, because when WFM is applied over an optimized process, the overall economics is far superior. Service providers have therefore been using WFM as another tool in their arsenal to optimize overall process management.

10CLOuD COMPuTING: WHy GOVErNMENTS ArE TrEADING SLOW

by Smita VasudevanCloud adoption for e-governance has been slow. Even as gov-ernments acknowledge that cloud is the way to go, there are many challenges that need to be addressed. What’s the way out?

[COVEr STOry]

15HOT AND NEW: ADM & TESTING SErVICES

by Sourabh Chandra PushpTrends in Software Development and the rise of Testing

[SPECIAL rEPOrT]

22ANDrOID ACCELErATES MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

by Sourabh Chandra PushpThe unprecedented growth in the user base of Android-based devices and the demand for mobile applications is fueling a huge demand for development using all methods of sourcing- outsourcing, crowdsourc-ing, and buying readymade apps.

Editor’s NotE

Ed NairEditor

[email protected]

“Inthepast,thechoicewasbetween

costsavingsandtransformation.Nowyouhavetodoboth;itisa

modelofcontinuousimprovement-

re-engineeringneverstops.”

Directions for Indian BPO

the Nasscom BPO Summit was a good occasion to get a sense of where the Indian heritage companies are headed. Multiple flavors ruled these

conversations depending on which group you talked to and what they were looking out for. The large ones were interested in high growth strategies; the mid-tier companies were either looking for opportunities in commod-ity areas with temporally high demand or evaluating niches that require specialized expertise; and the legions of small BPO shops were there wide-eyed trying to make sense of what BPO is all about.

Altogether, it was an interesting set of viewpoints. More importantly, most of these ideas were very much grounded in reality; unlike the prover-bial ‘shifting the paradigm’, ‘going higher up on the value chain’, and kind of talks. Here are a few of them:

A leading client said- “Don’t treat kPO or knowledge-related BPO like IT in terms of costs. The competitive edge here will come from value and insights. It is not about lift-and-shift, but it is about combining expertise between the client and the service provider. This mindset is yet to evolve.” • A leading service provider said- “In the past, the choice was between cost

savings and transformation. Now you have to do both, it is a model of continuous improvement- re-engineering never stops. Don’t blackbox your processes; you need to see it.”

• The idea of shoring has gotten silly. This place is good for that and so and so— don’t be guided by that. This is a people’s business, so go where you have the people.

• Don’t compare yourselves with IT services companies; their pressure is budgets and ours is business model.

• The biggest mistake is to club BPO companies with IT outsourcing companies. The runway for BPO is much longer; size of the BPO market is close to $280 B, growing at CAGr is 20% and the size of IT market is $150 B, growing at CAGr of 7%.

• Over time, supply markets become demand markets and demand mar-kets become supply markets.

• Indian BPO had it good till now. Now is the time to ‘scale up the algorithm’.

• BPO service providers need to be able to do three things continuously: manage cost pressures and lower costs; invest in training, skills, and platform; and deliver increases in business value to clients. Overall, my sense is that most of the Indian BPO companies realize

that cost arbitrage, FTE-based models, and transaction volumes no longer determine success. Although the domestic Indian BPO market is a totally different story, Indian BPO vendors do seem to understand what is needed to lead the global market.

Enjoy the summer !!! GS

YOUR STRATEGICTECHNOLOGY PARTNERBuilding solutions for Finance, Telecom, IT, Automotive and Energy sectors 4500+ best in class engineers 18 offi ces in 11 countries Track record of building highly complex solutions Expertise in business and technology domains Focus on innovation and R&D Best-in-class processes

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8 Globalservices www.globalservicesmedia.com september 2011

the simple definition of Workforce Management (WFM) involves assigning the right employees with the right skills to the right job at the right time. in effect, it is also about optimizing the workforce rather than mere allocation of resources. over the years, WFM has found its way into business processing, because when WFM is applied over an optimized process, the overall economics is far superior. service providers have therefore been using WFM as another tool in their arsenal to optimize overall process management.

“Workforce Management Has Now Changed to a More Knowledge-based Function”

GS: What’s the primary driver for WFM outsourcing? Sk: The current market scenario - cost pressures, increased competition, rapid industry change and the virtual nature of the workplace, mixed with traditional constraints -

salaries account-ing for 70% or more of the cost of running a call centre, are both factors that have been understood by organizations in their search for improved resource utiliza-tion.

WFM out-sourcing has allowed com-panies to focus on their core

expertise and leverage experts in cost effective and efficient call centre operational management. Outsourcing in this area has been increasing in both large- and mid-sized com-panies, but there is accelerated growth in the mid-sized market for WFM optimization.

GS: How has WFM evolved over time? Sk: WFM process outsourcing started as simply a BPO function. It has now changed to a more knowledge-based function, which requires a partnership between vendor and client that enables the vendor to seek and implement process improvements to a mutually beneficial outcome. Companies that gain the most out of outsourcing establish a knowledge based partnership with vendors, working together to fully assess the operations and implement the best solution for the company.

Financial services companies have been expanding WFM practices and benefits to all parts of their organi-zation, extending past the contact centre. Improving resource utilization has become a value to front-, mid- and

WFM Outsourcing

Sanjiv Kapur

Smriti Sharma, Sr. Correspondent, Global Services, interviewed Sanjiv Kapur, global head-BPO & CIS, iGATE Patni, to find out how the company used WFM to optimize its contact center management business. Excerpts from the conversation:


GS: Going forward, how do you see WFM evolving? Sk: We see there is increase in demand for leveraging more sophisticated analytics to drive forecasting accuracy, operational performance by using different analytical models based on speech analytics, market analytics, busi-ness analytics and employee behaviour analysis (attrition trends, shrinkage, home-based reps, etc.) to drive effi-ciency and optimization at the enterprise level. Customers with contact centre business typically rely on WFM tools for historical or trend based forecasting. These forecast-ing models are based on both empirical and stochastic approaches.

GS: What are the challenges faced when you use WFM? Sk: The challenges faced are similar to that of any process outsourcing engagement; WFM adds an additional layer of complexity to it. The challenges are:

1. Identifying contract terms that are mutually beneficial for both the client and the service provider.

2. Identifying key metrics to measure vendor performance 3. Audit / governance mechanism to validate the process

being implemented by the service provider4. Maintaining the status quo is not acceptable to the

customers, it is now necessary to showcase continuous improvements to the process

5. Customer expectation of phase of the outsourcing model needs to be appropriately set at the beginning of the engagement. Typical outsourcing models move through the phases of transition, stabilize, steady and matured. GS

WFM Outsourcing

back-office areas, especially focusing on the typically exten-sive branch network. WFM process outsourcers have to be able to support WFM efforts in non-traditional centres, such as a bank branch, and have to be able to support emerging technologies including video, social networking and other off phone work activities.

GS: What are the different models/ methods of imple-menting being employed?Sk:WFM is a collaboration of science and art. If it is well-balanced with process and if it is implemented well based on customer needs, it could reap multifaceted benefits to the organization. Customer organizations can acquire WFM capabilities by outsourcing work in multiple ways:

a. Consulting services: where customer onboard the con-sultant to review and improve the existing processes or creates them afresh. The same is later supported by the in-house WFM team

b. Selective process outsourcing: where most of the WFM functions are outsourced and a limited work left in house with the customer

c. End to End outsourcing- where all the WFM processes and functions are outsourced to the vendor in entirety and performed at chosen location.Our market strategy has moved away from outcome-

based pricing, FTE and volume based transaction model to a revenue/ risk sharing or pay per transaction model. These models really ensure that we are aligned to resolve customer challenges and provide empowerment to deliver continuous process improvement.


Cloud adoption for e-governance has been slow. Even as governments acknowledge that cloud is the way to go, there are many challenges that need to be addressed. What’s the way out?

the cloud is the biggest wave of change to hit the tech industry. When businesses world over are expecting huge benefits through cloud adoption, there are no reasons as to why the

governments should lag behind. The broad picture is that experts suggest that the public sector is gradually becoming aware of the promises of the cloud and adoption rates are also going up. Strategies are being rolled out worldwide, investments are being planned for cloud computing, but most things are still on an evaluation stage.

According to the AMD 2011 Global Cloud Computing Adoption, Attitudes and Approaches Study, around 37 per cent of global businesses have deployed the cloud models in some way, whereas only around one-fourth of the pub-lic enterprises are on the cloud. Interestingly, a very large percentage is evaluating and investigating its benefits and implications.

As concerns and hype surrounds the cloud, there is a clear need to cut through the myths and encourage adop-tion. There have been talks on how the uS government

SmitaVasudevan

can help increase cloud adoption in a big way and when will other countries follow suit.

Adoption Picks UpCloud is now more of a reality than just hype and is

changing the way enterprises are doing business. This is surely acting as an eye opener for most government agen-cies that are looking to revive and transform their service delivery capabilities. There is more interest for the cloud now and adoption is going up, but there is a clear differ-ence in the way different countries are approaching the cloud.

Taking a quick look across various geographies, uS and uk seems to be reasonably ahead in their cloud adoption strategies. The uS Federal Budget 2011 puts a strong focus on cloud as a strategy to drive down costs and bring efficiencies. According to the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy (2011), an estimated $ 20 B can be moved to the cloud out of the $ 80 B uS IT spending.

kPMG’s The Cloud Changing the Business Ecosystem report, states that the united kingdom is also not far

Infratructure Oursourcing

Cloud Computing: Why Governments Are treading slow

ClouD ADoPtIon BY uS FEDERAl GoVERnMEnt

By 2014, over $ 1Bn of the federal IT budget would be devoted to the cloud. By moving to a cloud service, General Services Administration (GSA) now pays an annual total of $650,000 for uSA.gov and all associated costs which is a cost savings of 72 per cent. The migra-tion to the cloud is estimated to help Washington D.C. city government save 48 per cent on mail expenditures and the City of Los Angeles 23.6 per cent.

Source: KPMG report ‘The Cloud Changing the business ecosystem’

Source: lockheed Martin Cyber Security Alliance survey 2011

the road So far

For more information and sponsorship opportunities Contact Niketa at

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Releasing 30 Sept. 2011

Publishing Formats:l digital Magazinel PdF editionl Web edition (dedicated microsite)

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behind in deploying a cloud adoption strategy. The British government is building a Government cloud application store which is expected to be the only channel for IT serv-ices procurement in the British government.

Government organizations across the Asia pacific too are swiftly finding their way to the cloud. Increasing need for Cost savings and flexibility in IT infrastructure are major reasons for the shift. As the thrust is more on secu-rity and the location of data centers, the APAC shows more preference for hybrid and private clouds.

What is Driving the Change?Moving to the cloud is an inevitable change today

and it is obvious that governments too are realizing this. As most of these agencies remain in the mid of budget constraints, the need to drive down cost is significant. Thus cost saving is the primary driver for cloud adop-tion in the government space. What else is driving the change? Operational efficiency and standardization are other areas that are critical for government. There is a high need for transparency and better interactions within communities to ensure that services are delivered effectively. The IT infrastructure needs for governments are massive, and the fast changing demands call for a high degree of flexibility and scalability. Cloud comput-ing allows efficiency, standardization of procedures and improved flexibility. It helps in streamlining services and avoiding duplication, and offers all round efficien-cies that can drive down costs significantly. Technology innovation is another benefit that cloud can offer to governments.

It is thus highly justified that more number of government organizations are turning to the cloud. A recent example of this is The state of Florida mov-ing to a state-wide private cloud email solution offered by ACS, to deal with operational i n e f f i c i e n c i e s and duplication across agencies. C o m m e n t i n g on what the move holds for the state, Chuck Cliburn, Senior Vice President, ACS, says, “The shift will increase p r o d u c t i v i t y and collaborate efforts between agencies.”

Hurdles to CrossEven as the cloud is gaining popularity in the govern-

ment space and adoption plans are in the pipeline, real implementation remains slow. There are numerous factors responsible for this. Security concerns are more promi-nent in the case of governments and CIOs lack trust in the cloud models. Coupled with that is the fear of losing control over the IT infrastructure and data. The AMD report states that 36 percent of global public sector is still investigating cloud solutions. Lack of IT skills and exper-tise to handle cloud implementation is also a big hurdle that is coming in the way of adoption. Another important factor to consider is that cloud models work on pay-per-use, on-demand basis, while IT budgeting is done much in advance. So it becomes difficult to predict demand while using cloud models.

What’s the way out? The Frost & Sullivan report sug-gests that there is a need for international legal and govern-ance frameworks on cloud computing. It is also essential for policy makers to strike the right regulatory balance in ensuring flexibility, regulatory compliance and jurisdiction issues.

To capitalize on the cloud opportunity, governments need to have increased awareness and trust on how it works in reality. Service providers need to bust the myths and communicate clearly what the cloud solutions can offer and ensure that security issues are handled effectively. Building confidence is likely to act as a major catalyst for government cloud adoption in the long run and wake this sector up to the promises of the cloud. GS

ACS oFFERS PRIVAtE ClouD EMAIl SolutIon to tHE StAtE oF FloRIDA

Here are the excerpts from an interaction with Chuck Cliburn, ACS:

The Problem: Over 30 separate email systems for the State Government of Florida resulting in opera-tional inefficiency and duplication across agencies.

The Solution: A single, unified email platform to be implemented and operated by ACS, A Xerox Company. The new system will be based on Microsoft Exchange 2010. Archiving and E-discovery will be based on Symantec products. Help desk services will be provided by ACS as part of the contract. The operational model is private-cloud solution operated within Florida.

The Estimated Benefits: The anticipated benefits include a common email directory, share calendars across agencies, improved archiving and discovery, improved security, improved disaster recovery and improved help desk services.

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enter

Hot and New: ADM &

Testing Services“The 2011 survey results are very encouraging and highly favorable for an active software development market, as well as the expectation of an improving business environment,”

—Mary Brandon, VP of Marketing, SoftServe, Inc.


Cover Story

You need to continue maintaining the army of programmers; they are the ones who ‘create’ software and applications. Even as software devel-opment services continue to thrive amidst changing technology environ-ments and methodologies, the curve for the growth of software testing as an independent service is steep.

look at software development at the most basic level. It is part engineering and part workman-ship. The end objective is to engineer quality code; the engineering part focuses on process

and efficiency and the quality part stresses innovation. Grady Booch, chief scientist at rational Software Corp., says- “Software development is fundamentally hard. And being a human process, we have to consider what are the things that eat away at our ability to focus on delivering good software. That might be project start-up costs, collab-oration costs, stakeholder collaboration, technology churn ... and the activities of a code warrior that have nothing to do with quality code.”

As an activity, software development will outlast the technology industry. Therefore, the market for software development will persist, despite economic ups and downs. During period of economic busts, software development will get postponed, but it will return with a throttle effect when the economy recovers.

A recent ExecutiveBrief 2011 Software Development Trends Survey indicates continued market stability and con-firms the respondents` increasing optimism on the imme-diate future: Seventy-nine percent (79%) of respondents

SourabhChandraPushp

indicated their software development budgets would increase in 2011; with nearly half indicating their budget is likely to grow greater than 10% as compared to last year. Only 5.2% believed their 2011 budget would decrease by 10% or more as compared to 2010.

Software Development- OutsourcingThe survey indicates early-market activity in SaaS/Cloud

and mobile applications. The majority of respondents indi-cated business case planning, solution architecture, and implementation as their greatest challenges and area that need external assistance.

“The 2011 survey results are very encouraging and highly favorable for an active software development market, as well as the expectation of an improving business environment,” said Mary Brandon, VP of Marketing, SoftServe, Inc.

research carried by Horses for Sources research (State of Outsourcing 2011 Study ) predicts 95% of buyers reporting positive outcomes. It also reveals that in-house delivery of IT application, maintenance and processes are still dominant in 2010-2011. Application Development outsourcing saw 38% in-house activity together with 31% outsourced activity as sourcing model for managing the IT business. Companies

trends in software development and the rise of testing


Trends in Software Development and the Rise of Testing

are placing a renewed focus on aftermarket services, as well as maintenance, repair and overhaul services as a source for new revenue streams. Servicing existing products is taking on a greater importance.

Clients who outsource software to outside providers are expecting nothing less than great quality, as the IT devel-opment outsourcing scene matures. After about a decade of growth, it is time for superior customer service, reliable organization, modern management and, most important of all, top-notch solutions. Nearshoring, farmshoring, cloud-shoring: These fancy concepts that mean, respectively, out-sourcing to a nearby country, outsourcing to a rural area and migrating software development to a cloud have one thing in common – they are evidence for willingness of clients to seek new IT development outsourcing models. In the new year, more contracts are likely to flow to emerging software outsourcing destinations, like Brazil, russia and Eastern Europe. As these areas attract investment due to their acceler-ating potential, more Western companies will want to create a foothold there.

According to Andrei Pronin, GM-Auriga- “The buy-ers better understand the importance of non-technological factors. The providers’ capabilities to see the business needs

behind the technical requirements, build trust, organize communications, continuously optimize the process, tailor it to the specific needs”.

Software Development TodayVirtualization, cloud computing, dynamic languages,

Javascript browser integration, rIA frameworks, openID, and life after EJB are all common features of today’s software development landscape.

Agile methods are a good thing because they address the social dynamics of small teams, for which the rational unified Method is silent. But it’s also good to have an inter-play between the two, because there are a lot of things that the rational unified process deals with but for which the agile methods are silent. So we have some learning to do on both sides. There is a growing demand for applications in mobile and cloud areas, and rich multimedia delivery and storage solutions.

According to, Genefa Murphy, H-P, ”Two obvious trends are cloud computing and mobile access. They are comple-mentary. As the number of people and devices on the net increases, our ability to shape traffic on the demand side gets worse. Spikes in demand will happen faster and reach higher


levels over time. Mobile devices exacerbate the demand side problems by greatly increasing both the number of people on the net and the fraction of their time they are able to access it.”

Other prominent future trends are:Enterprise App Stores

- Enterprise will demand the kind of apps they find on their smartphone and tablets. Gone will be monolithic apps with loads of features that are rarely used. Highly spe-cialized applications with high usability would be in.

Private Clouds - Despite the economic and technological incentives of outsourcing one’s infra-structure, there will always be that organizational and human need to build and own one. Private clouds of course will overlap and need to integrate with public clouds, simply because the dominant business model will be SaaS.

Desktop Services - Services that we commonly expect on a desktop like the file systems, shortcuts, contacts, calendars and programs will increasingly reside in the cloud. This is a consequence for the need for greater security on mobile devices and the need to share information among multiple devices and multiple collaborators. The filesystem of the future will be collaborative shared spaces.

Impact of Cloud on Software Development Industry

How does the increasing adoption of cloud computing technologies influence software development? Will it affect the development of web based and Software-as-a-Service applications?

Most of the cloud migrations we see today are applica-tions that have been written for physical environments and are not taking full advantage of the cloud. We are now deal-ing with a growing boom in software development for cloud computing that takes advantage of benefits but also issues that will open up opportunity for new software develop-ment. The selling and licensing of applications will change too. The way data is handled will undergo a major shift. Data driven applications will become mainstream.

In the cloud world, software development has become more complex in terms of security, reliability, usability and performance and will keep the software development indus-try busy.

Software TestingSoftware testing has always been an important phase in

software development life cycle. Quality cannot be compro-mised, and this realization has led to a lot of focus on quality assurance space and testing as a discipline got matured in the last 5 years. A decade ago testing was meant to catch

defects but today testing has matured to prevent defects. There has been a lot of innovation in this space and several tools, methodologies and proc-esses have evolved and developers have started relying on testing for overall quality of the product.

Market demands and technology advance-ments (mobile / tablets/ iPad) have also created an increased need for testing

as the end user community is getting broadened and diversi-fied. All software products need sufficient testing. And both – investors and developers tend to forget about it. Investors want to deploy their product fast and start to earn money on it. Developers like to push testing at the end of product development. With tight scheduling, we often end up with a product infested with bugs and inconsistencies. And proper testing needs time. The best approach is starting testing at the beginning of software development process.

The market for discrete testing services worldwide and in the uS is expected to experience solid growth as cloud and mobility drive next phase of evolution, according to a latest report ‘Worldwide and u.S. Discrete Testing Services 2011–2015 Forecast: Cloud and Mobility Will Drive Next Phase of Evolution’, from market intelligence firm IDC. Discrete or standalone global testing services spending reached $9.4 billion in 2010, with projections for worldwide growth esti-mated at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGr) of 15.4% through 2015.

Worldwide spending on testing (including both internal and external testing skills, tools and related hardware and systems) will near the €100bn mark in 2014, according to PAC Consultants. Testing is also becoming one of the strongest areas of recruitment in the IT sector, and PAC estimates that there are now more than 100,000 professional testers worldwide. The report found that global spending on testing software and services is currently out-stripping overall IT expenditure, and will continue to grow.

According to Gartner, independent testing as a business globally is growing at 40 to 50 percent and there is a 35 to

Trends in Software Development and the Rise of Testing

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40 percent growth in offshore testing services. As per the esti-mates of Ovum, the uS alone spends a total of $ 59 billion on software testing.

According to a recent Nasscom report, over the last 5-6 years, India has grown to become the largest destination for outsourcing of software testing services, accounting for 32% of the total global outsourcing share. Export revenues and the number of employees have doubled over the last four years. In Fy 2011, the Indian independent software testing market is expected to grow 23.5% over Fy 2010. The icing on the cake is the fact that the domestic software testing market has the potential to cross $1.5 billion by 2020.

As per the estimates of Ovum, the uS alone spends a total of $ 59 billion on software testing. Of this total spend, $13 billion is outsourced as a service to the Asian countries. Given the reputation of India as an IT country, a total of 70 percent, totaling to $9.1 billion is garnered by Indian IT service providers. The application development and mainte-nance market has only demonstrated a CAGr of 19 percent year-on-year, in comparison to 47 percent by the independ-ent testing services.

New Waves in TestingAs smartphones are becoming an integral part of the

business ecosystem, testing plays a very key role in ensuring that business apps deliver the promises that are made to busi-ness teams. Testing mobile applications require significant changes in the way we approach test strategies, tools, proc-esses and methods. This needs unique tools, technical know-how of various smart phones, mobile operating systems, know-how of emulators/ simulators, test automation tools that are specific to mobile applications, test methodology and approaches etc…

A well-defined testing strategy combining a mix of several testing methods and using emulators when required will help enterprises to resolve several issues from hardware, OS, and end-user perspectives, while ensuring cost, quality and faster time-to-market for mobile applications.

Testing as a Service (TaaS) Testing-as-a-service allows enterprises to outsource all the

aspects related to testing (Infrastructure, tools, people, test methodology etc..). This model allows enterprises to focus on core aspects of their business.

TaaS is fast evolving to be a financially and technically viable alternative to owning testing infrastructure and tools. Most enterprises today recognize TaaS as a sure-shot way to reduce cost and infrastructure spend while offering assurance of purpose readiness. TaaS solution facilitates multi-tenant use of computing resources, optimizes expense and capital outlays, and offer businesses flexibility by allowing rapid provisioning and de-provisioning in a pay-per-use model.

kalyana rao konda, Vice President, AppLabs, says-”The consumer demands are leading to technology advancements and fierce competition between providers. The survival of providers has become subjective to the quality of the prod-uct with superior service. Software Testing plays a vital role in providing reliability and quality to consumers to ensure that they don’t have a bad experience on using / buying the product they like.”

More so we can say that the current competitive environ-ment and consumer demand for sophisticated applications is putting increased pressure on businesses to deliver quality apps at reduced costs and within shorter time period. This ‘no scope for error’ environment has increased the need for effective software testing. Today, it has become one of the fastest growing areas of the corporate IT expenditure.

On the other hand, meeting customer expectations has now become a challenge for enterprises across all the industries due to the faster delivery cycles and increas-ingly competitive landscape. According to kris Canekeratne, Chairman & CEO, Virtusa- “The pressure on IT is on the rise to deliver increased business value in a shorter duration, improved quality, while meeting rapidly changing business demands and controlling risks. Enterprises operating across various industries and geographies have now realized the need to deliver quality products/applications and services to meet customer expectations.” GS

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the unprecedented growth in the user base of Android-based devices and the demand for mobile applications is fueling a huge demand for development using all methods of sourcing- outsourcing, crowdsourc-ing, and buying readymade apps.

A ndroid device shipments currently reach close to 50% of the smartphone OS mar-ket share. ron DuPlain, Lead Android & Mobile Web Engineer, says that today when

everything is centered around mobility, application development has taken vital transformation (both in terms of development and strategy). Application devel-opment companies are focused to help clients realize the potential of rapidly evolving mobile technologies, from developing a mobile strategy to launching mobile products.

‘Android development’ is a complex process, the suc-cessful implementation of Android Mobile Application Development projects by and large depends on the devel-opment approach itself. With the explosion of smartphone and tablet use around the world, enterprise development teams are being given new marching orders: “Get our applications into the field!”

The OpportunityWith the launch of the Apple Developer kit (SDk),

new garage type developers with little experience in mobile content and application development rushed into the mar-ket. Most of them initially developed their own applica-tions but soon found out that developing for third parties generates a more secure revenue stream than becoming a publisher themselves. They make the majority of their business revenue with application development.

As of May 2011, users in 131 countries could purchase paid applications from the Android Market. Some car-riers offer direct carrier billing for Android Market app purchases. There is no requirement that Android applica-tions be acquired from Android Market. users may down-load Android applications from a developer’s website or through a third party alternative to Android Market.

According to Markus Pohl, research2guidance, Android Market is the fastest growing mobile content plat-form since the beginning of 2011. The Android Market is clearly the most dynamic app market today with the high-est growth rates in terms of app numbers, but this does not necessarily mean that the chance for an average developer to generate revenue on that platform has grown as well. On the contrary, the success of an app store is negatively correlated to the success of an average developer.

There’s no doubt Android Market will at some point offer more applications for download and/or purchase than Apple’s App Store, as the latter’s growth has been slowing down of late, while the Android application store’s growth rate has been accelerating.

In a recent report, app store analytics company Distimo forecasted that Android would surpass the App Store in size before the end of July 2011. Provided current growth rates for new app uploads are main-tained, research2guidance expects Android Market to reach 425,000 apps next August, effectively overtak-ing App Store in size. It was recently forecasted the

SourabhChandraPushp

Android Accelerates Mobile Application development


Android Accelerates Mobile Application Development

worldwide smartphone application market to reach $15 billion by 2013. The firm says the global smartphone app market has in fact already reached $2.2 billion in the first six months of this year.

Evidently, there’s always the question whether this matters at all. After all, the bulk of applications that are available for both platforms don’t see much traction any-way, so how relevant it is whether there are 100,000 apps or 200,000 apps that are rarely, if ever, downloaded by anyone?

In fact, notes research2guidance, Android Market’s high growth rate does not necessarily mean that the aver-age mobile app developer will have a better shot at gener-ating revenues from the store. In fact, the firm posits, the opposite may be true:

Apart from individual users, the corporate world is moving towards implementing large scale enterprise appli-cations such as CrM, BPM, Social Networking applica-tions etc. on smartphones and tablets. This is done with a view to take advantage of seamless connectivity to their enterprise resources and also to provide the next genera-tion user experience. Such a trend makes it imperative that mobile application development companies need to adopt industry proven software development models such as Agile practices. Agile practices offer not only the SDLC/PDLC guidelines but also define the best tools and tech-niques that can be used to help rapid application and high quality software development with automated tools. For example, Scrum is the most frequently chosen Agile model that the industry is adopting in android mobile application development.

Besides native application develop-ment and testing tools, there are quite a few hybrid application development and test-ing tools, frameworks and platforms that are available in the market to adopt agile Android development. Hybrid mobile appli-cation development platforms provide an integrated develop-ment environment where portable appli-cations can be rapidly developed once and deployed on various makes and models of

SmartPhones and Tablets. Hence, developers can focus more on the business logic than native platform develop-ments. Hence, these tools enable reduction in develop-ment and maintenance costs and achieve higher customer satisfaction.

Besides rapid growth, Android applications are being outsourced consciously by many corporates to ensure cost effective solutions of desirable quality. Most of the off-shore service providers are presently keen on building the required competencies and are rapidly focusing on leverag-ing the current mobility market boom.

Major Players in Android Application Development

There are two types of players in Android application development space:

1. Framework/Platform development companies: The following are some of the players and their frameworks lead this market place:

• IBM rational Team Concert and PhoneGap• OpenPlug• rhoMobile• CloudPactBesides the above, Sybase, an SAP company is offer-

ing a comprehensive mobile application development framework called SuP (Sybase unwired Platform) having Android support on their roadmap of 2011.

2. Application development companies: Considering the rapid growth of mobility worldwide, many service companies ranging from large to medium scale and even startup companies are offering “Enterprise Mobility” as


one of their core service offerings and are constantly focus-ing on gaining due market share.

With Agile development model that is totally based on iterative and interactive development, one can achieve highest risk mitigation and address constant customer change requests that will result in high customer satisfac-

tion. Agile model also offers cost effective development processes where rework can be avoided and also unwanted modules can be eliminated sooner from the requirements.

The biggest event in this space has been the recent acquisition of Motorola’s Mobile business by Google which has given Google a strategic advantage to retain its competitive position against Apple and Microsoft by bag-ging 17,000 patents. Apple and Blackberry have their own hardware as well as their own OS and the same was not the case with Google in the past. This recent acquisition ena-bles Google to have their own hardware division in addi-tion to their own popular Open Source Android OS. This enables Google to compete against Apple and Blackberry with a more controlled hardware and OS development.

“The quality of work here in India is surpisingly inspir-ing, the rates Indian developers charge are very low,” said Akash Dongre, chief operating officer at MoFirst Solutions. His clients pay as little as $15 an hour for a programmer.

MoFirst is tapping India’s next wave in outsourcing, with thousands of programmers that charge a fraction of Silicon Valley prices to capitalize on demand for programs for Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPhone and devices running Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android software. Developers-for-hire for mobile applications may generate $5.6 billion in revenue by 2015, a 14-fold jump from this year, Forrester research Inc. estimates.

“India is a logical place to do it for the same reason the software and services model has worked here: lower cost,”

said Anshul Gupta, an analyst at research firm Gartner Inc. in Mumbai.

Market Application RestrictionsThe Android Market application is not open source.

Only Android devices that comply with Google’s compati-bility requirements may install and access Google’s closed-source Android Market app, subject to entering into a licensing agreement with Google.

The Android Market filters the list of applications to those compatible with the user’s device, and developers may restrict their applications to particular carriers or countries for business reasons. Carriers can also ban certain applications, for example tethering apps.

Android’s Race in the Smart Devices Market

Apple became the top-selling device manufacturer with its record-breaking 20.3 million device shipments during the

second quarter of 2011, whereas Android owns 48% of market as a largest mobile operating system provider.

For most starting developers one of the key criteria in selection of a platform is the potential reach of an applica-tion, i.e. how many people own devices running the plat-form and how many users will actually be reached through a chosen app store?

Previously Apple was the unquestionable leader, with the largest app store user base. If we count only smart-phone users Android is already far beyond, however Apple App Store user base is fueled by millions of iPod Touch users and a successful iPad spread. To date Apple has shipped over 240 million smart devices (iPhones, iPod Touch and iPads) leaving Android behind with 170 million cumulative device shipments. Given the device replacement cycles and other relevant factors, actual potential user bases today are lower but Apple still wins over Android.

As we see the smartphone app market, monopoly is continuously transforming into a duopoly. Both plat-forms together comprise nearly two thirds of all potential smartphone application users, leaving all other platforms as niche players. We think it won‘t take long for Android to catch up with Apple in terms of potential application store users. Another successful quarter for Android, and absolute reach will no longer be a deciding factor for developers, which platform to choose for an app. They will have to consider more qualitative user base differences and potentials, or develop for both platforms.

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Outsourcing Android Application Development

DV Satish, Head – Enterprise Mobility CoE, Mindteck says, “Besides rapid growth, Android applications are being outsourced consciously by many corporates to ensure cost effective solutions of desirable quality. Most of the offshore service providers are presently keen on build-ing the required competencies and are rapidly focusing on leveraging the current mobility market boom.”

Mobile Application Development and Outsourcing is evolving rapidly because of the popularity and den-sity of iPhones/Android phones among the users. Many mobile application development companies in India, have developed more than 150 mobile apps for custom-ers in the uk, Europe and uS. The software development company involved in the business of mobile Application Development provides a variety of services that help enhance the functions and performance of the iPhones/Android phones. These include- data integration, Internet-based applications, providing solutions to get private host-ing platforms for the iPhones/Android phones, custom-izing usability features, interfacing with existing enterprise applications, implementing various value-added services, and enabling interaction with other mobile devices and platforms. GS

The types of companies providing application develop-ment services have changed over the last ten years. In the pre-app store world mobile application and content devel-opers were classical developers with backgrounds in Java, Symbian, BrEW, Palm OS, Windows PocketPC

and other mobile development platforms. It was a niche market with small customer numbers. In last two years, the market for mobile application development has experienced a tremendous change in the service provider landscape.

Future Outlook For Android Application Development

kalpana Verma, Senior Project Manager, rapidsoft Technologies opines- “Android application developers will have a lot to do as they have to develop unique and migration-friendly apps for users which will enhance sales and purchase on mobile platform. Android application developers will have to consider various marketing condi-tions like heavy traffic, large inventory base for particular items, enabling purchases with high inventory set-up and more.”

Google’s next target would be to gain market share in tablet space. As per analysts, Apple’s current 75% market share will fall to 39% by 2015 and Android will gain by 38% by producing more affordable Android based tablets and eventually these tablets may replace PCs. This will be a big opportunity for application development companies to focus on tapping this business.

Android already supports advanced features like Location based services and Cloud based service integra-tion for IT management. As per analysts, going forward, Android phones will also be used as credit cards for any financial transactions which will enable e-commerce com-panies to come up with much more user friendly services.

SmartPhone and Tablet applications needed in Healthcare and Life Sciences is increasing day by day to treat life threatening diseases and develop lifesaving drugs. Many physicians and lab technicians prefer Android-based SmartPhones or Tablets because of its powerful video and 3D imaging capabilities. Hence, there will be sig-nificant growth expected for Android based applications in Healthcare and Life Sciences domains.

Overall, the future is “Mobile Age” and as per Gartner’s report Cloud and Mobility are leading the list of top 10 technologies of 2011. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Blackberry continue to battle for market share. Considering individual users interest, corporates need to adopt a mobile strategy to support their mobile applications running on heterogeneous handsets and tablets. One of the best ways to implement such mobile strategies is to adopt Hybrid Mobile Application Development.

tHE nExt PHASE In outSouRCInG

WHY IS It HAPPEnInGIndian developers may have the edge in pricing. MoFirst bills clients in the uS, the uk and the Middle East $15 to $20 an hour, compared with the $50 to $100 charged by developers in the uS

WHAt ARE tHE DEMAnD DRIVERSrequests for programmers who write code for Apple’s iOS platform rose 20% in the second quarter, says Elance. Demand for programmers with Android skills rose by 15%, while developer requests for Blackberry devices increased by 3%

WHY IS It A SEConD CoMInG Offering cheaper software than in the u.S. and Europe has worked in India before. TCS. and Infosys have grown to become Asia’s two biggest IT firms

Android Accelerates Mobile Application Development

Case StudiesThat Define Global Sourcing

http://microsites.globalservicesmedia.com/live

onE STop rESoUrCE

Powering hotwire’s new Site: www.travel-ticker.comThe Client:

Hotwire, Inc. is a well-known oper-ating company of Expedia, Inc. – the world’s largest online travel agency.

Situation Analysis:

Leveraging its relationships with more than 10,000 travel compa-nies, Hotwire began offering public access to insider deals that could not be found on other sites, includ-ing special limited-time offers, small hotels that don’t usually sell online, exotic locations and more. A new website, www.travel-ticker.com, was created by the Hotwire team to offer this new service.To ensure a successful launch, a state-of-the-art IT system was to be created that included the front-end for customers and back-end for Hotwire’s salespeople and travel suppliers. However, all of Hotwire’s internal IT resources were already working at full capacity. Hiring more staff was out of the question – in addition to being a lengthy proc-ess, such hiring made little sense for what would be a one-time effort. Outsourcing the creation of the back-end system and CrM seemed to be the right answer.

Solution:

Hotwire’s new project goal was creation of a specialized website for Travel Ticker. Luxoft was entrusted with the full-cycle development of the following major components:

• Sophisticated back-end systems to manage deals and other business-related data;• Interface for the suppliers to fill in their offers.Luxoft demonstrated a deep under-standing of Hotwire’s industry and business processes. Luxoft engineers produced a detailed system design for the web application projects. New site was launched as planned within the budget. Luxoft contribu-tion encompassed:• Internal Web portal for use by both salespeople and suppliers• Support of sales agents who can work with multiple suppliers in addition to the direct supplier’s organizational scheme support• Multiple reports generation and distribution, e-mail notifications, newsletters, deals alerts and more• Integration with Oracle Financials System• Powerful and scalable CMS with user-friendly interface• Future-proof design allowing easy upgrades and extensions

FoR moRe inFoRmation ContaCt : Jeffrey osborn, global head – travel and transportation,

[email protected], tel: 212-964-9900 x 250, mobile 404-242-2664

At A GlANCE

ClientHotwire, Inc.

Service ProviderLuxoft

IndustryTravel/e-Commerce

Service ProvidedApplication Software

Development

SolutionDevelopment of a state-of-the-art back-end system featuring front end, internal portal for salespeople and suppliers, and new CMS for entire website.

• Efficient test automationWhile working on Travel Ticker’s back-end system project, the Luxoft engineers seamlessly integrated into Hotwire’s onshore team. Their cooperation yielded significant across-the-board enhancements, empowering.

success Metrics

Compared to the customization of an off-the-shelf CMS or implemen-tation of an application from an ASP, an estimated rOI of the Internal Portal project is about 400%. The Test Automation project helped increase the application code coverage from 35% to 63% and the number of automated use cases went up from 500 to 1,700. Intangible benefits like security, usability, data propriety, and speed are likely to be even more significant.


An year ago I was discuss-ing with a client on the subject of developing and implementing an enterprise

application for their workforce. This application required large amounts of real time data to be accessed periodi-cally from a database and occasionally receiving high bandwidth content on the mobile device. Concerned with the bandwidth requirement and the potential latency issues, I engaged my client in some architectural dis-cussions. The client replied in haste, “The bandwidth is not an issue. With 3G/4G and unlimited data plans cost will not be a major factor.”

Famous last words, I must say. Most carriers are pulling out of unlim-ited, “all you can eat” data plans.

by hari haran, President, Persistent Systems, inc.

Enterprise Mobility – Facts and Myths!!!this document shares how customer satisfaction functions will continue changing as the market evolves further.

xperts

As far as bandwidth goes, it really depends on the coverage in that loca-tion, the traffic, and numerous other factors. Certainly more than often you run into latency issues.

The point here is simple; you can-not embark on an Enterprise Mobility strategy without taking into account the entire ecosystem. According to a new report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., the global market for enterprise mobility is likely to exceed uS$168.8 billion by 2015.

Depicted below is a view of the value chain and the landscape in the ecosystem:

Each layer in the value chain plays a key role in bringing an enterprise mobile application to the user. It is only natural that each of these layers

wants to retain a certain portion of the value it creates by the enterprise mobile service. To assume that the carrier would want to play a pure “pipe” role and be relegated to a commodity player would be naïve. Similarly to assert that the mobile device manufacturer, with a rich user interface and application, can l easily access information from a server or a cloud and deliver at the right speed would be lopsided.

A precursor to laying out a strategy for enterprise mobility is the analysis of the business processes and delinea-tion of the problems that needs to be solved through mobility. In the bigger picture, it is important to nail down the role of mobility in the support of various functions vis-à-vis marketing,

Solution characteristics

native Hybrid Web/HtMl5 Based

user Controls Native uI controls could be utilized to provide great user experience

Appropriate mix of select standard html or native user controls

It is possible to integrate uI components control-led by touch and swipe in HTML5 based web apps

Integration with other native functionalities

Highe.g. device specific functionalities

Achieving through native calls Limited browser capabilities

Performance Good design can yield high-er performance

Depends on proportion of native Vs. html call

response time could be high

Maintainability Needs smart design approach

Depends on proportion of native Vs. html implementation

Easy

Scalability App store up gradation App store up gradation Easy

Extensibility Separate binaries for other platform

Easy to extend to other platforms

Easy to extend to other platforms

Cost of Development High Comparatively low Low


sales, manufacturing, field personnel management, supply chain / transpor-tation logistics etc. Equally important is the congruence of this mobility strategy with the industry vertical that includes this enterprise. A harbinger to any technology and architecture undertaking is to gauge what is the quantitative value of incorporating mobility into some of these processes? What is the rOI? Does this increase your productivity? Does it reduce waste? Does it improve your top line?

The changing landscape in the eco-system presents a number of factors that are critical in the formulation of a mobility strategy. One has to envis-age potential changes and innovations that may come about in technol-ogy, regulatory matters, new devices etc. that could further exacerbate the challenge. Some of the questions that need to be addressed are:

How much information is accessed from the server or the cloud and how frequently? Is the information content rich (graphics)?

Will there be a mix of smart and low end devices deployed to the user community? What is the diversity of mobile devices that can be deployed? What is the diversity of the Operating Systems?

Would there be devices using mul-tiple carrier services?• How important is security?

Important, critical, Mission-critical?• Would data need to be stored local-

ly on a frequent basis?• Would the application(s) have to

be integrated with other enterprise IT systems? Would some of them be legacy?

• How important is location infor-mation? How precise and accurate should the location information be?These are some of the factors that

will impact the architectural decision. Moreover, there may be the need to bring in some unique set of partners to complement your application, in order to optimize the cost of the

architecture as well as shorten the time to deployment. With respect to architectural considerations and the changing landscape, these are some of the areas that need to be carefully analyzed while defining the mobility strategy.

Carrier Relationships: It makes sense for applications to leverage the WiFi or WLAN where possible and latch on to the 3G/4G network; oth-erwise the user needs to optimize the data plan usage. For high availability applications, it brings about an inter-esting problem of seamless roaming. There are some solutions that should be deployed in the carrier network to make this possible. Doing this with-out the carrier cooperation would be quite expensive both from a server implementation point of view as well as from the device perspective. Now for applications that require accurate location information, it is necessary to get the location APIs or location information from the carrier network. This is not easily exposed or available, and requires certain agreements with carriers or with settlement companies that have the appropriate technology / agreements with carriers. Finally, in order to guarantee levels of end to end QoS or bandwidth optimization, agree-ments with the carrier is very essential. While there are solutions around appli-cation delivery optimization, this will increase the deployment cost.

Security: In a survey conducted by Datamonitor to establish issues that are currently preventing enterprises from investing in mobility solutions, the majority of the 467 respondents rated security as the greatest barrier to adoption of mobility solutions. The issue of access and policy manage-ment was an important factor. Will the security software reside in the server or the cloud? Alternately, is it possible to implement a device based solution? What is more cost effec-tive and germane for the particular enterprise applications? How do you

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prevent Data intrusion? Are some of the main areas of concern.

Mobility Cloud: There is a grow-ing trend to move more of the mobile middleware to the cloud. To a certain extent, the cloud approach can solve some of the challenges presented above. For example, location based information can be exposed by a middleware in a cloud which has pre-existing agreements with settlement companies. Further, in order to scale large enterprise mobility projects as well as reduce uptake cost (through SaaS Subscriptions), the cloud model offers a very competing approach to deploying mobility. Once could envision thin mobile clients that only access data from the cloud on an as needed basis with the cloud doing most of the heavy lifting may very well alleviate the “unlimited data usage” problem. This could be a public cloud operator such as Google or Enterprise Private Clouds. Finally, the advent of HTML5 will make data caching better and reduce load demands which will make cloud based mobile connectivity better in areas of poor coverage.

Diversity of Devices: The plethora of devices and the variety of operat-ing systems poses a definite challenge in deploying mobile applications. It is expensive and time consuming to rewrite the application for various devices. yet we are talking about dif-ferent form factors, screen sizes, device types etc. This implies putting a lot of thinking into middleware and plat-forms for these devices so there can be maximum reuse of the application across devices and Operating Systems.

Infrastructure Management: Mobile Device Management is of paramount importance to not only standardize the offering in every device but also, to ensure security, access control etc. Can this be a man-aged service run by a carrier or will this be run by the enterprise, is some-thing that needs to be thought about.

Enterprise Integration: At the end of the day, most enterprise appli-cations do not operate in an island. They interface with existing applica-tions and system within the enter-prise. This requires thinking through the Systems Integration aspects of these projects. Will the enterprise carry this out in-house? Will they appoint a standard software systems integrator? Or will this be the cloud operators responsibility?

Device Client Architectural Approach: In summary, the endeavor of planning and deploying enterprise mobility is a process of cooperation with players in the ecosystem. No one player can do it entirely in a cost effec-tive way. There are some competing approaches for solving this problem. It is imperative to do a full rOI before selecting a certain option. One thing is clear, no matter what option is selected, the partnership with the right software services company is crucial to a success-ful implementation. It will be ideal if the company is a services company that has the requisite experience in all aspects of the ecosystem (Carrier, Cloud, Device, Operating Systems, and Application Development) with an unbiased view on the architectural choices.

(NOTE: “The views expressed in this Article are strictly the personal views of the author. The trademarks or trade names mentioned in this paper are property of their respective owners and are included for reference only and do not imply a connection or relationship between the author and these companies.”) GS

As the President of Persistent Systems Inc., Hari Haran is responsible for Persistent’s Global Sales, Marketing and Business Devel-opment efforts and continues to position Persistent as a leader in Outsourced Software Product Development. Hari also heads the operations of the Persistent USA subsidiary. He brings over two decades of strong experi-ence primarily in the telecom, wireless, broad-band, convergence, and professional services.

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In the dec-ade that went by, the out-sourcing industry had many momen-tous shifts

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ADM


IntroductionSoftware development in the

broader sense includes everything from conceptualizing the desired end state software to the delivery of the final product, typically in a structured manner. All this while, the key pur-pose of software development is ‘solv-ing problems’.

One of the main issues faced by organizations is to understand the ‘problem’ that is to be solved. In today’s dynamic business environ-ment, organizations grapple with economic uncertainty, constant cus-tomer requirement changes, resource crunch, tight delivery deadlines, margin pressures, etc. Several times organizations end-up focusing on building software applications with-out having a clear understanding of the problem and the focus is on what technology could do for them and in the process they lose the bigger picture. At the same time too many software development methodolo-gies, tools and services offered by the providers have also confused organizations on what could suit them best. Amidst such a volatile environment, few things that come to my mind are how software devel-opment is evolving today, what will be its future state and how develop-ers, buyer organizations and service providers will be impacted in the process?

by Kumar Parakala, KPmg

the Future of software developmentsoftware development in the broader sense includes everything from conceptualizing the desired end state software to the delivery of the final product, typically in a structured manner.

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A brief history of software development and technology

Over the past few decades software development has undergone a sea change. Several software development methodologies have evolved using various permutations and combina-tions across the stages of a software development life-cycle (SDLC) and corresponding rapid changes have taken place in the IT infrastructure and technology as well and also in the way software services are being delivered.

As time progressed, software requirements continued to evolve depending on the changing socio-eco-nomic, business and customer envi-ronment. To cope with the rapid pace of these changes, organizations started experimenting with agile methods for developing software.

Rise of Agile methods – A myth?

Technology convergence across internet, mobile, handheld devices, etc. and the explosion of social media and its increasing usage in conduct-ing business has opened a gamut of opportunities for developers, service providers and businesses alike. It does not need a huge team to develop trend-setting and revolutionary soft-ware these days. Facebook, youTube, Digg, etc. are some of the success

stories. Modern programming lan-guages like Java, Python, ruby, PHP, etc. together with their rich libraries and the virtualization of infrastruc-ture or Cloud services made avail-able by companies like Amazon and Microsoft have made software devel-opment and deployment an easier, simpler and a cheaper task.

We are at the threshold of fur-ther evolution of technology usage and software development. At the same time one should bear in mind that developers using agile meth-ods are typically a small team suited to projects that require extremely quick turnaround and co-location of requester or client and the developer. This in turn means that the project will be of a smaller scale. Agile may not be suitable for a very large scale development project involving multi-location development teams.

Further, in the context of service providers the technology aspect is driven or dictated by the client and in such a case a project end date remains very crucial which might not be possible to determine or make mandatory in an agile method. under such circumstances and envi-ronment it’s unthinkable to deliver large development projects with agile methodology. Therefore, most of the IT service providers still follow the waterfall model of software devel-opment. Further, in the context of


Software Development

Figure 1: evolution of Software Development and technology

• Emergence of Software

development as a profession

• Rising hardware and

software complexity causing

higher risks and consequent

failures

• Software crises helps

realize the pitfalls of

software development

• Waterfall software

development model takes

root

• Several tools, methods, disciplines,

processes emerge to solve the

software crisis

• Structured programming, object

oriented programming, CMM, ethics,

professionalism are key themes

• No one technology or tool emerges

to solve the development crises

• Rise of internet and

information age

• Emergence of Search Engine

Optimization (SEO)

• International usage increases

multi-language capable

software coding and systems

• Agile development involving

iterative and incremental software

methodologies like Extreme

programming, Scrum, Lean,

Feature driven development, etc.

gain acceptance

• Small and medium enterprises

increase demand for software

development

• Growth of inexpensive software

systems

Pre 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Beyond 2010

Rise of personal computers

Mainframes Client Server Architecture

Hosted / Co-located environment

Cloud Computing

• Emergence of the ‘as a Service’ paradigm

• Utility computing on the rise

• Growth of collaborative solutions that

cater to real time information management

• Waterfall model still continues to be used

widely

• Increased usage of Agile development

methods

• Increasing technology convergence

Indian service providers, those who are mostly involved in maintenance of software systems or software testing and support cannot actually rely or do not require agile methods for their work. What could probably suit them best are the traditional SDLC proc-esses with a structured framework.

So the question is how the con-stantly changing environment will influence software development and technology in the future?

Future of software development

Some of the key themes that we could see emerging or gaining traction in the future are elaborated below-

• Rising technology convergence driving Application (Apps) devel-opment boom - Data, voice, and video content development and sharing will keep rising. At the same time usage of devices like mobile phones, iPhones, Tablet PCs and other such devices will increase. The usage of computer will reduce and more and more people will move towards using the tablet. This will necessitate developing Apps that are optimized for performing effectively on multiple devices. We can see this already happening but the important part is that there will be too much on offer for the end user. The winners will differentiate

themselves with how they are able to deliver the best experience to the end-user so that they stick around till the next challenge crops. There will be increase in demand for expert developers.

• Increase in serving the Cloud Client – As Cloud gets popular sev-eral software service providers and developers will experience their cli-ents shifting to the Cloud. keeping this in mind the service providers need to recruit and maintain devel-opers who are capable to deal with this change. Preparing today for this inevitable future will be advis-able than waiting to see the client slip away due to lack of capabilities.


Software Development

Additionally, as Cloud adoption increases, data security and priva-cy challenges will increase, requir-ing developers to address these issues with more robust software systems.

Further, there will be a lot of end-user require-ment to access a number of

services involv-ing third-party app l i c a t i on s requiring soft-

ware integration with the parent system. Developers need to understand this.• Rationalization of Professional

and Social networking sites to open software development opportunities – recent surveys are indicating a trend towards social networking fatigue. users are getting tired of too much social networking. Soon we will see the

rationalization of professional and social networking sites with a few emerging as the dominant ones. Social and professional networking will still continue to flourish. The

manner in which this can be leveraged is the key.

Smart organizations will develop suitable

applications and tools to encourage professional networking on the lines

of social networking. This will encourage the

development of an informal platform for person-to-per-

son connection within the organ-

ization that will further enhance indi-

vidual and organizational knowledge sharing rather

than relying on unpop-ular online knowledge management forums

which have gained more notoriety than usage in almost every organization.

ConclusionOver the past few decades sev-

eral frameworks of software develop-ment have mushroomed. None can be claimed to be the best or the worst. Each has its own pros and cons. What we can expect in this decade is a similar

trend in frameworks but the waterfall method will still remain a dominant method for the larger part of the IT services industry globally.

Organizations that can dare to be innovative will be driven to experi-ment with newer technologies and agile models to develop the next revo-lutionary software. But for the vast majority it’s the waterfall model that will earn them their bread and butter.

With the mushrooming of social networking sites requiring minimal computing power and availability of cloud infrastructure, computational power within the device will carry less weight as compared to stronger data network, the ease of access to different Apps and features the site or software program offers. Developers need to have a good understanding of software integration with the Cloud and at the same time understand that technological convergence across devices will demand developing appli-cations suitable across devices.

The Cloud, technological conver-gence and devices supporting this along with social and professional networking sites and the manner it will be used will drive software devel-opment in the future. GS

Kumar Parakala is Head of IT Advisory, KPMG EMA & India and Chief Operating Officer, Advisory in KPMG in India. He is also a global head for Sourcing advisory.


Global Sourcing of IT Services took off in a big way during y2k/year 2000. Companies based

in the developed world were leverag-ing cheap skilled labor from global IT services companies. In the mid 2000s, the trend shifted to better and faster in addition to cheaper as processes became more stable and clients could ascertain vendor quality and govern-ance mechanisms.

In this document, Lalit Dhingra shares how customer satisfaction functions will continue changing as the market evolves further.

In offshored IT services, the char-acteristics of customer satisfaction have evolved as much as the industry itself. It’s no longer about delivering good IT solu-tions—that’s the core of a serv-ice provider’s business. It’s also no longer about meeting SLAs, the effectiveness of account person-nel, the integrity of a system’s data or timeliness of service in response to a problem, as those have all become table stake commodities.

Instead, the new normal in cus-tomer satisfaction is the innova-tive, technology-enabled, value-add solutions the provider proactively offers to make a demonstrable differ-ence in the customer’s business. The focus is on generating new revenue for the customer. Examples include

by lalit Dhingra, President niit technologies, inc., north america

the Changing Face of Customer satisfaction in offshored it solutionsthis documentshares how customer satisfaction functions will continue changing as the market evolves further.

xperts

enhancing an airline’s website to help it sell more seats and ancillary servic-es, or enabling an insurance company to leverage mobile applications as a new sales channel.

In fact, 49 percent of the IT executives and technology decision-makers who participated in Forrester research’s 3Q10 Forrsights Services Survey1 cited “grow our overall com-pany revenue” as having high influ-ence on shaping their firm’s IT strategy and initiatives, and 36 percent gave it a

critical influ-ence ranking. Similarly,

“improve our customer service,” “improve our ability to innovate our business model and go-to-market approach,” and “launch new products and services into the market” – each

of which contribute to revenue gen-eration – all received large percent-ages of high and critical influence rankings. Moreover, customers are increasingly expecting their offshore IT services providers to demonstrate a much higher level of innovation.

Here are three key points to achiev-ing superior customer satisfaction:

Vertical Specialization is Vital

you wouldn’t hire a residential contractor to draw up plans for an office complex, a general physician to perform an appendectomy or a fast-food cook to be the executive chef at a gourmet restaurant. They may be good at what they do, but lack the specialized knowledge required

for those specific tasks. Similarly, it’s not in your best interest to engage with an “all things to all industries” provider that utilizes

a cookie-cutter approach to service delivery. Instead, in order to help you achieve your goals and identify areas for innovation that are unique to your industry, your IT solutions provider must have significant depth and breadth of expertise in the vertical in which your organization operates.

In fact, industry specialization is becoming increasingly important to IT services customers. Against the backdrop of growing regulatory requirements, consumer demand


ITO

and competition, 63 to 83 percent of partici-pants in the Forrester research survey refer-enced above felt that experience with a spe-cific technology service, industry-specific busi-ness process or industry vertical was important or very important.

Providers with a heritage of delivering services specifically to companies in the bank-ing, financial services, and insurance and trav-el industries are clearly best positioned to know where oppor-tunities are for technology-enabled innovation.

The Customer Comes Second

Satisfying customers’ needs is, of course, an IT solutions provider’s number one priority. But in order to fully support the business value-adds today’s customers require, the provid-er must first empower the members of each of its vertical practices with industry-specific business insights. Doing so enables them to think in terms of the business first and IT second when designing systems and bringing innovation ideas to the cus-tomer’s table.

Truly customer-centric providers engender this domain-specific busi-ness mindset by putting all their team members through training on indus-try concepts, marketplace dynamics and how the customer – not IT – thinks about business requirements and growth opportunities. And to ensure full comprehension, the train-ees are then certified by industry-approved, third-party organizations.

Within NIIT Technologies, each of our vertical practices also has an advisory board comprised of ex-CIOs and COOs from buyer organizations

within that industry. With their mix of IT and domain knowledge, these board members provide tremendous insight into industry-specific dynam-ics and customers’ going-forward drivers and requirements.

Modernize Your MetricsWith customers’ mounting focus

on the business value, their IT solu-tions providers can help facilitate, standard qualitative metrics such as quality, productivity, efficiency, and resource talent should evolve as quick-ly as possible to long-term, quantita-tive business benefit parameters. For example, if the provider has delivered zero defects for the past four quarters, greater market share will advance the partnership to the next level of value for the customer. The decision on what quantitative measures will take the place of typical qualitative met-rics should be bi-directional, based on both the customer’s goals and the value-add ideas the provider proposes.

Then, as an incentive methodolo-gy, the customer and provider should consider entering into a skin in the game risk/reward arrangement linked to bringing measurable value-add – rather than run-of-the-mill service delivery metrics – to the customer. For example, with a baseline of $100,

the provider gets $80, the other $20 is the risk, and an additional $5 from the customer is the reward if the provider achieves 100 percent in all the business value-based parameters in the scorecard. But impor-tantly, the additional $5 goes into the pockets of all the team members, not the provider’s coffer. This variable compensa-tion plan encourages cre-ativity and innovation in every individual working on the customer engage-ment. And if the cus-

tomer doesn’t agree to the additional $5 if 100 percent of all the metrics on the scorecard are met or exceeded, the provider itself should pay it to the team members, not only to retain tal-ent but also to demonstrate its com-mitment to its staff.

regardless of the internal or external processes a service provider implements, the focus must always be on the new model of customer satisfaction. Certainly all the elements we historically regarded as measure-ment of customer satisfaction must be present. But today’s mindset must be adjusted to align with the evolution in customer needs and wants. No longer can the customer be considered satis-fied until their business has truly been improved and revenue enhanced.

If you’re an IT services buyer, you should be asking if your provider is exemplifying their ability to deliver on customer satisfaction’s new nor-mal. If not, it’s probably time for a recalibration and innovation discus-sion. GS

Lalit Dhingra is the President of NIIT Technologies, Inc. the North American Busi-ness Unit of NIIT Technologies Limited, a publicly held global IT service provider with operations in 14 countries.


xperts by nigel hughes, global Services Director, Compass management Consulting

A Cease Fire in the Function Point Holy War

Market trends and innovations are creating new opportunities to assess and improve Application development and Maintenance (AdM) per-formance. Client organizations and service providers that traditionally shunned Function Point counts are increasingly open to considering them, while staunch Function Point advocates are demonstrating a willingness to consider alternative models. it’s a win/win situation.

Function Points – an indus-try standard measure of the functional “size” of an application – have tradi-

tionally inspired strong feelings among Application Development and Maintenance experts. One camp has sworn by them as the only viable way to analyze ADM per-formance in a meaningful apples-to-apples context. The other side has sworn at them, arguing that Function Points are an excruciat-ing and time-consuming exercise that delivers no real value.

My Paris-based Compass colleague Guillaume Almeras recently compiled a series of observations of sourcing strategies among French banks.

Because the philosophical battle lines over FPs were so clearly drawn and fiercely defended, initiatives to improve ADM performance often degenerated into unproductive debates over methodology.

The good news is that these attitudes are changing. Increasingly, organizations that have never used Function Points are applying them to enhance existing tools and

Points is the growth of managed serv-ice models in outsourcing. “We have seen a significant rise in the number of AD deals that include Service Levels that use Function Points as a baseline measurement for quality and produc-tivity,” says Hall. “Service Providers have embraced Function Points as a means to measure productivity and quality of their teams across multiple accounts.”

Mike Garman, a Compass Lead Consultant specializing in ADM issues, adds that companies value the added visibility that Function Points yield into ADM cost, quality, and productivity. Specifically, the sizing component of Function Point meas-ures provides a normalizing factor with which to compare performance.

For example, Function Points can be an effective way to assess the

productivity of application support and maintenance

activities. The standard measure of number of FTEs needed annu-

ally to support 10,000 Function Points in the

production environment calculates the hours applied

to complete various sup-port activities, repairs, and

gain visibility into AD/M perform-ance. And those that have focused exclusively on Function Points are more and more open to other perspec-tives, including using Function Points in conjunction with other methods. The result of this open-mindedness is new and expanded opportunities to improve ADM performance.

Growing Interest in FPsSteve Hall, Partner and Managing

Director of Cloud and ADM Services at sourcing advisory TPI, says one factor fueling interest in Function


Specific non-Function Point meas-ures of development project produc-tivity can include the following:• Average Project Size (in Hours) and

Average Project Length (in days): Correlations can be made between better/worse productivity and the average size/length of the projects.

• Project Schedule Adherence and Project Effort Adherence: Highly productive performers are generally very good at meeting both sched-uled milestones and budgets. under-performers typically do far better

in one measure than the other – depending on a number of factors.

• Average Project Hours per Project Day: A measure of “churning” of project team members assigned to a project. Extremely low numbers reflect lower productivity brought about (typically) by constantly changing priorities.Whatever approach is taken to meas-

uring AD productivity, delivery quality must be considered in the assessment. According to Garman, defects delivered to production (per total hours expended in development) on software delivery projects can be a good indicator not only of the quality being delivered, but of the overall productivity of the project team. The cost to deliver a software

technically-oriented enhancements performed on the functional “fea-tures” of the application.

Low productivity (a high number of FTEs) can result from a variety of reasons, such as resource experience levels, inefficient processes, complexi-ties, project delivery quality, or other factors. Once the extent of the pro-ductivity gap is understood, further analysis can identify the root causes of the problems and enable the formula-tion of corrective actions.

FP WeaknessesOne of the weaknesses of Function

Points, says Garman, is that they are not designed to quantify the impact of complexities associated with an application – a key consideration of assessing performance.

The use of Function Points in pricing of outsourced services can also be prob-lematic: FP-based pricing poses a risk to service providers, says Hall, because it assumes a level of rigor and proc-ess discipline that is missing in many organizations. To address this risk, pro-viders either set their Cost per Function Point rates at a premium or charge for change control during the project. Neither approach benefits the client.

Non-FP AlternativesFor AD pricing, estimating mod-

els such as use Case Points can be a viable alternative to Function Points, as they provide more accurate and consistent measurements based on the environmental complexities of the specific client or project, and are bet-ter suited to define costs on a project-by-project basis.

In addition, TPI’s Hall says signifi-cant progress has been made mapping CMMi key Process Areas (kPAs) to specific productivity improvements. “Within an outsourcing contract,” he says, “we can use this data to contractually obligate year-over-year productivity improvements based on these process improvements.”

project also factors into the overall pro-ductivity of a project team.

In terms of assessing support and maintenance productivity, effective measures that don’t use Function Point counts include volume of user contacts logged, and the percentage of those contacts resolved by the support and maintenance team. Another is the number of software defects report-ed, and the percentage of defects fixed and implemented by the team. Additional insight can be gleaned from the number of enhancements

requested, and the percentage of those enhancements implemented.

Whether or not Function Points are involved in an assessment of ADM performance, market trends suggest that client organizations and service providers are increasingly focused on finding ways to address the thorny challenges around maintaining a bal-ance between ADM cost, quality, and productivity. Debates over the specific methodologies to be used to achieve that balance are, properly, becoming a secondary consideration. GS

Nigel Hughes is Director of Global Service Development at Compass Management Con-sulting. Bill Huber is Partner and Director of CPO Services at TPI.

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Documents

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software industry base