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| CASE STUDIES |
Start-Ups Cost Effective Application Development
Challenges:
When StrikeIron, a web services development company, considered expanding its development team, it paused to consider the alternatives. By hiring an entirely US based team, they would need to allocate $100,000 per developer and incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in liabilities. The funding for their project would then cover only 40% of the necessary resources. How could they reduce their expenditures and develop the product on time?
The Approach:
Somotsoft provided StrikeIron the right answers to the right questions. We are solution driven, and provide a transparent methodology. We took the following approach in our engagement with StrikeIron:
- Evaluate cost/performance alternatives of on-site versus off-site development.
Not all development can be done off-site. Development methodologies play a significant role in how a team needs to be structured. Our experience in RAD/Agile matched the development structure of StrikeIron.
- Provide an applicable reference.
Knowing that your development partner has done the work before will increase your confidence in their ability. We understand that, but we go a step further. We provide actual client referrals and consultations.
- Start with a low-risk pilot project.
We began our engagement with a GUI project that quickly grew to back-end functional areas. At each phase we evaluated our progress and continued with process improvements.
- Create a dedicated team.
Most managers at first feel comfortable with only a project based engagement. We offer the next generation of service-a virtual, dedicated team. The people on the initial project transitioned into a dedicated team that works only for StrikeIron.
- Leverage 24 hour development cycle.
When your team is in a time zone 12 hours ahead of you, you can execute a number of productivity improvements. Development time can be reduced by up to 80% our experience shows. As you assign tasks they are undertaken as you leave your office, and the results await you as you return. Live communication is always an option, and you can structure work hours to best fit your schedule and needs.
The Results:
As Bob Brauer, the CTO of StrikeIron put it: "We started very informally, and now our outsourced team does incredible work with weekly status reports." Today the Somotsoft team works on the proprietary systems that comprise the StrikeIron platform. Bob enjoys working with a dedicated team. In Bob's opinion his company is 80% more efficient than if it were solely relying on a purely US team. StrikeIron has benefited from a rapid development schedule, a dedicated team and cost savings of over 50%. These advantages allowed them to stay in business and thrive. By conserving its capital, the StrikeIron team met projected goals.
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