{"global":{"lastError":{},"locale":"en","locales":{"data":[{"id":"de","name":"Deutsch"},{"id":"en","name":"English"}],"loading":false,"error":false},"currency":{"id":49,"name":"EUR"},"currencies":{"data":[{"id":49,"name":"EUR"},{"id":124,"name":"RUB"},{"id":153,"name":"UAH"},{"id":155,"name":"USD"}],"loading":false,"error":false},"translations":{"company":{"role-vendor":{"ru":"Производитель","_type":"localeString","en":"Vendor"},"role-supplier":{"ru":"Поставщик","_type":"localeString","en":"Supplier"},"products-popover":{"ru":"Продукты","_type":"localeString","en":"Products","de":"die produkte"},"introduction-popover":{"ru":"внедрения","_type":"localeString","en":"introduction"},"partners-popover":{"_type":"localeString","en":"partners","ru":"партнеры"},"update-profile-button":{"ru":"Обновить профиль","_type":"localeString","en":"Update profile"},"read-more-button":{"ru":"Показать ещё","_type":"localeString","en":"Show more"},"hide-button":{"ru":"Скрыть","_type":"localeString","en":"Hide"},"user-implementations":{"ru":"Внедрения","_type":"localeString","en":"Deployments"},"categories":{"ru":"Компетенции","_type":"localeString","en":"Categories"},"description":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Description","ru":"Описание"},"role-user":{"en":"User","ru":"Пользователь","_type":"localeString"},"partnership-vendors":{"ru":"Партнерство с производителями","_type":"localeString","en":"Partnership with vendors"},"partnership-suppliers":{"en":"Partnership with suppliers","ru":"Партнерство с поставщиками","_type":"localeString"},"reference-bonus":{"en":"Bonus 4 reference","ru":"Бонус за референс","_type":"localeString"},"partner-status":{"en":"Partner status","ru":"Статус партнёра","_type":"localeString"},"country":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Country","ru":"Страна"},"partner-types":{"en":"Partner types","ru":"Типы партнеров","_type":"localeString"},"branch-popover":{"ru":"область деятельности","_type":"localeString","en":"branch"},"employees-popover":{"ru":"количество сотрудников","_type":"localeString","en":"number of employees"},"partnership-programme":{"ru":"Партнерская программа","_type":"localeString","en":"Partnership program"},"partner-discounts":{"ru":"Партнерские скидки","_type":"localeString","en":"Partner discounts"},"registered-discounts":{"ru":"Дополнительные преимущества за регистрацию сделки","_type":"localeString","en":"Additional benefits for registering a deal"},"additional-advantages":{"ru":"Дополнительные преимущества","_type":"localeString","en":"Additional Benefits"},"additional-requirements":{"en":"Partner level requirements","ru":"Требования к уровню партнера","_type":"localeString"},"certifications":{"ru":"Сертификация технических специалистов","_type":"localeString","en":"Certification of technical specialists"},"sales-plan":{"en":"Annual Sales Plan","ru":"Годовой план продаж","_type":"localeString"},"partners-vendors":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Partners-vendors","ru":"Партнеры-производители"},"partners-suppliers":{"ru":"Партнеры-поставщики","_type":"localeString","en":"Partners-suppliers"},"all-countries":{"ru":"Все страны","_type":"localeString","en":"All countries"},"supplied-products":{"ru":"Поставляемые продукты","_type":"localeString","en":"Supplied products"},"vendored-products":{"ru":"Производимые продукты","_type":"localeString","en":"Produced products"},"vendor-implementations":{"ru":"Производимые внедрения","_type":"localeString","en":"Produced deployments"},"supplier-implementations":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Supplied deployments","ru":"Поставляемые внедрения"},"show-all":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Show all","ru":"Показать все"},"not-yet-converted":{"ru":"Данные модерируются и вскоре будут опубликованы. Попробуйте повторить переход через некоторое время.","_type":"localeString","en":"Data is moderated and will be published soon. Please, try again later."},"schedule-event":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Events schedule","ru":"Pасписание событий"},"implementations":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Deployments","ru":"Внедрения"},"register":{"ru":"Регистрация ","_type":"localeString","en":"Register"},"login":{"ru":"Вход","_type":"localeString","en":"Login"},"auth-message":{"ru":"Для просмотра ивентов компании авторизируйтесь или зарегистрируйтесь на сайт.","_type":"localeString","en":"To view company events please log in or register on the sit."},"company-presentation":{"ru":"Презентация компании","_type":"localeString","en":"Company presentation"}},"header":{"help":{"de":"Hilfe","ru":"Помощь","_type":"localeString","en":"Help"},"how":{"de":"Wie funktioniert es","ru":"Как это работает","_type":"localeString","en":"How does it works"},"login":{"en":"Log in","de":"Einloggen","ru":"Вход","_type":"localeString"},"logout":{"en":"Sign out","ru":"Выйти","_type":"localeString"},"faq":{"de":"FAQ","ru":"FAQ","_type":"localeString","en":"FAQ"},"references":{"ru":"Мои запросы","_type":"localeString","en":"Requests","de":"References"},"solutions":{"en":"Solutions","ru":"Возможности","_type":"localeString"},"find-it-product":{"ru":"Подбор и сравнение ИТ продукта","_type":"localeString","en":"Selection and comparison of IT product"},"autoconfigurator":{"_type":"localeString","en":" Price calculator","ru":"Калькулятор цены"},"comparison-matrix":{"ru":"Матрица сравнения","_type":"localeString","en":"Comparison Matrix"},"roi-calculators":{"ru":"ROI калькуляторы","_type":"localeString","en":"ROI calculators"},"b4r":{"en":"Bonus for reference","ru":"Бонус за референс","_type":"localeString"},"business-booster":{"en":"Business boosting","ru":"Развитие бизнеса","_type":"localeString"},"catalogs":{"en":"Catalogs","ru":"Каталоги","_type":"localeString"},"products":{"ru":"Продукты","_type":"localeString","en":"Products"},"implementations":{"en":"Deployments","ru":"Внедрения","_type":"localeString"},"companies":{"ru":"Компании","_type":"localeString","en":"Companies"},"categories":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Categories","ru":"Категории"},"for-suppliers":{"en":"For suppliers","ru":"Поставщикам","_type":"localeString"},"blog":{"ru":"Блог","_type":"localeString","en":"Blog"},"agreements":{"ru":"Сделки","_type":"localeString","en":"Deals"},"my-account":{"_type":"localeString","en":"My account","ru":"Мой кабинет"},"register":{"en":"Register","ru":"Зарегистрироваться","_type":"localeString"},"comparison-deletion":{"ru":"Удаление","_type":"localeString","en":"Deletion"},"comparison-confirm":{"ru":"Подтвердите удаление","_type":"localeString","en":"Are you sure you want to delete"},"search-placeholder":{"ru":"Введите поисковый запрос","_type":"localeString","en":"Enter your search term"},"my-profile":{"ru":"Мои данные","_type":"localeString","en":"My profile"},"about":{"_type":"localeString","en":"About Us"},"it_catalogs":{"_type":"localeString","en":"IT catalogs"},"roi4presenter":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Roi4Presenter"},"roi4webinar":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Pitch Avatar"},"sub_it_catalogs":{"en":"Find IT product","_type":"localeString"},"sub_b4reference":{"en":"Get reference from user","_type":"localeString"},"sub_roi4presenter":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Make online presentations"},"sub_roi4webinar":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Create an avatar for the event"},"catalogs_new":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Products"},"b4reference":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Bonus4Reference"},"it_our_it_catalogs":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Our IT Catalogs"},"it_products":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Find and compare IT products"},"it_implementations":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Learn implementation reviews"},"it_companies":{"en":"Find vendor and company-supplier","_type":"localeString"},"it_categories":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Explore IT products by category"},"it_our_products":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Our Products"},"it_it_catalogs":{"_type":"localeString","en":"IT catalogs"}},"footer":{"copyright":{"_type":"localeString","en":"All rights reserved","de":"Alle rechte vorbehalten","ru":"Все права защищены"},"company":{"ru":"О компании","_type":"localeString","en":"My Company","de":"Über die Firma"},"about":{"_type":"localeString","en":"About us","de":"Über uns","ru":"О нас"},"infocenter":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Infocenter","de":"Infocenter","ru":"Инфоцентр"},"tariffs":{"de":"Tarife","ru":"Тарифы","_type":"localeString","en":"Subscriptions"},"contact":{"ru":"Связаться с нами","_type":"localeString","en":"Contact us","de":"Kontaktiere uns"},"marketplace":{"en":"Marketplace","de":"Marketplace","ru":"Marketplace","_type":"localeString"},"products":{"de":"Produkte","ru":"Продукты","_type":"localeString","en":"Products"},"compare":{"en":"Pick and compare","de":"Wähle und vergleiche","ru":"Подобрать и сравнить","_type":"localeString"},"calculate":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Calculate the cost","de":"Kosten berechnen","ru":"Расчитать стоимость"},"get_bonus":{"en":"Bonus for reference","de":"Holen Sie sich einen Rabatt","ru":"Бонус за референс","_type":"localeString"},"salestools":{"de":"Salestools","ru":"Salestools","_type":"localeString","en":"Salestools"},"automatization":{"ru":"Автоматизация расчетов","_type":"localeString","en":"Settlement Automation","de":"Abwicklungsautomatisierung"},"roi_calcs":{"ru":"ROI калькуляторы","_type":"localeString","en":"ROI calculators","de":"ROI-Rechner"},"matrix":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Comparison matrix","de":"Vergleichsmatrix","ru":"Матрица сравнения"},"b4r":{"en":"Rebate 4 Reference","de":"Rebate 4 Reference","ru":"Rebate 4 Reference","_type":"localeString"},"our_social":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Our social networks","de":"Unsere sozialen Netzwerke","ru":"Наши социальные сети"},"subscribe":{"ru":"Подпишитесь на рассылку","_type":"localeString","en":"Subscribe to newsletter","de":"Melden Sie sich für den Newsletter an"},"subscribe_info":{"en":"and be the first to know about promotions, new features and recent software reviews","ru":"и узнавайте первыми об акциях, новых возможностях и свежих обзорах софта","_type":"localeString"},"policy":{"en":"Privacy Policy","ru":"Политика конфиденциальности","_type":"localeString"},"user_agreement":{"en":"Agreement","ru":"Пользовательское соглашение ","_type":"localeString"},"solutions":{"ru":"Возможности","_type":"localeString","en":"Solutions"},"find":{"en":"Selection and comparison of IT product","ru":"Подбор и сравнение ИТ продукта","_type":"localeString"},"quote":{"ru":"Калькулятор цены","_type":"localeString","en":"Price calculator"},"boosting":{"ru":"Развитие бизнеса","_type":"localeString","en":"Business boosting"},"4vendors":{"ru":"поставщикам","_type":"localeString","en":"4 vendors"},"blog":{"ru":"блог","_type":"localeString","en":"blog"},"pay4content":{"ru":"платим за контент","_type":"localeString","en":"we pay for content"},"categories":{"en":"categories","ru":"категории","_type":"localeString"},"showForm":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Show form","ru":"Показать форму"},"subscribe__title":{"_type":"localeString","en":"We send a digest of actual news from the IT world once in a month!","ru":"Раз в месяц мы отправляем дайджест актуальных новостей ИТ мира!"},"subscribe__email-label":{"en":"Email","ru":"Email","_type":"localeString"},"subscribe__name-label":{"ru":"Имя","_type":"localeString","en":"Name"},"subscribe__required-message":{"en":"This field is required","ru":"Это поле обязательное","_type":"localeString"},"subscribe__notify-label":{"ru":"Да, пожалуйста уведомляйте меня о новостях, событиях и предложениях","_type":"localeString","en":"Yes, please, notify me about news, events and propositions"},"subscribe__agree-label":{"ru":"Подписываясь на рассылку, вы соглашаетесь с %TERMS% и %POLICY% и даете согласие на использование файлов cookie и передачу своих персональных данных*","_type":"localeString","en":"By subscribing to the newsletter, you agree to the %TERMS% and %POLICY% and agree to the use of cookies and the transfer of your personal data"},"subscribe__submit-label":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Subscribe","ru":"Подписаться"},"subscribe__email-message":{"ru":"Пожалуйста, введите корректный адрес электронной почты","_type":"localeString","en":"Please, enter the valid email"},"subscribe__email-placeholder":{"en":"username@gmail.com","ru":"username@gmail.com","_type":"localeString"},"subscribe__name-placeholder":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Last, first name","ru":"Имя Фамилия"},"subscribe__success":{"ru":"Вы успешно подписаны на рассылку. Проверьте свой почтовый ящик.","_type":"localeString","en":"You are successfully subscribed! Check you mailbox."},"subscribe__error":{"en":"Subscription is unsuccessful. Please, try again later.","ru":"Не удалось оформить подписку. Пожалуйста, попробуйте позднее.","_type":"localeString"},"roi4presenter":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Roi4Presenter","de":"roi4presenter","ru":"roi4presenter"},"it_catalogs":{"_type":"localeString","en":"IT catalogs"},"roi4webinar":{"en":"Pitch Avatar","_type":"localeString"},"b4reference":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Bonus4Reference"}},"breadcrumbs":{"home":{"ru":"Главная","_type":"localeString","en":"Home"},"companies":{"ru":"Компании","_type":"localeString","en":"Companies"},"products":{"ru":"Продукты","_type":"localeString","en":"Products"},"implementations":{"ru":"Внедрения","_type":"localeString","en":"Deployments"},"login":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Login","ru":"Вход"},"registration":{"en":"Registration","ru":"Регистрация","_type":"localeString"},"b2b-platform":{"ru":"Портал для покупателей, поставщиков и производителей ИТ","_type":"localeString","en":"B2B platform for IT buyers, vendors and suppliers"}},"comment-form":{"title":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Leave comment","ru":"Оставить комментарий"},"firstname":{"en":"First name","ru":"Имя","_type":"localeString"},"lastname":{"ru":"Фамилия","_type":"localeString","en":"Last name"},"company":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Company name","ru":"Компания"},"position":{"ru":"Должность","_type":"localeString","en":"Position"},"actual-cost":{"en":"Actual cost","ru":"Фактическая стоимость","_type":"localeString"},"received-roi":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Received ROI","ru":"Полученный ROI"},"saving-type":{"ru":"Тип экономии","_type":"localeString","en":"Saving type"},"comment":{"en":"Comment","ru":"Комментарий","_type":"localeString"},"your-rate":{"ru":"Ваша оценка","_type":"localeString","en":"Your rate"},"i-agree":{"_type":"localeString","en":"I agree","ru":"Я согласен"},"terms-of-use":{"_type":"localeString","en":"With user agreement and privacy policy","ru":"С пользовательским соглашением и политикой конфиденциальности"},"send":{"ru":"Отправить","_type":"localeString","en":"Send"},"required-message":{"_type":"localeString","en":"{NAME} is required filed","ru":"{NAME} - это обязательное поле"}},"maintenance":{"title":{"en":"Site under maintenance","ru":"На сайте проводятся технические работы","_type":"localeString"},"message":{"en":"Thank you for your understanding","ru":"Спасибо за ваше понимание","_type":"localeString"}}},"translationsStatus":{"company":"success"},"sections":{},"sectionsStatus":{},"pageMetaData":{"company":{"meta":[{"name":"og:image","content":"https://roi4cio.com/fileadmin/templates/roi4cio/image/roi4cio-logobig.jpg"},{"name":"og:type","content":"website"}],"translatable_meta":[{"translations":{"en":"Company","ru":"Компания","_type":"localeString"},"name":"title"},{"translations":{"en":"Company description","ru":"Описание компании","_type":"localeString"},"name":"description"},{"translations":{"ru":"Ключевые слова для компании","_type":"localeString","en":"Company keywords"},"name":"keywords"}],"title":{"en":"ROI4CIO: Company","ru":"ROI4CIO: Компания","_type":"localeString"}}},"pageMetaDataStatus":{"company":"success"},"subscribeInProgress":false,"subscribeError":false},"auth":{"inProgress":false,"error":false,"checked":true,"initialized":false,"user":{},"role":null,"expires":null},"products":{"productsByAlias":{},"aliases":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null,"useProductLoading":false,"sellProductLoading":false,"templatesById":{},"comparisonByTemplateId":{}},"filters":{"filterCriterias":{"loading":false,"error":null,"data":{"price":{"min":0,"max":6000},"users":{"loading":false,"error":null,"ids":[],"values":{}},"suppliers":{"loading":false,"error":null,"ids":[],"values":{}},"vendors":{"loading":false,"error":null,"ids":[],"values":{}},"roles":{"id":200,"title":"Roles","values":{"1":{"id":1,"title":"User","translationKey":"user"},"2":{"id":2,"title":"Supplier","translationKey":"supplier"},"3":{"id":3,"title":"Vendor","translationKey":"vendor"}}},"categories":{"flat":[],"tree":[]},"countries":{"loading":false,"error":null,"ids":[],"values":{}}}},"showAIFilter":false},"companies":{"companiesByAlias":{"alpha-web-group":{"id":4634,"title":"Alpha Web Group","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Alpha_Web_Group_logo.jpg","alias":"alpha-web-group","address":"","roles":[{"id":2,"type":"supplier"},{"id":3,"type":"vendor"}],"description":" Alpha Web Group is an outsourcing company specializing in Drupal and Symfony web development. Our company is based in Ukraine, the very heart of Eastern Europe. Our experienced team build flexible web solutions for various business areas.\r\nActively participating in Drupal community life, we arrange local meet-ups like workshops, code sprints and trainings to share our knowledge with young specialists.\r\nWe strive for perfection in everything we do and use a result-oriented approach to building our solutions. Customer satisfaction is our top priority, because it reflects the quality of our work. What we want is to build long-term, mutually beneficial cooperation bringing tangible benefits to our clients.\r\nAlpha Web Group is an Organization Member of Drupal Association. We collaborate with Drupal companies and Digital agencies worldwide.\r\nSource: https://alphawebgroup.com/company","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":1,"suppliedProductsCount":1,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{"32":{"id":32,"title":"IT outsourcing","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">IT outsourcing</span> is the use of external service providers to effectively deliver IT-enabled business process, application service and infrastructure solutions for business outcomes.\r\nOutsourcing, which also includes utility services, software as a service and cloud-enabled outsourcing, helps clients to develop the right sourcing strategies and vision, select the right IT service providers, structure the best possible contracts, and govern deals for sustainable win-win relationships with external providers.\r\nOutsourcing can enable enterprises to reduce costs, accelerate time to market, and take advantage of external expertise, assets and/or intellectual property. IT outsourcing can be implemented both ways: outsides or within the country. \r\nIT outsourcing vendors can provide either a fully managed service, meaning they take full responsibility of all IT maintenance and support, or they can provide additional support for an internal IT team when needed, which is known as co-sourced IT support. A company using IT outsourcing can choose to use one provider for all their IT functions or split the work among multiple providers. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Specific IT services typically outsourced include:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Application development</li><li>Web hosting</li><li>Application support</li><li>Database development</li><li>Telecommunications</li><li>Networking</li><li>Disaster recovery</li><li>Security</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Reasons for Outsourcing</span></p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Reduce Cost.</span> More often than not, outsourcing means saving money. This is often due to lower labor costs, cheaper infrastructure, or an advantageous tax system in the outsourcing location.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Access Skills That Are Unavailable Locally.</span> Resources that are scarce at home can sometimes be found in abundance elsewhere, meaning you can easily reach them through outsourcing.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Better Use Internal Resources</span>. By delegating some of your business processes to a third party, you’ll give your in-house employees the opportunity to focus on more meaningful tasks.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Accelerate Business Processes.</span> When you stop wasting time on mundane, time-consuming processes, you’ll be able to move forward with your core offering a lot faster.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Share Risks.</span> When you delegate a part of non-focus functionality by outsourcing it to a third-party vendor, you give away the responsibility and related risks.","materialsDescription":"<h3 class=\"align-center\">What are the Types of IT Outsourcing?</h3>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Project-Based Model.</span> The client hires a team to implement the part of work that is already planned and defined. The project manager from the outsourced team carries full responsibility for the quality and performance of the project.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Dedicated Team Model.</span> The client hires a team that will create a project for them, and they will work only on that project. Unlike the project-based model, a dedicated team is more engaged in your project. In this model, an outsourced team becomes your technical and product advisor. So it can offer ideas and suggest alternative solutions.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Outstaff Model.</span> It's a type of outsourcing in IT when you don't need a full-fledged development team and hire separate specialists. Sometimes the project requires finding a couple of additional professionals, and you're free to hire outstaff workers to cover that scope of work.</p>\r\n<h3 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are IT Outsourcing examples?</span></h3>\r\nThe individual or company that becomes your outsourcing partner can be located anywhere in the world — one block away from your office or on another continent.\r\nA Bay Area-based startup partnering with an app development team in Utah and a call center in the Philippines, or a UK-based digital marketing agency hiring a Magento developer from Ukraine are both examples of outsourcing.\r\n<h3 class=\"align-center\">Why You Should Use IT Outsourcing</h3>\r\nNow that you know what IT outsourcing is, its models, and types, it's time to clarify why you need to outsource and whether you really need it. Let's go over a few situations that suggest when to opt for IT outsourcing.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You are a domain expert with idea</span></li></ul>\r\nIf you're an industry expert with the idea that solves a real problem, IT outsourcing is your choice. In this case, your main goal is to enter the market and test the solution fast. An outsourced team will help you validate the idea, build an MVP to check the hypothesis, and implement changes in your product according to market needs. It saves you money, time and lets you reach the goal.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You have an early-stage startup</span></li></ul>\r\nIt's a common case that young startups spend money faster than they get a solid team and a ready-to-market product. The Failory found that financial problems are the 3rd reason why startup fails. So it makes more sense to reduce costs by hiring an outsourced team of professionals while your business lives on investor's money. You may employ a full-cycle product development studio covering all the blind spots and bringing your product to life.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You need a technical support</span></li></ul>\r\nEven if you already have a ready solution, but it demands some technical improvements – frameworks for backend components, new language, integrations with enterprise software, UX&amp;UI design – it makes more sense to find an experienced partner. There are many functions that IT outsourcing can cover, and again it saves you the time you'd otherwise spend on looking for qualified staff.<br /><br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_IT_outsourcing.png","alias":"it-outsourcing"},"71":{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management"},"75":{"id":75,"title":"ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Enterprise resource planning (ERP)</span> is the integrated management of main business processes, often in real-time and mediated by software and technology.\r\nEnterprise resource planning system is usually referred to as a category of business management software — typically a suite of integrated applications—that an organization can use to collect, store, manage, and interpret data from these many business activities.\r\nERP provides an integrated and continuously updated view of core business processes using common databases maintained by a database management system. \r\nEnterprise resource planning solutions track business resources— cash, raw materials, production capacity—and the status of business commitments: orders, purchase orders, and payroll. The applications that make up the system share data across various departments (manufacturing, purchasing, sales, accounting, etc.) that provide the data. \r\n<p class=\"align-left\">ERP facilitates information flow between all business functions and manages connections to outside stakeholders.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">You can think of an enterprise resource planning system as the glue that binds together the different computer systems for a large organization. Without an ERP application, each department would have its own system optimized for that division's particular tasks. With ERP software, each department still has its own system, but all of the systems can be accessed through one application with one interface.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">ERP applications also allows the different departments to communicate and share information more easily with the rest of the company. It collects information about the activity and state of different divisions, making this information available to other parts, where it can be used productively.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">ERP systems typically include the following characteristics:</span></p>\r\n<ul><li>An integrated system</li><li>Operates in (or near) real time</li><li>A common database that supports all the applications</li><li>A consistent look and feel across modules</li><li>Installation of the system with elaborate application/data integration by the Information Technology (IT) department, provided the implementation is not done in small steps</li><li>Deployment options include: on-premises, cloud hosted, or SaaS</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Enterprise resource planning programs have traditionally been used by the big players in the market that have thousands of employees spread out over the world. However, software developers are now marketing business ERP solutions to small- and medium-sized companies. </p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">There are different types of ERP software ranging from industry-specific ERP solutions to web-based, or cloud ERP software; to small business ERP.<br />The type of ERP system that will work best for your business depends on the size of your organization and the functions of the ERP solution that can best support your business requirements.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Industry Specific ERP.</span> ERP systems for large corporations are often built from the ground up to suit the organization's specific and unique needs. For a small business like yours, an off-the-shelf model will work fine. Most are grouped into three categories to service manufacturing, finance or logistics based companies.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Web-Based ERP system.</span> ERP software services tend to be complex, requiring high-end computers to run them. However, instead of purchasing the software to run on your computer in your office, many suppliers offer Software as a Service, or SaaS. In this case, you pay a subscription to access the software and your data over the internet. Because the program is running on a remote server, you are free to access it from anywhere you have an Internet connection.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">ERP software for small business.</span> Although ERP systems can cover everything from supply chain management to accounting solutions as well as customer relations management, your business may not need to automate all these functions. Therefore, software developers offer scaled-down models at a lower, more cost-effective price. For instance, your operation may work fine with a system that offers sales and order management, but leaves out the module for warehouse management.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> <span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What does an ERP do?</span></h1>\r\nThe purpose of an ERP management system is to improve efficiency (and thereby profitability) through improving how company resources are spent, whether those resources be time, money, staff or something else.<br />If you can reduce how many resources are being used, without sacrificing quality/performance, then you can grow your business more efficiently and appropriately.\r\nERP software combines a number of different reports and metrics across various departments into the same environment. This makes it easier to get a full view of what’s going on and how resources are being spent.<br />From this vantage point of the business, you can discover key insights into how processes might be improved or resources better spent to generate higher growth. \r\nWithout an ERP system and proper planning of how resources should be spent to maximize growth and the bottom line, it is much easier to invest resources in tactics that underperform.\r\nConversely, a great ERP software platform allows a business to allocate resources away from underperforming tactics and into those that are generating good returns.\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">An ERP system also makes it faster to find the information or report you’re after because everything is in the same place. You don’t have to search through spreadsheets or look through different business applications to find that kernel of data you need; it’s all available and accessible right from the ERP interface.</p>\r\n<header><h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the different features of ERP software?</span></h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"></p></header>\r\nERP software can differ depending on the package you purchase and the provider. That being said, there are some key features that you should look for when researching ERP software providers. Your software should, at the bare minimum, offer the following modules:\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Accounting:</span> Manage all of your financial reports in the same interface, such as purchase orders, expenses, sales reports, payroll, etc. This makes it easier to monitor your cash flow and revenue and determines how money might be better spent or how you can reduce your burn rate.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Inventory and warehousing</span>: If your business has inventory or warehouse processes, your ERP business software needs to be able to integrate those operations to better track and manage goods. This makes it easier to see how much inventory is available, what inventory is going out for delivery, what inventory is coming in from which vendors and more. Carefully monitoring and tracking these processes helps protect a business from running out of stock, mismanaging a delivery and other potential issues.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">eCommerce and web</span>: It’s essential for a business to be able to see the eCommerce side of their business separate from physical, retail sales. After all, the tactics you leverage to encourage online sales are different than the ones you use for your physical stores. An excellent ERP system will enhance your existing web offerings to include better purchase options for customers to choose from.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Human resources</span>: As much as a business strives to keep customers happy and retained, it is equally important that your employees remain happy as well. The HR module of your ERP system contains all of the employee management processes, including payroll expenses, recruitment, performance evaluations, attendance, scheduling and more. It’s a one-stop module for all employee management and communication efforts.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM and marketing</span>: Your brand-customer relationships are ultimately going to drive repeat business. It’s important to know how effectively your marketing tactics are working at engaging and re-engaging customers, whether those tactics are email marketing campaigns, social media offers, surveys, follow-up phone calls and others. The CRM module will better express what’s working and what isn’t and how marketing is translating into added revenue.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Project management:</span> The last should-have feature of your ERP software product is a project management tool, which allows you to communicate productively across your organization to plan and execute projects internally. This helps ensure company cohesion by getting every involved stakeholder or employee on the same page and in-the-know as to the most current business objectives and goals.</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Benefits of ERP software and why to build it</span></h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">In today’s business environments, it’s hard to move on without an ERP system. Among the main benefits of ERP implementation is automatization of manual tasks staff spends hours on and thus improves the overall business performance. So the staff can focus on more important initiatives. At the same time, you can collect real-time data for improving performance management and making data-driven decisions.<br />ERP&nbsp; planning software comes handy in lots of areas due to its in-built modules and flexibility. Here are a few advantages of ERP software tools:</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><br />1. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduce operating cost</span>. The company starts gaining profit as soon as the ERP system is implemented. Prepare to face the reduction of marketing expenses, inventory maintenance, production cost and so on. Also, if you’re aimed at combining all business processes within a unified system, ERP is the right choice. By using the software, it’s easy to improve cross-department cooperation and increase staff’s efficiency.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">2.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> Instant data access.</span> With ERP systems, employees soon forget about hours spent on collecting necessary details. Instead, they can be accessed in just a few minutes. Works great for busy executives and department managers that need to access data quickly.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">3. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Defined planning process.</span> It’s easy to understand the business objectives, targets and aims when you have a full list of business needs, outcomes, and assets all in one place.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Sure, ERP systems also have some disadvantages. The most common issue is the price. It’s almost impossible for small companies to develop an ERP suite for their own needs, only middle and large-sized corporations can afford it.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/ERP_-_Enterprise_Resource_Planning.png","alias":"erp-enterprise-resource-planning"},"421":{"id":421,"title":"Digital Commerce Applications","description":"E-commerce is the activity of buying or selling products on online services or over the Internet. Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems.\r\nModern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web for at least one part of the transaction's life cycle although it may also use other technologies such as e-mail. Typical e-commerce transactions include the purchase of online books (such as Amazon) and music purchases (music download in the form of digital distribution such as iTunes Store), and to a less extent, customized/personalized online liquor store inventory services. There are three areas of e-commerce: online retailing, electric markets, and online auctions. E-commerce is supported by electronic business.\r\nE-commerce businesses may also employ some or all of the followings:\r\n<ul><li>Online shopping for retail sales direct to consumers via Web sites and mobile apps, and conversational commerce via live chat, chatbots, and voice assistants;</li><li>Providing or participating in online marketplaces, which process third-party business-to-consumer or consumer-to-consumer sales;</li><li>Business-to-business buying and selling;</li><li>Gathering and using demographic data through web contacts and social media;</li><li>Business-to-business (B2B) electronic data interchange;</li><li>Marketing to prospective and established customers by e-mail or fax (for example, with newsletters);</li><li>Engaging in pre-retail for launching new products and services;</li><li>Online financial exchanges for currency exchanges or trading purposes.</li></ul>","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">5 Reasons Why E-commerce Is So Important For Your Business</span>\r\nFrom startups to small businesses right through to huge brands, there are a huge number of companies that can benefit from their own e-commerce website, where they can sell their own products or services. In today's competitive and convenience-focused society, no longer do consumers want to venture to the high street in order to buy items, instead, consumers want to shop from their own homes, making e-commerce a flexible solution for both businesses and buyers.\r\nIf you’re still on the fence about launching an e-commerce store then look no further, here are the top 5 reasons e-commerce is so important for your business and just how you can benefit from moving online this year!\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Can Broaden Your Brand</span>\r\nE-commerce is an ideal way you can take your brand from a traditional brick and mortar store to an innovative, well-loved brand. By offering great products 24 hours a day along with online customer service, blogs and social media, no longer is your business one singular store, with an online presence your business can be the home of your products and the general home of your business, allowing you to fully expand your product ranges without having to worry about moving locations or worrying about not being able to expand your business.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">It’s More Convenient</span>\r\nAn online store is available all day, every day meaning your customers can visit your store at all times, no matter what their schedule might be. These days people don’t always have the time to physically go shopping, instead more and more people are choosing to shop online to find the items they want or need and if your business can offer this for your customers there’s no you shouldn't appeal to a wider range of customers all looking for a convenient and flexible experience.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Increase Your Reach</span>\r\nDue to the internet’s accessibility, millions of people across the world can view your website at any time, meaning that for those looking to expand their businesses and reach out to a larger audience, you have many more opportunities to do so. Compare the number of people you can reach through a website to the amount you can reach through a high street store or local advertising, there’s no reason you shouldn’t look at taking your business online if you’re looking to improve your reach.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Gives You Marketing Opportunities</span>\r\nYour website is one of the best marketing tools your business has, not only can the use of SEO when building your site lead to more chances of your business getting found in search engines, but a huge number of marketing techniques can also work alongside your website, including pay per click advertising, your social media marketing, and your email marketing, all of which can include links back to your website.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Scalable</span>\r\nAs your business grows it’s very likely you’ll want to grow your product range and your target audience, as well as develop your business for customer requirements and consumer demand. An e-commerce site lets you scale your business accordingly, allowing you to add more lines, add more payment options and even grow when you choose to ship to, without having to worry about changing your location or moving to larger premises as you might with a brick and mortar store.\r\nE-commerce offers the business a whole range of opportunities, from marketing opportunities to increase your products ranges to generating more sales and with an optimized and well-developed website, you can not only achieve these goals but also offer your customers around the clock, convenient service, that can boost your business.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Digital_Commerce_Applications.png","alias":"digital-commerce-applications"},"591":{"id":591,"title":"Software Development","description":" Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development is a process of writing and maintaining the source code, but in a broader sense, it includes all that is involved between the conception of the desired software through to the final manifestation of the software, sometimes in a planned and structured process. Therefore, software development may include research, new development, prototyping, modification, reuse, re-engineering, maintenance, or any other activities that result in software products.\r\nSoftware can be developed for a variety of purposes, the three most common being to meet specific needs of a specific client/business (the case with custom software), to meet a perceived need of some set of potential users (the case with commercial and open-source software), or for personal use (e.g. a scientist may write software to automate a mundane task). Embedded software development, that is, the development of embedded software, such as used for controlling consumer products, requires the development process to be integrated with the development of the controlled physical product. System software underlies applications and the programming process itself and is often developed separately.\r\nThe need for better quality control of the software development process has given rise to the discipline of software engineering, which aims to apply the systematic approach exemplified in the engineering paradigm to the process of software development.\r\nThere are many approaches to software project management, known as software development life cycle models, methodologies, processes, or models. The waterfall model is a traditional version, contrasted with the more recent innovation of agile software development.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is software development?</span>\r\nSoftware itself is the set of instructions or programs that tell a computer what to do. It is independent of hardware and makes computers programmable. There are three basic types:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">System software</span> to provide core functions such as operating systems, disk management, utilities, hardware management, and other operational necessities.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Programming software</span> to give programmers tools such as text editors, compilers, linkers, debuggers and other tools to create code.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Application software</span> (applications or apps) to help users perform tasks. Office productivity suites, data management software, media players and security programs are examples. Applications also refer to web and mobile applications like those used to shop on Amazon.com, socialize with Facebook or post pictures to Instagram.\r\nA possible fourth type is <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">embedded software.</span> Embedded systems software is used to control machines and devices not typically considered computers — telecommunications networks, cars, industrial robots and more. These devices, and their software, can be connected as part of the Internet of Things (IoT).\r\nSoftware development is primarily conducted by programmers, software engineers, and software developers. These roles interact and overlap, and the dynamics between them vary greatly across development departments and communities.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Programmers, or coders,</span> write source code to program computers for specific tasks like merging databases, processing online orders, routing communications, conducting searches or displaying text and graphics. Programmers typically interpret instructions from software developers and engineers and use programming languages like C++ or Java to carry them out.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Software engineers</span> apply engineering principles to build software and systems to solve problems. They use modeling language and other tools to devise solutions that can often be applied to problems in a general way, as opposed to merely solving for a specific instance or client. Software engineering solutions adhere to the scientific method and must work in the real world, as with bridges or elevators.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Software developers</span> have a less formal role than engineers and can be closely involved with specific project areas — including writing code. At the same time, they drive the overall software development lifecycle — including working across functional teams to transform requirements into features, managing development teams and processes, and conducting software testing and maintenance.\r\nThe work of software development isn’t confined to coders or development teams. Professionals such as scientists, device fabricators, and hardware makers also create software code even though they are not primarily software developers. Nor is it confined to traditional information technology industries such as software or semiconductor businesses. In fact, according to the Brookings Institute, those businesses “account for less than half of the companies performing software development.”\r\nAn important distinction is custom software development as opposed to commercial software development. Custom software development is the process of designing, creating, deploying and maintaining software for a specific set of users, functions or organizations. In contrast, commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) is designed for a broad set of requirements, allowing it to be packaged and commercially marketed and distributed.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Steps in the software development process</span>\r\nDeveloping software typically involves the following steps:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Selecting a methodology</span> to establish a framework in which the steps of software development are applied. It describes an overall work process or roadmap for the project. Methodologies can include Agile development, DevOps, Rapid Application Development (RAD), Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Waterfall and others.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Gathering requirements</span> to understand and document what is required by users and other stakeholders.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Choosing or building architecture</span> as the underlying structure within which the software will operate.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Developing a design</span> around solutions to the problems presented by requirements, often involving process models and storyboards.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Constructing code</span> in the appropriate programming language. Involves peer and team review to eliminate problems early and produce quality software faster.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Testing</span> with pre-planned scenarios as part of software design and coding — and conducting performance testing to simulate load testing on the application.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Managing configuration and defects</span> to understand all the software artifacts (requirements, design, code, test) and build distinct versions of the software. Establish quality assurance priorities and release criteria to address and track defects.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deploying</span> the software for use and responding to and resolving user problems.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Migrating data</span> to the new or updated software from existing applications or data sources if necessary.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Managing and measuring the project</span> to maintain quality and delivery over the application lifecycle, and to evaluate the development process with models such as the Capability Maturity Model (CMM).</li></ul>\r\nThe steps of the software development process fit into application lifecycle management.\r\n<ul><li>Requirements analysis and specification</li><li>Design and development</li><li>Testing</li><li>Deployment</li><li>Maintenance and support</li></ul>\r\nSoftware development process steps can be grouped into the phases of the lifecycle, but the importance of the lifecycle is that it recycles to enable continuous improvement. For example, user issues that surface in the maintenance and support phase can become requirements at the beginning of the next cycle.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is software development important?</span>\r\nSoftware development is important because it helps businesses differentiate themselves and be more competitive. It can improve customer experiences, bring more innovative, feature-rich products to market faster, and make operations more efficient, safe and productive.\r\nSoftware development is also important because it is pervasive.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Software_Development.png","alias":"software-development"},"593":{"id":593,"title":"Mobile Software Development","description":" Mobile app development is the act or process by which a mobile app is developed for mobile devices, such as personal digital assistants, enterprise digital assistants or mobile phones. These applications can be pre-installed on phones during manufacturing platforms, or delivered as web applications using server-side or client-side processing (e.g., JavaScript) to provide an &quot;application-like&quot; experience within a Web browser. Application software developers also must consider a long array of screen sizes, hardware specifications, and configurations because of intense competition in mobile software and changes within each of the platforms. Mobile app development has been steadily growing, in revenues and jobs created. A 2013 analyst report estimates there are 529,000 direct app economy jobs within the EU 28 members, 60% of which are mobile app developers.\r\nAs part of the development process, mobile user interface (UI) design is also essential in the creation of mobile apps. Mobile UI considers constraints, contexts, screen, input, and mobility as outlines for design. The user is often the focus of interaction with their device, and the interface entails components of both hardware and software. User input allows for the users to manipulate a system, and device's output allows the system to indicate the effects of the users' manipulation. Mobile UI design constraints include limited attention and form factors, such as a mobile device's screen size for a user's hand(s). Mobile UI contexts signal cues from user activity, such as location and scheduling that can be shown from user interactions within a mobile app. Overall, mobile UI design's goal is mainly for an understandable, user-friendly interface. The UI of mobile apps should: consider users' limited attention, minimize keystrokes, and be task-oriented with a minimum set of functions. This functionality is supported by mobile enterprise application platforms or integrated development environments (IDEs).\r\nMobile UIs, or front-ends, rely on mobile back-ends to support access to enterprise systems. The mobile back-end facilitates data routing, security, authentication, authorization, working off-line, and service orchestration. This functionality is supported by a mix of middleware components including mobile app server, mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), and service-oriented architecture (SOA) infrastructure. ","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is the native app development?</span>\r\nUnlike websites and web applications, native mobile apps don’t run in the browser. You need to download them from platform-specific app stores such as Apple’s App Store and Google Play. After installation, you can access each app by tapping its respective icon on the screen of your device.\r\nNative app development requires different skills and technologies than mobile website development. You don’t have to worry about browser behavior and compatibility. You can use the native features of mobile OSs to deliver the user experience and implement the functionalities of your app.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is the difference between a native mobile app and a hybrid app?</span>\r\nMobile apps have two types: native and hybrid apps. At first glance, both have similar features and design but the underlying technology is different. As the name suggests, hybrid apps are a combination of web apps and native mobile apps. You can build them using web technologies: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You can also upload them to app stores and users can install them as native Android or iOS applications.\r\nThe main advantages of hybrid apps are portability and the simplicity of development. You only have to write the code once and your hybrid app will run on different operating systems. You can use hybrid frameworks like Ionic and Apache Cordova to create cross-platform hybrid applications. By contrast, native mobile apps have to be written in platform-specific languages such as Java, Swift, or Objective-C.\r\nNative mobile apps can access the built-in features of smartphones such as the camera and microphone by default. If you have a hybrid app you need to rely on plugins like Cordova plugins to use the native capabilities of the user’s device.\r\nHybrid apps also depend on WebViews to render their user interfaces. WebViews are in-app browsers that allow mobile applications to access and display web content. This is how Android and iOS devices are able to run hybrid apps built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript as native mobile applications.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the benefits of native mobile app development?</span>\r\nAlthough hybrid apps are easier and cheaper to develop, native mobile apps have many benefits, too.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Better performance</span></span>\r\nNative mobile apps directly interact with native APIs without depending on middleware such as plugins and WebViews. As there are fewer dependencies, native mobile apps are faster and more responsive than hybrid apps. This is especially important for performance-centric apps like games and graphic-heavy applications.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Consistent look and feel</span></span>\r\nAs native mobile apps are developed using native SDKs (software development kits), their UIs look consistent with their platform. This ensures a better user experience, as there are no discrepancies between the OS and app design.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Immediate access to new features</span></span>\r\nNative mobile apps can immediately access the latest iOS or Android features. As web technologies can’t directly use native APIs, hybrid apps have to wait until there’s a plugin that supports the new feature.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Better compliance with app store guidelines</span></span>\r\nBecause of their architecture, native mobile apps comply better with app store guidelines. In 2017, Apple restricted its submission guidelines. Since then, they have begun to reject apps that rely too much on WebViews, such as Ionic View that allowed developers to test their Ionic applications. As it’s likely that app stores will continue cracking down on hybrid apps, native mobile apps are also a more future-proof investment.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Mobile_Software_Development.png","alias":"mobile-software-development"},"615":{"id":615,"title":"Web Development","description":" Web development is the work involved in developing a website for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). Web development can range from developing a simple single static page of plain text to complex web-based internet applications (web apps), electronic businesses, and social network services. A more comprehensive list of tasks to which web development commonly refers, may include web engineering, web design, web content development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, web server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development.\r\nAmong web professionals, &quot;web development&quot; usually refers to the main non-design aspects of building websites: writing markup and coding. Web development may use content management systems (CMS) to make content changes easier and available with basic technical skills.\r\nFor larger organizations and businesses, web development teams can consist of hundreds of people (web developers) and follow standard methods like Agile methodologies while developing websites. Smaller organizations may only require a single permanent or contracting developer, or secondary assignment to related job positions such as a graphic designer or information systems technician. Web development may be a collaborative effort between departments rather than the domain of a designated department. There are three kinds of web developer specialization: front-end developer, back-end developer, and full-stack developer. Front-end developers are responsible for behavior and visuals that run in the user browser, while back-end developers deal with the servers.\r\nSince the commercialization of the web, web development has been a growing industry. The growth of this industry is being driven by businesses wishing to use their website to advertise and sell products and services to customers.\r\nThere are many open source tools for web development such as BerkeleyDB, GlassFish, LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack and Perl/Plack. This has kept the cost of learning web development to a minimum. Another contributing factor to the growth of the industry has been the rise of easy-to-use WYSIWYG web-development software, such as Adobe Dreamweaver, BlueGriffon and Microsoft Visual Studio. Knowledge of HyperText Markup Language (HTML) or of programming languages is still required to use such software, but the basics can be learned and implemented quickly.\r\nAn ever-growing set of tools and technologies have helped developers build more dynamic and interactive websites. Further, web developers now help to deliver applications as web services which were traditionally only available as applications on a desk-based computer. This has allowed for many opportunities to decentralize information and media distribution. Examples can be seen with the rise of cloud services such as Adobe Creative Cloud, Dropbox and Google Drive. These web services allow users to interact with applications from many locations, instead of being tied to a specific workstation for their application environment.\r\nExamples of dramatic transformation in communication and commerce led by web development include e-commerce. Online auction sites such as eBay have changed the way consumers find and purchase goods and services. Online retailers such as Amazon.com and Buy.com (among many others) have transformed the shopping and bargain-hunting experience for many consumers. Another example of transformative communication led by web development is the blog. Web applications such as WordPress and Movable Type have created blog-environments for individual websites. The increased usage of open-source content management systems and enterprise content management systems has extended web development's impact at online interaction and communication.\r\nWeb development has also impacted personal networking and marketing. Websites are no longer simply tools for work or for commerce, but serve more broadly for communication and social networking. Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter provide users with a platform to communicate and organizations with a more personal and interactive way to engage the public.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the Priority of a Web Developer?</span>\r\nTo answer the question “What is a web developer?”, we must first look at what a web developer does and how they do it.\r\nA web developer or programmer is someone who takes a web design – which has been created by either a client or a design team – and turns it into a website. They do this by writing lines and lines of complicated code, using a variety of languages. Web developers have quite a difficult job, because they essentially have to take a language we understand, such as English, and translate it into a language that a computer understands, such as Python or HTML.\r\nAs you can imagine, this can take a lot of time and effort and requires an intricate understanding of various programming languages and how they are used. Different types of developers specialize in different areas, which means that large web projects are usually a collaboration between several different developers.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What Types Of Web Developers Are There?</span>\r\nUnfortunately, the question “What does a web developer do?” doesn’t have one simple answer. As noted above, there are some different types of web developers, each of which focuses on a different aspect of the creation of a website.\r\nTo understand what is a web developer it is crucial to know that the three main types of developers are front-end, back-end, and full-stack. Front-end developers are responsible for the parts of a website that people see and interact with, back-end developers are responsible for the behind the scenes code that controls how a website loads and runs, and full-stack developers do a bit of everything.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Front-End Developer</span>\r\nA front-end developer is someone who takes a client or design team’s website design and writes the code needed to implement it on the web. A decent front-end web developer will be fluent in at least three programming languages – HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.\r\nHTML allows them to add content to a website while splitting it into headings, paragraphs, and tables. CSS lets a decent developer style the content and change things like colors, sizes, and borders. JavaScript allows the inclusion of interactive elements, such as push buttons. We will go into more detail about these languages later.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">So, what do web developers do when they work on the front end of a website?</span></span>\r\n<ul><li>What is a web developer responsible for is that they make sure that all of the content that is needed for the website is clear, visible, and found in the right place. In some cases front-end developers may also have content writing skills, allowing them to create the content for the website as they go.</li><li>They make sure that the right colors are in the right places, especially concerning text colors, background colors, and headers. Some of the best front-end developers are also very good designers, allowing them to tweak things as they go.</li><li>They make sure that all outbound links are correctly formatted, that all buttons work properly, and that the website is responsive and attractive. Mobile design is usually a big part of the job, while it is also important to make sure that a website will display correctly on all web browsers.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Back-End Developer</span>\r\nWhile it may seem like front-end developers have a difficult job making sure that a website looks great, works well, and contains the correct content, back-end developers have it much worse. While front-end developers are responsible for client-side programming, back-end developers have to deal with the server-side.\r\nThis means that they have to create the code and programs which power the website’s server, databases, and any applications that it contains. The most important thing as a back-end developer is the ability to be able to create a clean, efficient code that does what you want it to in the quickest way possible. Since website speed is a major consideration when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), it is a large factor when developing the back-end.\r\nTo fully explain what is a web developer it is essential to know that back-end developers use a wide range of different server-side languages to build complicated programs. Some of the most popular languages used include PHP, Python, Java, and Ruby. JavaScript is also becoming increasingly widespread as a back-end development language, while SQL is commonly used to manage and analyze data in website databases.\r\nSince different websites have different needs, a back-end developer must be flexible, able to create different programs, and they absolutely must have a clear, in-depth understanding of the languages that they use. This is very important to make sure that they can come up with the most efficient method of creating the required program while making sure that it is secure, scalable, and easy to maintain.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Full-Stack Developer</span>\r\nIf you are looking for a quick, simple answer to the question “What is a web developer?”, then a full-stack developer is probably the closest thing that you’re going to get. Full-stack developers understand both front and back-end strategies and processes, which means that they are perfectly positioned to oversee the entire process.\r\nIn the case of small websites that don’t have a huge development budget, a full-stack developer will often be employed to build the entire website. In this case, it is extremely important for them to have a complete, in-depth understanding of both front and back-end development and how they work.\r\nLearning full-stack development techniques has a huge range of benefits, including:\r\n<ul><li>You will end up with the knowledge to be able to create an entire website on your own. This makes you a lot more employable, increasing your job security in the future.</li><li>As a full-stack developer, you will understand the connections between the front and back-ends of a website, allowing you do build efficient and effective programs for all parts of the website.</li><li>Full-stack developers are often employed to oversee large projects for big web development companies. Positions like this are likely to be paid more than standard web development positions, making them more attractive to developers. Full-stack defines what is a web developer.</li></ul>\r\nAlthough most developers start with either front or back-end specializations, there are a lot of reasons why you should consider branching out and learning both. It will make you a lot more employable, will give you a greater understanding of the whole concept of what is web development, and will make it easier for you to create entire websites on your own.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Web_Development.png","alias":"web-development"},"619":{"id":619,"title":"Drupal Development","description":" Drupal is a content management software. It's used to make many of the websites and applications you use every day. Drupal has great standard features, like easy content authoring, reliable performance, and excellent security. But what sets it apart is its flexibility; modularity is one of its core principles. Its tools help you build the versatile, structured content that dynamic web experiences need.\r\nIt's also a great choice for creating integrated digital frameworks. You can extend it with anyone, or many, of thousands of add-ons. Modules expand Drupal's functionality. Themes let you customize your content's presentation. Distributions are packaged Drupal bundles you can use as starter-kits. Mix and match these components to enhance Drupal's core abilities. Or, integrate Drupal with external services and other applications in your infrastructure. No other content management software is this powerful and scalable.\r\nThe Drupal project is open source software. Anyone can download, use, work on, and share it with others. It's built on principles like collaboration, globalism, and innovation. It's distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). There are no licensing fees, ever. Drupal will always be free.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What can Drupal do? And why is it different from other CMS?</span>\r\nThere are many reasons why Drupal is the top three most used CMS, and why tons of small to big complex systems have made it their options. Here are those:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reliability.</span> Drupal is one of the top three most popular content management systems in the world. It has a longstanding history. Though Drupal is a work in progress, it has been stable along the way. We have Drupal 7 now while Drupal 8 is going to be released. But you can be assured that you will be supported for Drupal previous version at least 5 years. Meanwhile, the resources will stay there for goods.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Available resources.</span> Nearly anything you want to do with the system has been priorly created and done absolutely well by other people. Other great news is nearly all of the most useful modules (Drupal add-ons) are contributed to the Drupal community. This is invaluable because, in many CMS, you have to pay for important features. As a user, you have benefited greatly from someone’s efforts, and experience.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">A huge dedicated community.</span> The Drupal community is large, dynamic and has functioned well since 2001. As a newbie or a senior developer, Drupal.org is a must-have resource where you dig in for learning material, upcoming news, or ask for support from contributors, and specialists.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Robust and convenience.</span> Be assured that the source code for building your Drupal sites has been precisely written, and designed by Drupal experts. When you have an intention to do more complex and advanced work, you will find it easy and convenient to modify the system. This grants users a great advantage over other CMS.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Flexibility.</span> It’s not a chance that Drupal is considered the most flexible CMS. We have always thought that if you have an idea about any functions, contents, you can certainly create it with Drupal. Seriously. You can create any content on site. You can customize anything to fit your taste. You can create any website type that you want.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Scalability.</span> By scalability, we mean that you can extend your Drupal core to a higher level with a variety of contributed Drupal modules. What’s great with the Drupal modules is that they integrate perfectly well with Drupal core. They also connect absolutely efficiently with the modules. This is regardless of the fact many modules are totally different. It is due to the natural structure &amp; built-in system of Drupal. This thereby enhances the power of extending your Drupal website. It is also a core strength of Drupal compared with other CMS. Meanwhile, Drupal is an open source. So suppose the modules you want don’t exist, you can create one, edit an existing module, or hire someone to do the job.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Security.</span> Drupal has been meticulously tested up to strict security rules by Drupal experts and contributors. Its built-in security is strong. Drupal will lock down whatever directory installed, rendering important data, configuration files unable to be accessed directly. No wonder that many big sites with extreme security are using Drupal, namely - whitehouse.org, commerce.gov, weforum.org,...</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the uses of Drupal?</span>\r\nAs stated, due to its flexibility and extensibility, Drupal is not limited to any kind. Browse these lists to see the wide range of things that Drupal can build:\r\n<ul><li>Personal or corporate Web sites</li><li>Community portal sites</li><li>Intranet/Corporate sites</li><li>Blogs, art, portfolio, music, multimedia sites</li><li>Forums</li><li>International sites (websites with multi languages)</li><li>E-commerce sites</li><li>Resource directories</li><li>Social networking sites</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">When Drupal isn't right?</span>\r\nIf it is necessary to know about a system before we set our foot on, it’s never been less important to explore its cons. Here we bring some of our caveats for the system:\r\n<ul><li>There’s a little learning curve. You will not learn and work with Drupal in a few days. Accept this fact. It’s harder to start compared with other CMS like Wordpress. But once you learn some basic things, it’s easy, and the flow is smoother.</li><li>It is not for those who have insufficient time to educate themselves about this system, or little money to pay a Drupal developer to carry out the work.</li><li>Finding a good Drupal developer is harder to find than that of Wordpress or other systems. It’s not hard to guess this considering the number of Wordpress developers compared with Drupal.</li></ul>\r\nIt always takes some investments to learn about something. For a new user, it would be a huge opportunity cost - what you will gain and lose working with one system and leave others behind.\r\nBut after all the choice is always yours.We expect it would be worth. The CMS you will spend thousands hours working. The system through this you make a living. The option that yields energy and satisfaction.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Drupal_Development__1_.png","alias":"drupal-development"},"627":{"id":627,"title":"CSS Development","description":" Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language like HTML. CSS is a cornerstone technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and JavaScript.\r\nCSS is designed to enable the separation of presentation and content, including layout, colors, and fonts. This separation can improve content accessibility, provide more flexibility and control in the specification of presentation characteristics, enable multiple web pages to share formatting by specifying the relevant CSS in a separate .css file, and reduce complexity and repetition in the structural content.\r\nSeparation of formatting and content also makes it feasible to present the same markup page in different styles for different rendering methods, such as on-screen, in print, by voice (via speech-based browser or screen reader), and on Braille-based tactile devices. CSS also has rules for alternate formatting if the content is accessed on a mobile device.\r\nThe name cascading comes from the specified priority scheme to determine which style rule applies if more than one rule matches a particular element. This cascading priority scheme is predictable.\r\nThe CSS specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Internet media type (MIME type) text/css is registered for use with CSS by RFC 2318 (March 1998). The W3C operates a free CSS validation service for CSS documents.\r\nIn addition to HTML, other markup languages support the use of CSS including XHTML, plain XML, SVG, and XUL.\r\nBefore CSS, nearly all presentational attributes of HTML documents were contained within the HTML markup. All font colors, background styles, element alignments, borders and sizes had to be explicitly described, often repeatedly, within the HTML. CSS lets authors move much of that information to another file, the style sheet, resulting in considerably simpler HTML.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Which is better: plain HTML or HTML with CSS?</span>\r\nMany site developers wonder why you need CSS if you can use plain HTML. Most likely, they only know the development of the site and have a number of gaps in knowledge. The bottom line is that HTML is used to structure the content of a page. And CSS allows you to format this content, make it more attractive to users.\r\nWhen the World Wide Web was created, the developers used only one language - HTML. It was used as a means of outputting structured text. The author had scant functional at his disposal. The maximum that could be done - to designate the title, select the paragraph. Tags were not enough.\r\nIn connection with the development of the Internet, the base of HTML language tags was expanded to allow the appearance of documents to be adjusted. At the same time, the structure remained unchanged.\r\nStructuring tags, for example &lt;table&gt;, began to spread. It was they who were more often chosen to design the pages instead of the structure itself. Some browsers offered their own tags, which only they could reproduce.\r\nThus, users often stumbled upon the message: &quot;To view a page, you need to use browser XXX.&quot;\r\nTo correct the situation and create a single database of tags for formatting was created CSS. He allowed refusing to bind tags to browsers.\r\nUsing HTML with CSS is more convenient than using plain HTML. CSS provides the following benefits:\r\n<ul><li>Designed to the smallest detail.</li><li>Using a single table, you can manage various documents.</li><li>You can customize the page display options for different devices: computer screen, smartphone screen, etc.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Website Promotion with CSS</span>\r\nThe emergence and development of CSS have made the development of web resources more efficient and effective. Now it’s much easier and more convenient to control the design. Also, using CSS, we managed to reduce the code of the pages, their size. This had a positive impact on the download speed, the indexing also began to pass faster. The use of an adaptive approach allowed us to make a breakthrough in the field of mobile versions of Internet resources.\r\nTo improve the website promotion, experts recommend placing the CSS style sheets in a separate document so as not to increase the amount of code. You can create one or more such files.\r\nPreviously, search engines could not read style sheets, which made it possible to use them in black SEO, for example, to create invisible texts. Now it is better to abandon the use of CSS for other purposes.\r\nCSS has several advantages and allows you to improve the site, making it more attractive to visitors. However, it is important to correctly register all the elements.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_CSS_Development.png","alias":"css-development"},"629":{"id":629,"title":"PHP Development","description":"PHP is a general-purpose programming language originally designed for web development. It was originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994; the PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group. PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page, but it now stands for the recursive initialism PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.\r\nPHP code may be executed with a command line interface (CLI), embedded into HTML code, or used in combination with various web template systems, web content management systems, and web frameworks. PHP code is usually processed by a PHP interpreter implemented as a module in a web server or as a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) executable. The web server outputs the results of the interpreted and executed PHP code, which may be any type of data, such as generated HTML code or binary image data. PHP can be used for many programming tasks outside of the web context, such as standalone graphical applications and robotic drone control.\r\nThe standard PHP interpreter, powered by the Zend Engine, is free software released under the PHP License. PHP has been widely ported and can be deployed on most web servers on almost every operating system and platform, free of charge.\r\nThe PHP language evolved without a written formal specification or standard until 2014, with the original implementation acting as the de facto standard which other implementations aimed to follow. Since 2014, work has gone on to create a formal PHP specification.\r\nAs of September 2019, over 60% of sites on the web using PHP are still on discontinued/&quot;EOLed&quot; version 5.6 or older; versions prior to 7.2 are no longer officially supported by The PHP Development Team, but security support is provided by third parties, such as Debian.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is PHP?</span>\r\nPHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor. It is an open-source server-side scripting language that is widely used for web development. It supports many databases like MySQL, Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, generic ODBC, etc.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is PEAR in PHP?</span>\r\nPEAR is a framework and repository for reusable PHP components. PEAR stands for PHP Extension and Application Repository. It contains all types of PHP code snippets and libraries. It also provides a command-line interface to install &quot;packages&quot; automatically.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Who is known as the father of PHP?</span>\r\nRasmus Lerdorf.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What was the old name of PHP?</span>\r\nThe old name of PHP was Personal Home Page.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Explain the difference b/w static and dynamic websites?</span>\r\nIn static websites, content can't be changed after running the script. You can't change anything on the site. It is predefined.\r\nIn dynamic websites, the content of a script can be changed at the run time. Its content is regenerated every time a user visits or reload. Google, yahoo and every search engine is an example of a dynamic website.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the name of the scripting engine in PHP?</span>\r\nThe scripting engine that powers PHP is called Zend Engine 2.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_PHP_Development.png","alias":"php-development"},"641":{"id":641,"title":"XML Development","description":"","materialsDescription":"","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_XML_Development.png","alias":"xml-development"},"645":{"id":645,"title":"JavaScript development","description":" JavaScript, often abbreviated as JS, is a high-level, just-in-time compiled, object-oriented programming language that conforms to the ECMAScript specification. JavaScript has curly-bracket syntax, dynamic typing, prototype-based object-orientation, and first-class functions.\r\nAlongside HTML and CSS, JavaScript is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web. JavaScript enables interactive web pages and is an essential part of web applications. The vast majority of websites use it, and major web browsers have a dedicated JavaScript engine to execute it.\r\nAs a multi-paradigm language, JavaScript supports event-driven, functional, and imperative (including object-oriented and prototype-based) programming styles. It has APIs for working with text, arrays, dates, regular expressions, and the DOM, but the language itself does not include any I/O, such as networking, storage, or graphics facilities. It relies upon the host environment in which it is embedded to provide these features.\r\nInitially only implemented client-side in web browsers, JavaScript engines are now embedded in many other types of host software, including server-side in web servers and databases, and in non-web programs such as word processors and PDF software, and in runtime environments that make JavaScript available for writing mobile and desktop applications, including desktop widgets.\r\nThe terms Vanilla JavaScript and Vanilla JS refer to JavaScript not extended by any frameworks or additional libraries. Scripts written in Vanilla JS are plain JavaScript code.\r\nAlthough there are similarities between JavaScript and Java, including language name, syntax, and respective standard libraries, the two languages are distinct and differ greatly in design. JavaScript was influenced by programming languages such as Self and Scheme. The JSON serialization format, used to store data structures in files or transmit them across networks, is based on JavaScript.\r\n&quot;JavaScript&quot; is a trademark of Oracle Corporation in the United States. It is used under license for technology invented and implemented by Netscape Communications and current entities such as the Mozilla Foundation.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is JavaScript?</span>\r\nJavaScript is a client-side as well as a server-side scripting language that can be inserted into HTML pages and is understood by web browsers. JavaScript is also an Object-based Programming language.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the differences between Java and JavaScript?</span>\r\nJava is a complete programming language. In contrast, JavaScript is a coded program that can be introduced to HTML pages. These two languages are not at all inter-dependent and are designed for different intent. Java is an object-oriented programming (OOPS) or structured programming languages like C++ or C whereas JavaScript is a client-side scripting language.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Do I have to buy JavaScript?</span>\r\nNo--there is nothing to buy. The JavaScript interpreter is included in all major Internet Browsers--so as long as you have an Internet Browser, you're all set. JavaScript source files are written using an ordinary text editor, such as Notepad.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is JScript?</span>\r\nJScript is Microsoft's version of Netscape's JavaScript. Each Internet Browser vendor creates their own version of what is collectively known as JavaScript---however, the latest versions of these browsers are moving towards the ECMA Script standard.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Who 'owns' JavaScript?</span>\r\nECMA governs the standard features of JavaScript---however, each vendor writes the code for their own versions of JavaScript.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the features of JavaScript?</span>\r\n<ul><li>JavaScript is a lightweight, interpreted programming language.</li><li>JavaScript is designed for creating network-centric applications.</li><li>JavaScript is complementary to and integrated with Java.</li><li>JavaScript is complementary to and integrated with HTML.</li><li>JavaScript is open and cross-platform.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_JavaScript_development.png","alias":"javascript-development"},"669":{"id":669,"title":"MySQL Development","description":" MySQL is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of &quot;My&quot;, the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter, and &quot;SQL&quot;, the abbreviation for Structured Query Language.\r\nMySQL is free and open-source software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, and is also available under a variety of proprietary licenses. MySQL was owned and sponsored by the Swedish company MySQL AB, which was bought by Sun Microsystems (now Oracle Corporation). In 2010, when Oracle acquired Sun, Widenius forked the open-source MySQL project to create MariaDB.\r\nMySQL is a component of the LAMP web application software stack (and others), which is an acronym for Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python. MySQL is used by many database-driven web applications, including Drupal, Joomla, phpBB, and WordPress. MySQL is also used by many popular websites, including Facebook, Flickr, MediaWiki, Twitter, and YouTube.\r\nMySQL is written in C and C++. Its SQL parser is written in yacc, but it uses a home-brewed lexical analyzer. MySQL works on many system platforms, including AIX, BSDi, FreeBSD, HP-UX, eComStation, i5/OS, IRIX, Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, NetBSD, Novell NetWare, OpenBSD, OpenSolaris, OS/2 Warp, QNX, Oracle Solaris, Symbian, SunOS, SCO OpenServer, SCO UnixWare, Sanos and Tru64. A port of MySQL to OpenVMS also exists.\r\nThe MySQL server software itself and the client libraries use dual-licensing distribution. They are offered under GPL version 2, or a proprietary license.\r\nSupport can be obtained from the official manual. Free support additionally is available in different IRC channels and forums. Oracle offers paid support via its MySQL Enterprise products. They differ in the scope of services and in price. Additionally, a number of third party organisations exist to provide support and services, including MariaDB and Percona.\r\nMySQL has received positive reviews, and reviewers noticed it &quot;performs extremely well in the average case&quot; and that the &quot;developer interfaces are there, and the documentation (not to mention feedback in the real world via Web sites and the like) is very, very good&quot;. It has also been tested to be a &quot;fast, stable and true multi-user, multi-threaded sql database server&quot;.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is MySQL?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">MySQL is a database management system.</span>\r\nA database is a structured collection of data. It may be anything from a simple shopping list or a picture gallery or the vast amounts of information in a corporate network. To add, access, and process data stored in a computer database, you need a database management system such as MySQL Server. Since computers are very good at handling large amounts of data, database management plays a central role in computing, as stand-alone utilities, or as parts of other applications.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">MySQL is a relational database management system.</span>\r\nA relational database stores data in separate tables rather than putting all the data in one big storeroom. This adds speed and flexibility. The tables are linked by defined relations making it possible to combine data from several tables on request. The SQL part of &quot;MySQL&quot; stands for &quot;Structured Query Language&quot; the most common standardised language used to access databases.\r\nMySQL, the most popular Open Source SQL database, is developed and provided by MySQL AB. The MySQL web site ( http://www.mysql.com ) provides the latest information about MySQL software and MySQL AB.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why do I need MySQL?</span>\r\nIf you have any information such as products, dates, customers, pictures, or any data that is not static, a database is an efficient way to manage that information. Sites that contain message boards, guest books, dynamic galleries, contact lists, or online product information can greatly benefit by storing their information on our fast, reliable and secure database server.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_MySQL_Development.png","alias":"mysql-development"},"676":{"id":676,"title":"PostgreSQL Development","description":" PostgreSQL, also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and technical standards compliance. It is designed to handle a range of workloads, from single machines to data warehouses or Web services with many concurrent users. It is the default database for macOS Server, and is also available for Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Windows.\r\nPostgreSQL features transactions with Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability (ACID) properties, automatically updatable views, materialized views, triggers, foreign keys, and stored procedures. PostgreSQL is developed by the PostgreSQL Global Development Group, a diverse group of many companies and individual contributors.\r\nPostgreSQL's developers pronounce PostgreSQL as /ˈpoʊstɡrɛs ˌkjuː ˈɛl/. It is abbreviated as Postgres because of ubiquitous support for the SQL standard among relational databases. Originally named POSTGRES, the name (Post Ingres) refers to the project's origins in that RDBMS that originated at University of California, Berkeley. After a review the PostgreSQL Core Team announced in 2007 that the product would continue to use the name PostgreSQL.\r\nPostgreSQL manages concurrency through multiversion concurrency control (MVCC), which gives each transaction a &quot;snapshot&quot; of the database, allowing changes to be made without affecting other transactions. This largely eliminates the need for read locks, and ensures the database maintains ACID principles. PostgreSQL offers three levels of transaction isolation: Read Committed, Repeatable Read and Serializable. Because PostgreSQL is immune to dirty reads, requesting a Read Uncommitted transaction isolation level provides read committed instead. PostgreSQL supports full serializability via the serializable snapshot isolation (SSI) method.\r\nPostgreSQL is available for the following operating systems: Linux (all recent distributions), 64-bit installers available for macOS (OS X) version 10.6 and newer – Windows (with installers available for 64-bit version; tested on latest versions and back to Windows 2012 R2, while for PostgreSQL version 10 and older a 32-bit installer is available and tested down to 32-bit Windows 2008 R1; compilable by e.g. Visual Studio, version 2013 up up to most recent 2019 version) – FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, and UnixWare; and not officially tested: DragonFly BSD, BSD/OS, IRIX, OpenIndiana, OpenSolaris, OpenServer, and Tru64 UNIX. Most other Unix-like systems could also work; most modern do support.\r\nPostgreSQL works on any of the following instruction set architectures: x86 and x86-64 on Windows and other operating systems; these are supported on other than Windows: IA-64 Itanium (external support for HP-UX), PowerPC, PowerPC 64, S/390, S/390x, SPARC, SPARC 64, ARMv8-A (64-bit) and older ARM (32-bit, including older such as ARMv6 in Raspberry Pi), MIPS, MIPSel, and PA-RISC. It was also known to work, but not tested in a while, on Alpha (dropped in 9.5), M68k, M32R, NS32k, and VAX. Beyond these, it is possible to build PostgreSQL for an unsupported CPU by disabling spinlocks.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is PostgreSQL? How is it pronounced? What is Postgres?</span>\r\nPostgreSQL is pronounced Post-Gres-Q-L.\r\nPostgreSQL is an object-relational database system that has the features of traditional proprietary database systems with enhancements to be found in next-generation DBMS systems. PostgreSQL is free and the complete source code is available.\r\nPostgreSQL development is performed by a team of mostly volunteer developers spread throughout the world and communicating via the Internet. It is a community project and is not controlled by any company.\r\nPostgres is a widely-used nickname for PostgreSQL. It was the original name of the project at Berkeley and is strongly preferred over other nicknames. If you find 'PostgreSQL' hard to pronounce, call it 'Postgres' instead.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Who controls PostgreSQL?</span>\r\nIf you are looking for a PostgreSQL gatekeeper, central committee, or controlling company, give up --- there isn't one. We do have a core committee and git committers, but these groups are more for administrative purposes than control. The project is directed by the community of developers and users, which anyone can join. All you need to do is subscribe to the mailing lists and participate in the discussions.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Who is the PostgreSQL Global Development Group?</span>\r\nThe &quot;PGDG&quot; is an international, unincorporated association of individuals and companies who have contributed to the PostgreSQL project. The PostgreSQL Core Team generally act as spokespeople for the PGDG.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Who is the PostgreSQL Core Team?</span>\r\nA committee of five to seven (currently six) senior contributors to PostgreSQL who do the following for the project: (a) set release dates, (b) handle confidential matters for the project, (c) act as spokespeople for the PGDG when required, and (d) arbitrate community decisions which are not settled by consensus. The current Core Team is listed on top of the contributor's page.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What about the various PostgreSQL foundations?</span>\r\nWhile the PostgreSQL project utilizes non-profit corporations in the USA, Europe, Brazil, and Japan for fundraising and project coordination, these entities do not own the PostgreSQL code.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is the license of PostgreSQL?</span>\r\nPostgreSQL is distributed under a license similar to BSD and MIT. Basically, it allows users to do anything they want with the code, including reselling binaries without the source code. The only restriction is that you not hold us legally liable for problems with the software. There is also the requirement that this copyright appears in all copies of the software.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_PostgesSQL_Development.png","alias":"postgresql-development"},"718":{"id":718,"title":"IT Consulting","description":" In management, information technology consulting (also called IT consulting, computer consultancy, business and technology services, computing consultancy, technology consulting, and IT advisory) as a field of activity focuses on advising organizations on how best to use information technology (IT) in achieving their business objectives.\r\nThe IT consulting industry can be viewed as a Four-tier system:\r\n<ul><li>Professional services firms which maintain large professional workforces and command high bill rates.</li><li>Staffing firms, which place technologists with businesses on a temporary basis, typically in response to employee absences, temporary skill shortages and technical projects.</li><li>Independent consultants, who are self-employed or who function as employees of staffing firms (for US tax purposes, employed on Form W-2), or as independent contractors in their own right (for US tax purposes, on &quot;1099&quot;).</li><li>Information Technology security consultants</li></ul>\r\nThere are different reasons why consultants are called in:\r\n<ul><li>To gain external, objective advice and recommendations</li><li>To gain access to the consultants' specialized expertise</li><li>Temporary help during a one-time project where the hiring of a permanent employee(s) is not required or necessary</li><li>To outsource all or part of the IT services from a specific company.</li></ul>\r\nThere is a relatively unclear line between management consulting and IT consulting. There are sometimes overlaps between the two fields, but IT consultants often have degrees in computer science, electronics, technology, or management information systems while management consultants often have degrees in accounting, economics, Industrial Engineering, finance, or a generalized MBA (Masters in Business Administration).\r\nAccording to the Institute for Partner Education &amp; Development, IT consultants' revenues come predominantly from design and planning based consulting with a mixture of IT and business consulting. This is different from a systems integrator in that you do not normally take title to product. Their value comes from their ability to integrate and support technologies as well as determining product and brands. ","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Who is an information technology (IT) consultant?</span>\r\nAn information technology consultant is a third-party service provider who is qualified to advise clients on the best use of IT to meet specific business requirements. IT consultants may work with a professional IT consultancy firm or as independent contractors. They may conduct a business needs assessment and develop an information systems solution that meets the organization's objectives.\r\nSome information technology consultants emphasize technical issues while others help organizations use IT to manage business processes. Still others specialize in a specific IT area such as information security.\r\nIT consultants need a deep knowledge of both business and information technology. A bachelor's degree in management information systems, computer science, or information science is the typical path into a technical consultancy career. IT certifications supplement this foundation with specialized technical training. Information technology degree and certification programs are available online to accommodate working IT professionals.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the prerequisites and major obstacles?</span>\r\nOnce a business owner defined the needs to take a business to the next level, a decision maker will define a scope, cost and a time-frame of the project. The role of the IT consultancy company is to support and nurture the company from the very beginning of the project until the end, and deliver the project not only in the scope, time and cost but also with complete customer satisfaction.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Project scoping and planning</span></span>\r\nThe usual problem is that a business owner doesn't know the detail of what the project is going to deliver until it starts the process. In many cases, the incremental effort in some projects can lead to significant financial loss.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Business process and system design</span></span>\r\nThe scope of a project is linked intimately to the proposed business processes and systems that the project is going to deliver. Regardless of whether the project is to launch a new product range or discontinue unprofitable parts of the business, the change will have some impact on business processes and systems. The documentation of your business processes and system requirements are as fundamental to project scoping as an architects plans would be to the costing and scoping of the construction of a building.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Project management support</span></span>\r\nThe most successful business projects are always those that are driven by an employee who has the authority, vision and influence to drive the required changes in a business. It is highly unlikely that a business owner (decision maker or similar) will realize the changes unless one has one of these people in the employment. However, the project leadership role typically requires significant experience and skills which are not usually found within a company focused on day-to-day operations. Due to this requirement within more significant business change projects/programs, outside expertise is often sought from firms which can bring this specific skill set to the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the skills of IT-consulting?</span>\r\nAn IT consultant needs to possess the following skills:\r\n<ul><li>Advisory skills</li><li>Technical skills</li><li>Business skills</li><li>Communication skills</li><li>Management skills</li><li>Advisory language skills</li><li>Business and management language skills</li><li>Technical language skills</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_IT_Consulting.png","alias":"it-consulting"},"725":{"id":725,"title":"IT Audit","description":"An information technology audit, or information systems audit, is an examination of the management controls within an Information technology (IT) infrastructure. The evaluation of obtained evidence determines if the information systems are safeguarding assets, maintaining data integrity, and operating effectively to achieve the organization's goals or objectives. These reviews may be performed in conjunction with a financial statement audit, internal audit, or other form of attestation engagement.\r\nIT audits are also known as automated data processing audits (ADP audits) and computer audits. They were formerly called electronic data processing audits (EDP audits).\r\nAn IT audit is different from a financial statement audit. While a financial audit's purpose is to evaluate whether the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, an entity's financial position, results of operations, and cash flows in conformity to standard accounting practices, the purposes of an IT audit is to evaluate the system's internal control design and effectiveness. This includes, but is not limited to, efficiency and security protocols, development processes, and IT governance or oversight. Installing controls are necessary but not sufficient to provide adequate security. People responsible for security must consider if the controls are installed as intended, if they are effective, or if any breach in security has occurred and if so, what actions can be done to prevent future breaches. These inquiries must be answered by independent and unbiased observers. These observers are performing the task of information systems auditing. In an Information Systems (IS) environment, an audit is an examination of information systems, their inputs, outputs, and processing.\r\nThe primary functions of an IT audit are to evaluate the systems that are in place to guard an organization's information. Specifically, information technology audits are used to evaluate the organization's ability to protect its information assets and to properly dispense information to authorized parties. The IT audit aims to evaluate the following:\r\nWill the organization's computer systems be available for the business at all times when required? (known as availability) Will the information in the systems be disclosed only to authorized users? (known as security and confidentiality) Will the information provided by the system always be accurate, reliable, and timely? (measures the integrity) In this way, the audit hopes to assess the risk to the company's valuable asset (its information) and establish methods of minimizing those risks. ","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Is an IT Audit?</span>\r\nIn the typical software audit, your system administrators will be asked to show that software is not illegally loaded onto machines it shouldn’t be on, that the number of licenses matches up with the number of users or, if you purchased a bulk license, that you don’t exceed the bounds of that license. One thing you definitely don’t want to happen is for an auditor to find that an employee has brought a home version of a software package and installed it on his or her work computer.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Do Auditors Want?</span>\r\nIn short, software auditors want to know that companies are following the rules with regard to software licenses. How much slack they’ll give you if they find a minor violation depends on several factors. If you can show your company makes a good-faith effort to stay on top of all software license requirements, it could act in your favor.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Should We Do to Prepare for an IT Audit?</span>\r\nIf you have a strong IT asset management program in place, preparation for an audit is far less stressful. When you can easily create reports showing the number of copies installed, the number of licenses, license expiration dates, and hardware where the software is installed, you can create those reports in advance and look for potential problems. If you notice discrepancies, you can take steps to correct them before the auditors arrive.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How Can We Do a Self-Audit Beforehand?</span>\r\nPerforming periodic self-audits is not just busywork, but could potentially save your company a lot of money and embarrassment. The three main steps in a self-audit are: reading the vendor’s contract, gathering purchase information, and getting an accurate count of how many licenses are deployed:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Read the Contract</span> – Understand license types and models, including maintenance requirements. Learn if there are limitations on where the software can or cannot be used. For example, are you allowed to use it on laptops that travel outside the US?</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Gather Purchase Information</span> – Know where to get your hands on purchase data. If you purchased from a reseller, make sure that the reseller passed on your purchase information to the vendor.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Get an Accurate License Deployment Count</span> – If your company has a solid IT asset management program, this shouldn’t be a challenge. Otherwise, you’ll need to manually locate receipts and serial numbers and match them up to the machines where the software is deployed.</li></ul>\r\nThe self-audit is much easier to do when you don’t have an actual audit staring you in the face.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_IT_Audit.png","alias":"it-audit"},"735":{"id":735,"title":"Installation and configuration","description":" Installation or setup is the act of making the system or program ready for execution. Because the process varies for each program and each computer, programs (including operating systems) often come with an installer, a specialized program responsible for doing whatever is needed for their installation. The configuration is an arrangement of functional units according to their nature, number, and chief characteristics. Often, configuration pertains to the choice of hardware, software, firmware, settings, and documentation. The configuration affects system function and performance.\r\nSome computer programs can be executed by simply copying them into a folder stored on a computer and executing them. Other programs are supplied in a form unsuitable for immediate execution and therefore need an installation procedure. Once installed, the program can be executed again and again, without the need to reinstall before each execution.\r\nCommon operations performed during software installations include:\r\n<ul><li>Making sure that necessary system requirements are met</li><li>Checking for existing versions of the software</li><li>Creating or updating program files and folders</li><li>Adding configuration data such as configuration files, Windows registry entries or environment variables</li><li>Making the software accessible to the user, for instance by creating links, shortcuts or bookmarks</li><li>Configuring components that run automatically, such as daemons or Windows services</li><li>Performing product activation</li><li>Updating the software versions</li></ul>\r\nThese operations may require some charges or be free of charge. In case of payment, installation costs means the costs connected and relevant to or incurred as a result of installing the drivers or the equipment in the customers' premises. ","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What does &quot;Installation&quot; mean?</span>\r\nInstallation is the process of making hardware and/or software ready for use. Obviously, different systems require different types of installations. While certain installations are simple and straightforward and can be performed by non-professionals, others are more complex and time-consuming and may require the involvement of specialists.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What does the &quot;Configuration&quot; mean?</span>\r\nThe way a system is set up, or the assortment of components that make up the system. Configuration can refer to either hardware or software, or the combination of both. For instance, a typical configuration for a PC consists of 32MB (megabytes) main memory, a floppy drive, a hard disk, a modem, a CD-ROM drive, a VGA monitor, and the Windows operating system.\r\nMany software products require that the computer have a certain minimum configuration. For example, the software might require a graphics display monitor and a video adapter, a particular microprocessor, and a minimum amount of main memory.\r\nWhen you install a new device or program, you sometimes need to configure it, which means to set various switches and jumpers (for hardware) and to define values of parameters (for software). For example, the device or program may need to know what type of video adapter you have and what type of printer is connected to the computer. Thanks to new technologies, such as plug-and-play, much of this configuration is performed automatically.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Installation_and_configuration.png","alias":"installation-and-configuration"},"739":{"id":739,"title":"Deployment and Integration Services","description":" The number of various solutions implemented by customers today is quite large. Often, the subsystems of the seemingly unified IT landscape are either weakly connected with each other, or the interaction between them is established in the mode of transferring files and data by mail or “from hand to hand”.\r\nWestern IT vendors, following a certain trend, offer the customer complete and unified solutions. Such blocks of subsystems solve a specific task and form separate IT centers, which also require the mutual integration of infrastructures. This, oddly enough, is even more difficult, as a complete solution does not allow to penetrate deeply and get access to the required information or control subsystems.\r\nNevertheless, the integration and interconnection of information flows can significantly simplify business processes and lead to an increase in the efficiency of interaction both inside and outside the company (with customers and partners).\r\nThe integration task itself is important for business, as it provides a qualitatively new level of services. This is especially important for companies where IT is the immediate tool for achieving business goals. But it is equally important to make integration optimal in the light of minimizing not only the cost of purchasing equipment and software but also preserving previous IT investments.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The main types of implementation and integration services offered by companies:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Designing IT architecture for integration solutions in the field of analytics, automation and monitoring of business processes;</li><li>Development and integration of network infrastructure subsystems, including scalable telecommunications equipment, server equipment and workstations;</li><li>Defining a single platform and developing a solution for integrating enterprise applications, data and business processes;</li><li>Implementation and maintenance of integrated integration solutions in the field of enterprise management (ERP-systems);</li><li>Implementation and maintenance of integration solutions in the field of accounting and analysis of sales and customer relations (CRM-system);</li><li>Implementation and maintenance of integration solutions in the field of accounting and financial analysis;</li><li>Impairment, testing and development of solutions for ensuring information security of a business.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Deployment_and_Integration_Services.png","alias":"deployment-and-integration-services"}},"branches":"Information Technology","companySizes":"1 to 50 Employees","companyUrl":"https://alphawebgroup.com/","countryCodes":["UKR"],"certifications":[],"isSeller":true,"isSupplier":true,"isVendor":true,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Alpha Web Group","keywords":"","description":" Alpha Web Group is an outsourcing company specializing in Drupal and Symfony web development. Our company is based in Ukraine, the very heart of Eastern Europe. Our experienced team build flexible web solutions for various business areas.\r\nActively participat","og:title":"Alpha Web Group","og:description":" Alpha Web Group is an outsourcing company specializing in Drupal and Symfony web development. Our company is based in Ukraine, the very heart of Eastern Europe. Our experienced team build flexible web solutions for various business areas.\r\nActively participat","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Alpha_Web_Group_logo.jpg"},"eventUrl":"","vendorPartners":[],"supplierPartners":[],"vendoredProducts":[{"id":2325,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/aplha_web_group.jpg","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"Alpha Web Group Software Development","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.00","implementationsCount":0,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"alias":"alpha-web-group-software-development","companyTitle":"Alpha Web Group","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4634,"companyAlias":"alpha-web-group","description":"Alpha Web Group offers a number of services, including web development, training, consulting, design, Drupal hosting and support.\r\nOur team creates flexible web solutions, including:\r\n<ul><li>custom automation solutions for business processes;</li><li>e-commerce systems;</li><li>integration solutions for online business (custom integrations with various 3rd party business systems like CRM, ERP, Analytics etc.).</li></ul>\r\nOur web development engineers have been working with Drupal for more than 10 years.\r\nWe have developed over 300 custom Drupal themes and modules including integrations with 3rd parties like CRM, ERP, analytics, etc.\r\n60% of our team member are Drupal Experts.\r\nWe are constantly developing our proficiency actively participating in Drupal conferences, Drupal camps, local meetups and Drupal development sprints.\r\nOur company is an Organization Member of Drupal Association. We collaborate with Drupal agencies and indie developers worldwide.\r\nWe are passionate about building flexible web solutions to meet individual needs of business and help it grow and succeed online. Analyzing client’s requirements, we are ready to provide the best-fit solution.","shortDescription":"Alpha Web Group is an outsourcing company specializing in Drupal and Symfony web development.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Alpha Web Group Software Development","keywords":"","description":"Alpha Web Group offers a number of services, including web development, training, consulting, design, Drupal hosting and support.\r\nOur team creates flexible web solutions, including:\r\n<ul><li>custom automation solutions for business processes;</li><li>e-commer","og:title":"Alpha Web Group Software Development","og:description":"Alpha Web Group offers a number of services, including web development, training, consulting, design, Drupal hosting and support.\r\nOur team creates flexible web solutions, including:\r\n<ul><li>custom automation solutions for business processes;</li><li>e-commer","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/aplha_web_group.jpg"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":2325,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":32,"title":"IT outsourcing","alias":"it-outsourcing","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">IT outsourcing</span> is the use of external service providers to effectively deliver IT-enabled business process, application service and infrastructure solutions for business outcomes.\r\nOutsourcing, which also includes utility services, software as a service and cloud-enabled outsourcing, helps clients to develop the right sourcing strategies and vision, select the right IT service providers, structure the best possible contracts, and govern deals for sustainable win-win relationships with external providers.\r\nOutsourcing can enable enterprises to reduce costs, accelerate time to market, and take advantage of external expertise, assets and/or intellectual property. IT outsourcing can be implemented both ways: outsides or within the country. \r\nIT outsourcing vendors can provide either a fully managed service, meaning they take full responsibility of all IT maintenance and support, or they can provide additional support for an internal IT team when needed, which is known as co-sourced IT support. A company using IT outsourcing can choose to use one provider for all their IT functions or split the work among multiple providers. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Specific IT services typically outsourced include:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Application development</li><li>Web hosting</li><li>Application support</li><li>Database development</li><li>Telecommunications</li><li>Networking</li><li>Disaster recovery</li><li>Security</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Reasons for Outsourcing</span></p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Reduce Cost.</span> More often than not, outsourcing means saving money. This is often due to lower labor costs, cheaper infrastructure, or an advantageous tax system in the outsourcing location.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Access Skills That Are Unavailable Locally.</span> Resources that are scarce at home can sometimes be found in abundance elsewhere, meaning you can easily reach them through outsourcing.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Better Use Internal Resources</span>. By delegating some of your business processes to a third party, you’ll give your in-house employees the opportunity to focus on more meaningful tasks.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Accelerate Business Processes.</span> When you stop wasting time on mundane, time-consuming processes, you’ll be able to move forward with your core offering a lot faster.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Share Risks.</span> When you delegate a part of non-focus functionality by outsourcing it to a third-party vendor, you give away the responsibility and related risks.","materialsDescription":"<h3 class=\"align-center\">What are the Types of IT Outsourcing?</h3>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Project-Based Model.</span> The client hires a team to implement the part of work that is already planned and defined. The project manager from the outsourced team carries full responsibility for the quality and performance of the project.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Dedicated Team Model.</span> The client hires a team that will create a project for them, and they will work only on that project. Unlike the project-based model, a dedicated team is more engaged in your project. In this model, an outsourced team becomes your technical and product advisor. So it can offer ideas and suggest alternative solutions.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Outstaff Model.</span> It's a type of outsourcing in IT when you don't need a full-fledged development team and hire separate specialists. Sometimes the project requires finding a couple of additional professionals, and you're free to hire outstaff workers to cover that scope of work.</p>\r\n<h3 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are IT Outsourcing examples?</span></h3>\r\nThe individual or company that becomes your outsourcing partner can be located anywhere in the world — one block away from your office or on another continent.\r\nA Bay Area-based startup partnering with an app development team in Utah and a call center in the Philippines, or a UK-based digital marketing agency hiring a Magento developer from Ukraine are both examples of outsourcing.\r\n<h3 class=\"align-center\">Why You Should Use IT Outsourcing</h3>\r\nNow that you know what IT outsourcing is, its models, and types, it's time to clarify why you need to outsource and whether you really need it. Let's go over a few situations that suggest when to opt for IT outsourcing.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You are a domain expert with idea</span></li></ul>\r\nIf you're an industry expert with the idea that solves a real problem, IT outsourcing is your choice. In this case, your main goal is to enter the market and test the solution fast. An outsourced team will help you validate the idea, build an MVP to check the hypothesis, and implement changes in your product according to market needs. It saves you money, time and lets you reach the goal.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You have an early-stage startup</span></li></ul>\r\nIt's a common case that young startups spend money faster than they get a solid team and a ready-to-market product. The Failory found that financial problems are the 3rd reason why startup fails. So it makes more sense to reduce costs by hiring an outsourced team of professionals while your business lives on investor's money. You may employ a full-cycle product development studio covering all the blind spots and bringing your product to life.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You need a technical support</span></li></ul>\r\nEven if you already have a ready solution, but it demands some technical improvements – frameworks for backend components, new language, integrations with enterprise software, UX&amp;UI design – it makes more sense to find an experienced partner. There are many functions that IT outsourcing can cover, and again it saves you the time you'd otherwise spend on looking for qualified staff.<br /><br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_IT_outsourcing.png"},{"id":601,"title":"Custom Software Development","alias":"custom-software-development","description":" Custom software (also known as bespoke software or tailor-made software) is software that organization for some specific organization or another user. As such, it can be contrasted with the use of software packages developed for the mass market, such as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software, or existing free software.\r\nSince custom software is developed for a single customer it can accommodate that customer's particular preferences and expectations. Custom software may be developed in an iterative process, allowing all nuances and possible hidden risks to be taken into account, including issues which were not mentioned in the original requirement specifications (which are, as a rule, never perfect). In particular, the first phase in the software development process may involve many departments, materchode including marketing, engineering, research and development and general management.\r\nLarge companies commonly use custom software for critical functions, including content management, inventory management, customer management, human resource management, or otherwise to fill the gaps present in the existing software packages. Often such software is legacy software, developed before COTS or free software packages offering the required functionality became available.\r\nCustom software development is often considered expensive compared to off-the-shelf solutions or products. This can be true if one is speaking of typical challenges and typical solutions. However, it is not always true. In many cases, COTS software requires customization to correctly support the buyer's operations. The cost and delay of COTS customization can even add up to the expense of developing custom software. Cost is not the only consideration, however, as the decision to opt for custom software often includes the requirement for the purchaser to own the source code, to secure the possibility of future development or modifications to the installed system.\r\nAdditionally, COTS comes with upfront license costs which vary enormously but sometimes run into the millions (in terms of dollars). Furthermore, the big software houses that release COTS products revamp their product very frequently. Thus a particular customization may need to be upgraded for compatibility every two to four years. Given the cost of customization, such upgrades also turn out to be expensive, as a dedicated product release cycle will have to be earmarked for them.\r\nThe decision to build custom software or go for a COTS implementation would usually rest on one or more of the following factors:\r\n<ul><li>Finances - both cost and benefit: The upfront license cost for COTS products mean that a thorough cost-benefit analysis of the business case needs to be done. However it is widely known that large custom software projects cannot fix all three of scope, time/cost and quality constant, so either the cost or the benefits of a custom software project will be subject to some degree of uncertainty - even disregarding the uncertainty around the business benefits of a feature that is successfully implemented.</li><li>Supplier - In the case of COTS, is the supplier likely to remain in business long, and will there be adequate support and customization available? Alternatively, will there be a realistic possibility of getting support and customization from third parties? In the case of custom software, software development may be outsourced or done in-house. If it is outsourced, the question is: is the supplier reputable, and do they have a good track record?</li><li>Time to market: COTS products usually have a quicker time to market</li><li>Size of implementation: COTS comes with standardization of business processes and reporting. For a global or national organization, these can bring in gains in cost savings, efficiency and productivity, if the branch offices are all willing and able to use the same COTS without heavy customizations (which is not always a given).</li></ul>","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is custom software such a large investment?</span>\r\nBuilding a custom web application is a time-consuming endeavor. It takes time to learn the processes of your business, to gather requirements, to flesh out your needs, and to build the software. Put simply, time is money.\r\nWhile it’s a large investment, by investing in custom software, you’ll own the code instead of having a long-term licensing agreement with another software company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How could my business benefit from custom software?</span>\r\nA custom business software solution increases process efficiency through process automation. When business processes are properly automated, they minimize the waste in time and resources that the original processes contained.\r\nThink of it this way: with software that already exists, you have to modify your process to meet software capabilities. With custom software, you can build a system around the existing processes you have in place. You took a lot of time to develop those processes, so why should you revamp your business?\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is IP and how important is it that I own it?</span>\r\nIP stands for Intellectual Property. When you deal with anything creative, you have to think about copyright and the intellectual property on that work and that includes the creation of software code.\r\nThis gets back to the question of buying vs. building. If there is an existing solution that can suit your needs just fine, then it makes sense to buy, but the software developer owns the code and you are basically licensing the software from there. However, if you need a specialized solution that is customized to your needs and decide to go the custom development route, then the question of who owns the code is an important one.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">I’m thinking about hiring someone offshore; what should I watch out for?</span>\r\nIn short, everything. Language barriers and lack of proximity lead to breakdowns in communication and quality. Do yourself a favor and stay local.\r\nOn a related note, if you’re thinking about hiring for the position internally, think about this: it takes around three people to complete a successful custom software project. If you hire someone internally, their salary might cost what it would take to build with us, and you get a whole team when you work with us. Plus, if your software developer decides to leave, they take their knowledge with them. If one of our team members leave, our whole team shares the knowledge so you’re not left in the dark.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">If things don’t go well, am I sunk?</span>\r\nWe make communication and transparency are top priorities so this doesn’t happen. Right out of the gate we work hard to make sure that not only the project is a good fit, but the relationship with the client is as well. Through each step of the process and the build, we keep you in the loop weekly so you know what to expect and what is happening, but a good development company should have places in their process/relationship where you can cleanly exit. Make sure you know what the process is for leaving and what those different ‘leaving’ options are.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Custom_Software_Development.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"suppliedProducts":[{"id":2325,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/aplha_web_group.jpg","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"Alpha Web Group Software Development","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.00","implementationsCount":0,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"alias":"alpha-web-group-software-development","companyTitle":"Alpha Web Group","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4634,"companyAlias":"alpha-web-group","description":"Alpha Web Group offers a number of services, including web development, training, consulting, design, Drupal hosting and support.\r\nOur team creates flexible web solutions, including:\r\n<ul><li>custom automation solutions for business processes;</li><li>e-commerce systems;</li><li>integration solutions for online business (custom integrations with various 3rd party business systems like CRM, ERP, Analytics etc.).</li></ul>\r\nOur web development engineers have been working with Drupal for more than 10 years.\r\nWe have developed over 300 custom Drupal themes and modules including integrations with 3rd parties like CRM, ERP, analytics, etc.\r\n60% of our team member are Drupal Experts.\r\nWe are constantly developing our proficiency actively participating in Drupal conferences, Drupal camps, local meetups and Drupal development sprints.\r\nOur company is an Organization Member of Drupal Association. We collaborate with Drupal agencies and indie developers worldwide.\r\nWe are passionate about building flexible web solutions to meet individual needs of business and help it grow and succeed online. Analyzing client’s requirements, we are ready to provide the best-fit solution.","shortDescription":"Alpha Web Group is an outsourcing company specializing in Drupal and Symfony web development.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Alpha Web Group Software Development","keywords":"","description":"Alpha Web Group offers a number of services, including web development, training, consulting, design, Drupal hosting and support.\r\nOur team creates flexible web solutions, including:\r\n<ul><li>custom automation solutions for business processes;</li><li>e-commer","og:title":"Alpha Web Group Software Development","og:description":"Alpha Web Group offers a number of services, including web development, training, consulting, design, Drupal hosting and support.\r\nOur team creates flexible web solutions, including:\r\n<ul><li>custom automation solutions for business processes;</li><li>e-commer","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/aplha_web_group.jpg"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":2325,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":32,"title":"IT outsourcing","alias":"it-outsourcing","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">IT outsourcing</span> is the use of external service providers to effectively deliver IT-enabled business process, application service and infrastructure solutions for business outcomes.\r\nOutsourcing, which also includes utility services, software as a service and cloud-enabled outsourcing, helps clients to develop the right sourcing strategies and vision, select the right IT service providers, structure the best possible contracts, and govern deals for sustainable win-win relationships with external providers.\r\nOutsourcing can enable enterprises to reduce costs, accelerate time to market, and take advantage of external expertise, assets and/or intellectual property. IT outsourcing can be implemented both ways: outsides or within the country. \r\nIT outsourcing vendors can provide either a fully managed service, meaning they take full responsibility of all IT maintenance and support, or they can provide additional support for an internal IT team when needed, which is known as co-sourced IT support. A company using IT outsourcing can choose to use one provider for all their IT functions or split the work among multiple providers. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Specific IT services typically outsourced include:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Application development</li><li>Web hosting</li><li>Application support</li><li>Database development</li><li>Telecommunications</li><li>Networking</li><li>Disaster recovery</li><li>Security</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Reasons for Outsourcing</span></p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Reduce Cost.</span> More often than not, outsourcing means saving money. This is often due to lower labor costs, cheaper infrastructure, or an advantageous tax system in the outsourcing location.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Access Skills That Are Unavailable Locally.</span> Resources that are scarce at home can sometimes be found in abundance elsewhere, meaning you can easily reach them through outsourcing.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Better Use Internal Resources</span>. By delegating some of your business processes to a third party, you’ll give your in-house employees the opportunity to focus on more meaningful tasks.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Accelerate Business Processes.</span> When you stop wasting time on mundane, time-consuming processes, you’ll be able to move forward with your core offering a lot faster.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">To Share Risks.</span> When you delegate a part of non-focus functionality by outsourcing it to a third-party vendor, you give away the responsibility and related risks.","materialsDescription":"<h3 class=\"align-center\">What are the Types of IT Outsourcing?</h3>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Project-Based Model.</span> The client hires a team to implement the part of work that is already planned and defined. The project manager from the outsourced team carries full responsibility for the quality and performance of the project.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Dedicated Team Model.</span> The client hires a team that will create a project for them, and they will work only on that project. Unlike the project-based model, a dedicated team is more engaged in your project. In this model, an outsourced team becomes your technical and product advisor. So it can offer ideas and suggest alternative solutions.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Outstaff Model.</span> It's a type of outsourcing in IT when you don't need a full-fledged development team and hire separate specialists. Sometimes the project requires finding a couple of additional professionals, and you're free to hire outstaff workers to cover that scope of work.</p>\r\n<h3 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are IT Outsourcing examples?</span></h3>\r\nThe individual or company that becomes your outsourcing partner can be located anywhere in the world — one block away from your office or on another continent.\r\nA Bay Area-based startup partnering with an app development team in Utah and a call center in the Philippines, or a UK-based digital marketing agency hiring a Magento developer from Ukraine are both examples of outsourcing.\r\n<h3 class=\"align-center\">Why You Should Use IT Outsourcing</h3>\r\nNow that you know what IT outsourcing is, its models, and types, it's time to clarify why you need to outsource and whether you really need it. Let's go over a few situations that suggest when to opt for IT outsourcing.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You are a domain expert with idea</span></li></ul>\r\nIf you're an industry expert with the idea that solves a real problem, IT outsourcing is your choice. In this case, your main goal is to enter the market and test the solution fast. An outsourced team will help you validate the idea, build an MVP to check the hypothesis, and implement changes in your product according to market needs. It saves you money, time and lets you reach the goal.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You have an early-stage startup</span></li></ul>\r\nIt's a common case that young startups spend money faster than they get a solid team and a ready-to-market product. The Failory found that financial problems are the 3rd reason why startup fails. So it makes more sense to reduce costs by hiring an outsourced team of professionals while your business lives on investor's money. You may employ a full-cycle product development studio covering all the blind spots and bringing your product to life.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">You need a technical support</span></li></ul>\r\nEven if you already have a ready solution, but it demands some technical improvements – frameworks for backend components, new language, integrations with enterprise software, UX&amp;UI design – it makes more sense to find an experienced partner. There are many functions that IT outsourcing can cover, and again it saves you the time you'd otherwise spend on looking for qualified staff.<br /><br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_IT_outsourcing.png"},{"id":601,"title":"Custom Software Development","alias":"custom-software-development","description":" Custom software (also known as bespoke software or tailor-made software) is software that organization for some specific organization or another user. As such, it can be contrasted with the use of software packages developed for the mass market, such as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software, or existing free software.\r\nSince custom software is developed for a single customer it can accommodate that customer's particular preferences and expectations. Custom software may be developed in an iterative process, allowing all nuances and possible hidden risks to be taken into account, including issues which were not mentioned in the original requirement specifications (which are, as a rule, never perfect). In particular, the first phase in the software development process may involve many departments, materchode including marketing, engineering, research and development and general management.\r\nLarge companies commonly use custom software for critical functions, including content management, inventory management, customer management, human resource management, or otherwise to fill the gaps present in the existing software packages. Often such software is legacy software, developed before COTS or free software packages offering the required functionality became available.\r\nCustom software development is often considered expensive compared to off-the-shelf solutions or products. This can be true if one is speaking of typical challenges and typical solutions. However, it is not always true. In many cases, COTS software requires customization to correctly support the buyer's operations. The cost and delay of COTS customization can even add up to the expense of developing custom software. Cost is not the only consideration, however, as the decision to opt for custom software often includes the requirement for the purchaser to own the source code, to secure the possibility of future development or modifications to the installed system.\r\nAdditionally, COTS comes with upfront license costs which vary enormously but sometimes run into the millions (in terms of dollars). Furthermore, the big software houses that release COTS products revamp their product very frequently. Thus a particular customization may need to be upgraded for compatibility every two to four years. Given the cost of customization, such upgrades also turn out to be expensive, as a dedicated product release cycle will have to be earmarked for them.\r\nThe decision to build custom software or go for a COTS implementation would usually rest on one or more of the following factors:\r\n<ul><li>Finances - both cost and benefit: The upfront license cost for COTS products mean that a thorough cost-benefit analysis of the business case needs to be done. However it is widely known that large custom software projects cannot fix all three of scope, time/cost and quality constant, so either the cost or the benefits of a custom software project will be subject to some degree of uncertainty - even disregarding the uncertainty around the business benefits of a feature that is successfully implemented.</li><li>Supplier - In the case of COTS, is the supplier likely to remain in business long, and will there be adequate support and customization available? Alternatively, will there be a realistic possibility of getting support and customization from third parties? In the case of custom software, software development may be outsourced or done in-house. If it is outsourced, the question is: is the supplier reputable, and do they have a good track record?</li><li>Time to market: COTS products usually have a quicker time to market</li><li>Size of implementation: COTS comes with standardization of business processes and reporting. For a global or national organization, these can bring in gains in cost savings, efficiency and productivity, if the branch offices are all willing and able to use the same COTS without heavy customizations (which is not always a given).</li></ul>","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is custom software such a large investment?</span>\r\nBuilding a custom web application is a time-consuming endeavor. It takes time to learn the processes of your business, to gather requirements, to flesh out your needs, and to build the software. Put simply, time is money.\r\nWhile it’s a large investment, by investing in custom software, you’ll own the code instead of having a long-term licensing agreement with another software company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How could my business benefit from custom software?</span>\r\nA custom business software solution increases process efficiency through process automation. When business processes are properly automated, they minimize the waste in time and resources that the original processes contained.\r\nThink of it this way: with software that already exists, you have to modify your process to meet software capabilities. With custom software, you can build a system around the existing processes you have in place. You took a lot of time to develop those processes, so why should you revamp your business?\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is IP and how important is it that I own it?</span>\r\nIP stands for Intellectual Property. When you deal with anything creative, you have to think about copyright and the intellectual property on that work and that includes the creation of software code.\r\nThis gets back to the question of buying vs. building. If there is an existing solution that can suit your needs just fine, then it makes sense to buy, but the software developer owns the code and you are basically licensing the software from there. However, if you need a specialized solution that is customized to your needs and decide to go the custom development route, then the question of who owns the code is an important one.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">I’m thinking about hiring someone offshore; what should I watch out for?</span>\r\nIn short, everything. Language barriers and lack of proximity lead to breakdowns in communication and quality. Do yourself a favor and stay local.\r\nOn a related note, if you’re thinking about hiring for the position internally, think about this: it takes around three people to complete a successful custom software project. If you hire someone internally, their salary might cost what it would take to build with us, and you get a whole team when you work with us. Plus, if your software developer decides to leave, they take their knowledge with them. If one of our team members leave, our whole team shares the knowledge so you’re not left in the dark.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">If things don’t go well, am I sunk?</span>\r\nWe make communication and transparency are top priorities so this doesn’t happen. Right out of the gate we work hard to make sure that not only the project is a good fit, but the relationship with the client is as well. Through each step of the process and the build, we keep you in the loop weekly so you know what to expect and what is happening, but a good development company should have places in their process/relationship where you can cleanly exit. Make sure you know what the process is for leaving and what those different ‘leaving’ options are.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Custom_Software_Development.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"partnershipProgramme":null}},"aliases":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"implementations":{"implementationsByAlias":{},"aliases":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"agreements":{"agreementById":{},"ids":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"comparison":{"loading":false,"error":false,"templatesById":{},"comparisonByTemplateId":{},"products":[],"selectedTemplateId":null},"presentation":{"type":null,"company":{},"products":[],"partners":[],"formData":{},"dataLoading":false,"dataError":false,"loading":false,"error":false},"catalogsGlobal":{"subMenuItemTitle":""}}