Hi-Tech
Developers of consumer and enterprise software face several unique product development challenges:
- The transition to SaaS
- Redefining their product’s User Experience
- Compressing development cycle-times
- Scaling implementation capabilities
The transition to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
If you offered a $15K version of your $200K product that provides 60% of the functionality would you expand your customer base? New advances in Rich Internet Applications, cloud computing, open source technologies and virtualization have radically altered the underlying economics for product development and deployment. In the recent past, if your enterprise solution relied on a commercial technology that needs to be physically installed at your customer’s data center, then those requirements limited your market attractiveness. Today, product companies are rushing to create SaaS offerings that leverage their existing application’s business logic, but offer new deployment options to serve a larger number of customers.
How we can help
Our Product Strategy Consultants can assist your team to define new market segments that can be served by a SaaS offering. We’ll help you architect new applications that leverage the latest user interface technologies, cloud computing, and virtualization. Armed with a new deployment model, we’ll create and refine development roadmaps, cost models, and the business case. We can also manage all, or part, of the product build.
Redefining their product’s User Experience
Believe or not, many web offerings flounder because the Product Team does not have (a) a clear understanding into which customer segments the app is supposed to serve, (b) unclear value proposition and no mapping of product features to the segments' wants/needs, and/or (C) little effort to envision an engaging user experience for these segments.
How we can help
Our UX Design Team will dig deep to understand the latent needs and wants for your target customer segments. We will then create User Personas, which provide UX design targets for your primary and secondary customer segments. Through the use of Personas, your Product Team will have a clear understanding of what product features are required to appeal to the target customer segments. The UX Team will also have a priority in which on-screen interactions needs to be “engaging” in order to provide a differentiated offering.
Compressing development cycle-times
Agile development, Scrum and eXtreme Programming (XP) have gone from being fringe methodologies into mainstream approaches for software development. As technology companies seek to reduce the product development cycle-time, they are exploring how to apply Scrum to the stage-gating process of the PDLC.
How we can help
Enablus has instilled the Scrum methodology as the philosophy for how we organize our client work, regardless of whether it is app dev, UX, or business modeling. Our focus is to continuously deliver value-added work products at the end of each two-week iteration, based on the latest market dynamics. Through our collaboration, clients begin to adopt the Scrum mindset, even amongst their non-technical team members. The end result is a Product Development team (not just the software engineers) that is attuned to the philosophy of delivering value-added output every two weeks.
Scaling their implementation capabilities
Software and hardware companies are often attracted to the margins generated from professional services. In a company’s early stages, these revenues fuel R&D and growth. As a company matures, the challenge is how to successfully manage a product company and a professional services group. You don’t want to confuse the market or your investors with an over-reliance on services revenue. In later stages of corporate growth, the challenge is to find enough talent that can implement your solutions, especially as new offerings are launched into the market.
How we can help
Our Technologists and Business Consultants can create implementation teams that go on-site at the client to deliver your company’s solutions. We will work with your product and subject matter experts to understand the nuances of your solution’s value proposition and customize our Enablus Implementation Methodology accordingly. We will provide all the necessary program management expertise to ensure a successful implementation for your client.
