Envisager l'Avenir

The title reads "Envisioning the Future" in French.

1. Single solutions centre catering to all the stakeholders
2. Existence of quasi readymade Processes & Tools
3. Pool of highly experienced & efficient consultants to help in various    phases of the project
4. Substantial reduction in Go-To-Live Time for a Project
5. Training for Fresh/inexperienced resources
6. Continuous skill building program

Le Oppurtunity

The title reads "The Oppurtunity" in French.

1. Rephrasing the Opportunity –
    a. Well defined capabilities
    b. Resource Utilization
    c. Reducing the impact of attrition
    d. Self generation and maintenance
    e. Leveraging the existing experience

Palpiter Indique

The title reads "Throbing Points" in French.

1. Bottlenecks for Service Providers -
    a. Staffing
    b. Skill Development
    c. Team and Work Management
    d. Predictability
    e. Capability to Generate, Maintain and Discard QA/QC/QE processes,      tools and techniques
    f. Re-Inventing the wheel

El Comienzo

The title reads "The Start" in French.

1. Motivation (good old books) –
    a. Competing for the Future
    b. Good to Great
    c. Beyond the Summit

2. The Message – The thought process conveyed by all the three books and their sequels are
    a. Discover the unique opportunity
    b. Create your own future
    c. Envisage future market
    d. Reinvent yourself

The Perception and the Agenda

Wikipidea says - Product lining is the marketing strategy of offering for sale several related products. Unlike product bundling, where several products are combined into one, lining involves offering several related products individually. A line can comprise related products of various sizes, types, colours, qualities, or prices. Line depth refers to the number of product variants in a line. Line consistency refers to how closely related the products that make up the line are. Line vulnerability refers to the percentage of sales or profits that are derived from only a few products in the line.

The number of different product lines sold by a company is referred to as width of product mix. The total number of products sold in all lines is referred to as length of product mix. If a line of products is sold with the same brand name, this is referred to as family branding. When you add a new product to a line, it is referred to as a line extension. When you add a line extension that is of better quality than the other products in the line, this is referred to as trading up or brand leveraging. When you add a line extension that is of lower quality than the other products of the line, this is referred to as trading down. When you trade down, you will likely reduce your brand equity. You are gaining short-term sales at the expense of long term sales.

Is it the same thing that I need to do? Ah, not exactly. It's certainly a very specific application of "Product Line" paradigm - a "Service Line" (a new genre of product line). So, requires some great work to be done. I think this initiative needs a call sign. How is "3Q"? That's it. If you are interested by now you can suggest something else. For now, I am calling it 3Q.

3Q will broadly comprise of following phases:

1.) Conceptualization - requirements for "ACE Service Line Framework".
2.) Framework Development - A living document that will aid the the technolgy companies in software QA/QC/QE service line endeavors.
3.) Instituitionalization - Implementing the framework by establishing a completely accountable revenue generating unit operating across the business units of an organization.

Till this point, I have talked my mind. I invite all the readers in the community to put some valuable comments and volunteer to refine the idea.

Note: Next post will be "El Comienzo".

Satori

I remember attending a few seminars by a well known financial instituition ABN Amro. They were invariably using the word "product" for their financial services. At that point of time, I thought the QA/QC/QE services (as part of my job with a technology company in India) that we provide for ISVs can also be termed as a product.

Few more days passed and I realized that the specific QA/QC/QE service that I do is somehow majorly coupled to my knowledge and skill set. So how come, this human specific service be called a product. No sales man in this world can sell this service as a product forever. Ah, the ABN Amro financial services are not dependent upon any specific employee. The attribute of a product are the fixed specifications it comes with. These specifications are nothing but solution or range of solutions to a problem or range of problems - a complete package.

There should be some way to make these QA/QC/QE services work like a product. Isn't this QA/QC/QE bit longer? I prefer "ACE". The first thing that comes to me is, what are the different approaches for developing such a product or range of products. One of the compelling frameworks can be software product lines. There are many success stories (using product lines framework) registered so far viz. Hewlett-Packard, Cummins, Inc., General Motors, CelsiusTech, Rockwell-Collins, Motorola, Philips, Nokia, Boeing, Raytheon, and Salion, Inc.

So what is product lining at all? Let's do it next time. Watch out for next post "The Perception and the Agenda".

Satori: A state of consciousness, often associated with enlightenment. Satori is an awareness of Buddha nature, similar to Tao-sheng's concept of enlightenment.