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Currently, we have more than 30 long-term customers in 16 countries, ranging from innovative startups to well-established international companies, including Intel and Pepsi.\r\nWe have developed custom web applications that range from simple CMS-powered websites to complex SaaS applications hosted on server clusters, and used agile practices to develop and design innovative mobile applications for Android (both smartphones and tablets) and iOS (iPhone, iPad).\r\nMost importantly, we understand that companies need great partners in developing, launching, and maintaining great digital products. Whether our client is in the nearest big city or on the other side of the earth, we go the extra mile to support them through world-class support, documentation, training, and more.\r\nWeb application development, development of native iOS and Android applications, IT outsourcing, SaaS, Agile, Scrum, development for startups, LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), Microsoft technologies (ASP .Net, Dynamics CRM, C#, .NET MVC), Magento, WordPress, Shopify, Augmented Reality , Virtual reality, Xamarin, MEAN stack (MongoDB, Express.js, AngularJS, NodeJS), QA.\r\nSource: https://www.linkedin.com/company/it-craft/?originalSubdomain=ru","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"},"601":{"id":601,"title":"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","alias":"custom-software-development"}},"branches":"Information Technology","companySizes":"101 to 500 Employees","companyUrl":"http://www.itcraft.com.ua/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":true,"isSupplier":true,"isVendor":true,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"ITCraft","keywords":"","description":" For almost 17 years, IT Craft has been providing affordable, expert software programming services to clients around the world. Currently, we have more than 30 long-term customers in 16 countries, ranging from innovative startups to well-established internatio","og:title":"ITCraft","og:description":" For almost 17 years, IT Craft has been providing affordable, expert software programming services to clients around the world. Currently, we have more than 30 long-term customers in 16 countries, ranging from innovative startups to well-established internatio","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/ITCRAFT__logo_.jpg"},"eventUrl":"","vendorPartners":[],"supplierPartners":[],"vendoredProducts":[{"id":1956,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/ITCRAFT__logo_.jpg","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"ITCraft Software Development","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.00","implementationsCount":0,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"alias":"itcraft-software-development","companyTitle":"ITCraft","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4471,"companyAlias":"itcraft","description":"The IT Craft company has been working on the IT market for more than 15 years. We base our work on the principles of openness, predictability and responsibility. We always accomplish all that was promised to our clients, employees or colleagues. We stimulate the growth of skills and potential of our employees, because it’s the growth of the company in the future. Join us to work on a wide range of projects from all around the world.\r\nWe have developed CMS-powered websites and complex SaaS applications. We apply agile practices to develop<br />innovative mobile applications.\r\nOur web-development:\r\n<ul><li>LAMP</li><li>.NET</li><li>CMS</li></ul>\r\nMobile-development:\r\n<ul><li>iOS</li><li>Android</li><li>Windows</li></ul>\r\nOur mission is to let you forgetabout technical problems!","shortDescription":"Our mission is to let you forgetabout technical problems!","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":12,"sellingCount":3,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"ITCraft Software Development","keywords":"","description":"The IT Craft company has been working on the IT market for more than 15 years. We base our work on the principles of openness, predictability and responsibility. We always accomplish all that was promised to our clients, employees or colleagues. We stimulate t","og:title":"ITCraft Software Development","og:description":"The IT Craft company has been working on the IT market for more than 15 years. We base our work on the principles of openness, predictability and responsibility. We always accomplish all that was promised to our clients, employees or colleagues. We stimulate t","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/ITCRAFT__logo_.jpg"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1957,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"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"},{"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":609,"title":".Net Development","alias":"net-development","description":" .NET Framework is a software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large class library named Framework Class Library (FCL) and provides language interoperability (each language can use code written in other languages) across several programming languages. Programs written for .NET Framework execute in a software environment (in contrast to a hardware environment) named Common Language Runtime (CLR), an application virtual machine that provides services such as security, memory management, and exception handling. As such, computer code written using .NET Framework is called &quot;managed code&quot;. FCL and CLR together constitute the .NET Framework.\r\nFCL provides user interface, data access, database connectivity, cryptography, web application development, numeric algorithms, and network communications. Programmers produce software by combining their source code with .NET Framework and other libraries. The framework is intended to be used by most new applications created for the Windows platform. Microsoft also produces an integrated development environment largely for .NET software called Visual Studio.\r\n.NET Framework began as proprietary software, although the firm worked to standardize the software stack almost immediately, even before its first release. Despite the standardization efforts, developers, mainly those in the free and open-source software communities, expressed their unease with the selected terms and the prospects of any free and open-source implementation, especially regarding software patents. Since then, Microsoft has changed .NET development to more closely follow a contemporary model of a community-developed software project, including issuing an update to its patent promising to address the concerns.\r\n.NET Framework led to a family of .NET platforms targeting mobile computing, embedded devices, alternative operating systems, and web browser plug-ins. A reduced version of the framework, .NET Compact Framework, is available on Windows CE platforms, including Windows Mobile devices such as smartphones. .NET Micro Framework is targeted at very resource-constrained embedded devices. Silverlight was available as a web browser plugin. Mono is available for many operating systems and is customized into popular smartphone operating systems (Android and iOS) and game engines. .NET Core targets the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), and cross-platform and cloud computing workloads.","materialsDescription":"When Microsoft formally introduced its .NET strategy in mid-2000, analysts were confused about how the company would pull off such a massive platform shift. Over two years later, they're still wondering. But .NET isn't vaporware, and it's not a pipe dream. In fact, .NET is happening today.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is .NET?</span>\r\nActually, .NET is many things, but primarily it's a marketing term for a set of products and technologies that Microsoft is creating to move personal and enterprise computing beyond the PC desktop and into a distributed Internet-based environment. So .NET--which was originally called Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS)--is also a platform, one that Microsoft sees as the successor to Windows. The .NET platform is based on Web services which are, in turn, defined by a language called XML.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is XML?</span>\r\nXML--the eXtensible Markup Language--is a self-descriptive, data definition language. It's structure is similar to HTML, the language of the Web, but it's far more powerful because it's not limited to a static list of language constructs (&quot;tags&quot;) that the language's authors supply. Instead, XML is extensible and dynamic: Programmers can define new types of data using XML and then describe that data so that others will know how to use it.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are Web services?</span>\r\nWeb services are functions exposed by server-side applications. They are programmable units that other applications (and Web services) can access over the Internet.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Does .NET require Windows?</span>\r\nTechnically, no, but realistically, yes. It's possible the .NET platform could be ported to other operating systems, such as Linux, FreeBSD, the Macintosh, or whatever, and indeed, some work is being done now in this area. However, .NET very much requires Windows today, on both the server and the client. One might say that .NET and Windows have a symbiotic relationship going forward.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Is .NET is being ported to Linux?</span>\r\nYes. A company called Ximian is porting the standards-based parts of .NET to Linux as you read this, and the work is amazingly far along. Code-named Mono, this project seeks to bring the C# programming language, the Common Language Runtime (CLR, see below), and other .NET features to Linux.\r\nOn a related note, Microsoft has contracted Corel (makers of CorelDRAW and Word Perfect) to port .NET to FreeBSD.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Isn't .NET just another name for COM, COM+, Windows DNA, or some other previous Windows technology?</span>\r\nActually, no. Microsoft spent considerable time and effort developing and promoting a set of Windows technologies that was at various times called OLE, COM, COM+, and Windows DNA (Distributed InterNet Architecture) but .NET is not the next iteration. Windows DNA, which was the final umbrella term for this set of technologies, was based around a concept where Windows-based software components could expose their services for other local and remote Windows software components. But though this sounds passingly similar to .NET, Windows DNA is very much based on proprietary Windows technologies. By comparison, .NET is based on open standards (XML and various related technologies), so it will be much easier for other vendors to adopt the platform and write compatible software. So we can eventually expect to see .NET clients and servers on platforms other than Windows.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">So what technologies are part of .NET?</span>\r\n.NET is comprised of several related technologies, including:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">.NET Framework</span></span> - A runtime environment and set of standard services which .NET capable applications and services can utilize. Implemented as a code library, the .NET Framework includes the Common Language Runtime (CLR), the .NET run-time environment; ASP .NET, a Web applications platform; and ADO .NET, for data store access.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">.NET Compact Framework</span></span> - A subset of the .NET Framework designed for Pocket PCs, Microsoft Smart Phones, and other Windows CE .NET-based mobile devices.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">MSN consumer services</span></span> - Microsoft will use its consumer-oriented MSN online service to expose Web services to individuals. The current version, MSN 8, includes the .NET Passport's authentication services, email, address book, calendaring and tasks, and other similar services.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">.NET Enterprise Servers</span></span> - An extensive set of Microsoft server software that runs on Windows servers, including Application Server, BizTalk Server, Exchange Server, Host Integration Server, Internet Security and Acceleration Server, SQL Server, and many others. Microsoft is currently shipping many such server products, but they are all based on Windows DNA currently, not .NET. Future server products--beginning with Windows .NET Server 2003, due in April 2003--will actually be based on .NET technologies for the first time.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Visual Studio .NET</span></span> - Microsoft's .NET development environment, with support for languages such as Visual Basic .NET, Visual C++ .NET, Visual C# .NET, and Visual J#, which all target the .NET Framework. Other vendors can add other language capabilities to Visual Studio .NET, and the suite can be used to target a wide range of applications and services, including .NET Web services, Windows applications, and Web applications. Note that Visual Studio .NET is not required to create .NET applications and services: Developers can download the .NET Framework for free; this download includes compilers for Visual Basic .NET, Visual C++ .NET and Visual C# .NET.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">OK, so what's the point? How does this make my life better?</span>\r\nWith apologies to Microsoft for stealing the term, .NET enables a better PC ecosystem. That is, by making life easier for everyone involved with PCs, the benefits are cross-pollinated. Here's how .NET makes life easier on various groups:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Programmers</span></span> - Because developers now have a consistent, language-neutral programming environment, they can create better applications and services more quickly. And because .NET encompasses such a wider range of functionality, those applications and services can be connected to back-end services via the Internet, offering better, and more exciting functionality.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">IT administrators</span></span> - Because .NET applications and services do away with the &quot;DLL Hell&quot; found in previous Windows applications, they are amazingly easy to distribute and install.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">End users</span></span> - For the reasons listed above, and many others, a new generation of .NET applications and services will provide new types of connected functionality. Access your email from anywhere. Pay for products online without typing in your credit card information. Access weather, traffic, music, and other personal information from a variety of devices, from anywhere in the world. The future is all connected, and .NET will get us there.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Net_Development.png"},{"id":52,"title":"SaaS - software as a service","alias":"saas-software-as-a-service","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Software as a service (SaaS)</span> is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as &quot;on-demand software&quot;, and was formerly referred to as &quot;software plus services&quot; by Microsoft.\r\n SaaS services is typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. SaaS software solutions has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), Management Information Systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all leading enterprise software companies.\r\nSaaS applications are also known as <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Web-based software</span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">on-demand software</span> and<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> hosted software</span>.\r\nThe term &quot;Software as a Service&quot; (SaaS) is considered to be part of the nomenclature of cloud computing, along with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Desktop as a Service (DaaS),managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).\r\nBecause SaaS is based on cloud computing it saves organizations from installing and running applications on their own systems. That eliminates or at least reduces the associated costs of hardware purchases and maintenance and of software and support. The initial setup cost for a SaaS application is also generally lower than it for equivalent enterprise software purchased via a site license.\r\nSometimes, the use of SaaS cloud software can also reduce the long-term costs of software licensing, though that depends on the pricing model for the individual SaaS offering and the enterprise’s usage patterns. In fact, it’s possible for SaaS to cost more than traditional software licenses. This is an area IT organizations should explore carefully.<br />SaaS also provides enterprises the flexibility inherent with cloud services: they can subscribe to a SaaS offering as needed rather than having to buy software licenses and install the software on a variety of computers. The savings can be substantial in the case of applications that require new hardware purchases to support the software.<br /><br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Who uses SaaS?</span></h1>\r\nIndustry analyst Forrester Research notes that SaaS adoption has so far been concentrated mostly in human resource management (HRM), customer relationship management (CRM), collaboration software (e.g., email), and procurement solutions, but is poised to widen. Today it’s possible to have a data warehouse in the cloud that you can access with business intelligence software running as a service and connect to your cloud-based ERP like NetSuite or Microsoft Dynamics.The dollar savings can run into the millions. And SaaS installations are often installed and working in a fraction of the time of on-premises deployments—some can be ready in hours. \r\nSales and marketing people are likely familiar with Salesforce.com, the leading SaaS CRM software, with millions of users across more than 100,000 customers. Sales is going SaaS too, with apps available to support sales in order management, compensation, quote production and configure, price, quoting, electronic signatures, contract management and more.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why SaaS? Benefits of software as a service</span></h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lower cost of entry</span>. With SaaS solution, you pay for what you need, without having to buy hardware to host your new applications. Instead of provisioning internal resources to install the software, the vendor provides APIs and performs much of the work to get their software working for you. The time to a working solution can drop from months in the traditional model to weeks, days or hours with the SaaS model. In some businesses, IT wants nothing to do with installing and running a sales app. In the case of funding software and its implementation, this can be a make-or-break issue for the sales and marketing budget, so the lower cost really makes the difference.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduced time to benefit/rapid prototyping</span>. In the SaaS model, the software application is already installed and configured. Users can provision the server for the cloud and quickly have the application ready for use. This cuts the time to benefit and allows for rapid demonstrations and prototyping. With many SaaS companies offering free trials, this means a painless proof of concept and discovery phase to prove the benefit to the organization. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay as you go</span>. SaaS business software gives you the benefit of predictable costs both for the subscription and to some extent, the administration. Even as you scale, you can have a clear idea of what your costs will be. This allows for much more accurate budgeting, especially as compared to the costs of internal IT to manage upgrades and address issues for an owned instance.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The SaaS vendor is responsible for upgrades, uptime and security</span>. Under the SaaS model, since the software is hosted by the vendor, they take on the responsibility for maintaining the software and upgrading it, ensuring that it is reliable and meeting agreed-upon service level agreements, and keeping the application and its data secure.&nbsp; While some IT people worry about Software as a Service security outside of the enterprise walls, the likely truth is that the vendor has a much higher level of security than the enterprise itself would provide. Many will have redundant instances in very secure data centers in multiple geographies.&nbsp; Also, the data is being automatically backed up by the vendor, providing additional security and peace of mind. Because of the data center hosting, you’re getting the added benefit of at least some disaster recovery. Lastly, the vendor manages these issues as part of their core competencies—let them.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integration and scalability.</span> Most SaaS apps are designed to support some amount of customization for the way you do business. SaaS vendors create APIs to allow connections not only to internal applications like ERPs or CRMs but also to other SaaS providers. One of the terrific aspects of integration is that orders written in the field can be automatically sent to the ERP. Now a salesperson in the field can check inventory through the catalog, write the order in front of the customer for approval, send it and receive confirmation, all in minutes. And as you scale with a SaaS vendor, there’s no need to invest in server capacity and software licenses. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Work anywhere</span>. Since the software is hosted in the cloud and accessible over the internet, users can access it via mobile devices wherever they are connected. This includes checking customer order histories prior to a sales call, as well as having access to real time data and real time order taking with the customer.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/SaaS__1_.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"suppliedProducts":[{"id":1956,"logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/ITCRAFT__logo_.jpg","logo":true,"scheme":false,"title":"ITCraft Software Development","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.00","implementationsCount":0,"suppliersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"alias":"itcraft-software-development","companyTitle":"ITCraft","companyTypes":["supplier","vendor"],"companyId":4471,"companyAlias":"itcraft","description":"The IT Craft company has been working on the IT market for more than 15 years. We base our work on the principles of openness, predictability and responsibility. We always accomplish all that was promised to our clients, employees or colleagues. We stimulate the growth of skills and potential of our employees, because it’s the growth of the company in the future. Join us to work on a wide range of projects from all around the world.\r\nWe have developed CMS-powered websites and complex SaaS applications. We apply agile practices to develop<br />innovative mobile applications.\r\nOur web-development:\r\n<ul><li>LAMP</li><li>.NET</li><li>CMS</li></ul>\r\nMobile-development:\r\n<ul><li>iOS</li><li>Android</li><li>Windows</li></ul>\r\nOur mission is to let you forgetabout technical problems!","shortDescription":"Our mission is to let you forgetabout technical problems!","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":12,"sellingCount":3,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"ITCraft Software Development","keywords":"","description":"The IT Craft company has been working on the IT market for more than 15 years. We base our work on the principles of openness, predictability and responsibility. We always accomplish all that was promised to our clients, employees or colleagues. We stimulate t","og:title":"ITCraft Software Development","og:description":"The IT Craft company has been working on the IT market for more than 15 years. We base our work on the principles of openness, predictability and responsibility. We always accomplish all that was promised to our clients, employees or colleagues. We stimulate t","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/ITCRAFT__logo_.jpg"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1957,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"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"},{"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":609,"title":".Net Development","alias":"net-development","description":" .NET Framework is a software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large class library named Framework Class Library (FCL) and provides language interoperability (each language can use code written in other languages) across several programming languages. Programs written for .NET Framework execute in a software environment (in contrast to a hardware environment) named Common Language Runtime (CLR), an application virtual machine that provides services such as security, memory management, and exception handling. As such, computer code written using .NET Framework is called &quot;managed code&quot;. FCL and CLR together constitute the .NET Framework.\r\nFCL provides user interface, data access, database connectivity, cryptography, web application development, numeric algorithms, and network communications. Programmers produce software by combining their source code with .NET Framework and other libraries. The framework is intended to be used by most new applications created for the Windows platform. Microsoft also produces an integrated development environment largely for .NET software called Visual Studio.\r\n.NET Framework began as proprietary software, although the firm worked to standardize the software stack almost immediately, even before its first release. Despite the standardization efforts, developers, mainly those in the free and open-source software communities, expressed their unease with the selected terms and the prospects of any free and open-source implementation, especially regarding software patents. Since then, Microsoft has changed .NET development to more closely follow a contemporary model of a community-developed software project, including issuing an update to its patent promising to address the concerns.\r\n.NET Framework led to a family of .NET platforms targeting mobile computing, embedded devices, alternative operating systems, and web browser plug-ins. A reduced version of the framework, .NET Compact Framework, is available on Windows CE platforms, including Windows Mobile devices such as smartphones. .NET Micro Framework is targeted at very resource-constrained embedded devices. Silverlight was available as a web browser plugin. Mono is available for many operating systems and is customized into popular smartphone operating systems (Android and iOS) and game engines. .NET Core targets the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), and cross-platform and cloud computing workloads.","materialsDescription":"When Microsoft formally introduced its .NET strategy in mid-2000, analysts were confused about how the company would pull off such a massive platform shift. Over two years later, they're still wondering. But .NET isn't vaporware, and it's not a pipe dream. In fact, .NET is happening today.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is .NET?</span>\r\nActually, .NET is many things, but primarily it's a marketing term for a set of products and technologies that Microsoft is creating to move personal and enterprise computing beyond the PC desktop and into a distributed Internet-based environment. So .NET--which was originally called Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS)--is also a platform, one that Microsoft sees as the successor to Windows. The .NET platform is based on Web services which are, in turn, defined by a language called XML.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is XML?</span>\r\nXML--the eXtensible Markup Language--is a self-descriptive, data definition language. It's structure is similar to HTML, the language of the Web, but it's far more powerful because it's not limited to a static list of language constructs (&quot;tags&quot;) that the language's authors supply. Instead, XML is extensible and dynamic: Programmers can define new types of data using XML and then describe that data so that others will know how to use it.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are Web services?</span>\r\nWeb services are functions exposed by server-side applications. They are programmable units that other applications (and Web services) can access over the Internet.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Does .NET require Windows?</span>\r\nTechnically, no, but realistically, yes. It's possible the .NET platform could be ported to other operating systems, such as Linux, FreeBSD, the Macintosh, or whatever, and indeed, some work is being done now in this area. However, .NET very much requires Windows today, on both the server and the client. One might say that .NET and Windows have a symbiotic relationship going forward.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Is .NET is being ported to Linux?</span>\r\nYes. A company called Ximian is porting the standards-based parts of .NET to Linux as you read this, and the work is amazingly far along. Code-named Mono, this project seeks to bring the C# programming language, the Common Language Runtime (CLR, see below), and other .NET features to Linux.\r\nOn a related note, Microsoft has contracted Corel (makers of CorelDRAW and Word Perfect) to port .NET to FreeBSD.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Isn't .NET just another name for COM, COM+, Windows DNA, or some other previous Windows technology?</span>\r\nActually, no. Microsoft spent considerable time and effort developing and promoting a set of Windows technologies that was at various times called OLE, COM, COM+, and Windows DNA (Distributed InterNet Architecture) but .NET is not the next iteration. Windows DNA, which was the final umbrella term for this set of technologies, was based around a concept where Windows-based software components could expose their services for other local and remote Windows software components. But though this sounds passingly similar to .NET, Windows DNA is very much based on proprietary Windows technologies. By comparison, .NET is based on open standards (XML and various related technologies), so it will be much easier for other vendors to adopt the platform and write compatible software. So we can eventually expect to see .NET clients and servers on platforms other than Windows.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">So what technologies are part of .NET?</span>\r\n.NET is comprised of several related technologies, including:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">.NET Framework</span></span> - A runtime environment and set of standard services which .NET capable applications and services can utilize. Implemented as a code library, the .NET Framework includes the Common Language Runtime (CLR), the .NET run-time environment; ASP .NET, a Web applications platform; and ADO .NET, for data store access.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">.NET Compact Framework</span></span> - A subset of the .NET Framework designed for Pocket PCs, Microsoft Smart Phones, and other Windows CE .NET-based mobile devices.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">MSN consumer services</span></span> - Microsoft will use its consumer-oriented MSN online service to expose Web services to individuals. The current version, MSN 8, includes the .NET Passport's authentication services, email, address book, calendaring and tasks, and other similar services.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">.NET Enterprise Servers</span></span> - An extensive set of Microsoft server software that runs on Windows servers, including Application Server, BizTalk Server, Exchange Server, Host Integration Server, Internet Security and Acceleration Server, SQL Server, and many others. Microsoft is currently shipping many such server products, but they are all based on Windows DNA currently, not .NET. Future server products--beginning with Windows .NET Server 2003, due in April 2003--will actually be based on .NET technologies for the first time.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Visual Studio .NET</span></span> - Microsoft's .NET development environment, with support for languages such as Visual Basic .NET, Visual C++ .NET, Visual C# .NET, and Visual J#, which all target the .NET Framework. Other vendors can add other language capabilities to Visual Studio .NET, and the suite can be used to target a wide range of applications and services, including .NET Web services, Windows applications, and Web applications. Note that Visual Studio .NET is not required to create .NET applications and services: Developers can download the .NET Framework for free; this download includes compilers for Visual Basic .NET, Visual C++ .NET and Visual C# .NET.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">OK, so what's the point? How does this make my life better?</span>\r\nWith apologies to Microsoft for stealing the term, .NET enables a better PC ecosystem. That is, by making life easier for everyone involved with PCs, the benefits are cross-pollinated. Here's how .NET makes life easier on various groups:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Programmers</span></span> - Because developers now have a consistent, language-neutral programming environment, they can create better applications and services more quickly. And because .NET encompasses such a wider range of functionality, those applications and services can be connected to back-end services via the Internet, offering better, and more exciting functionality.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">IT administrators</span></span> - Because .NET applications and services do away with the &quot;DLL Hell&quot; found in previous Windows applications, they are amazingly easy to distribute and install.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">End users</span></span> - For the reasons listed above, and many others, a new generation of .NET applications and services will provide new types of connected functionality. Access your email from anywhere. Pay for products online without typing in your credit card information. Access weather, traffic, music, and other personal information from a variety of devices, from anywhere in the world. The future is all connected, and .NET will get us there.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Net_Development.png"},{"id":52,"title":"SaaS - software as a service","alias":"saas-software-as-a-service","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Software as a service (SaaS)</span> is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as &quot;on-demand software&quot;, and was formerly referred to as &quot;software plus services&quot; by Microsoft.\r\n SaaS services is typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. SaaS software solutions has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), Management Information Systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all leading enterprise software companies.\r\nSaaS applications are also known as <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Web-based software</span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">on-demand software</span> and<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> hosted software</span>.\r\nThe term &quot;Software as a Service&quot; (SaaS) is considered to be part of the nomenclature of cloud computing, along with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Desktop as a Service (DaaS),managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).\r\nBecause SaaS is based on cloud computing it saves organizations from installing and running applications on their own systems. That eliminates or at least reduces the associated costs of hardware purchases and maintenance and of software and support. The initial setup cost for a SaaS application is also generally lower than it for equivalent enterprise software purchased via a site license.\r\nSometimes, the use of SaaS cloud software can also reduce the long-term costs of software licensing, though that depends on the pricing model for the individual SaaS offering and the enterprise’s usage patterns. In fact, it’s possible for SaaS to cost more than traditional software licenses. This is an area IT organizations should explore carefully.<br />SaaS also provides enterprises the flexibility inherent with cloud services: they can subscribe to a SaaS offering as needed rather than having to buy software licenses and install the software on a variety of computers. The savings can be substantial in the case of applications that require new hardware purchases to support the software.<br /><br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Who uses SaaS?</span></h1>\r\nIndustry analyst Forrester Research notes that SaaS adoption has so far been concentrated mostly in human resource management (HRM), customer relationship management (CRM), collaboration software (e.g., email), and procurement solutions, but is poised to widen. Today it’s possible to have a data warehouse in the cloud that you can access with business intelligence software running as a service and connect to your cloud-based ERP like NetSuite or Microsoft Dynamics.The dollar savings can run into the millions. And SaaS installations are often installed and working in a fraction of the time of on-premises deployments—some can be ready in hours. \r\nSales and marketing people are likely familiar with Salesforce.com, the leading SaaS CRM software, with millions of users across more than 100,000 customers. Sales is going SaaS too, with apps available to support sales in order management, compensation, quote production and configure, price, quoting, electronic signatures, contract management and more.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why SaaS? Benefits of software as a service</span></h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lower cost of entry</span>. With SaaS solution, you pay for what you need, without having to buy hardware to host your new applications. Instead of provisioning internal resources to install the software, the vendor provides APIs and performs much of the work to get their software working for you. The time to a working solution can drop from months in the traditional model to weeks, days or hours with the SaaS model. In some businesses, IT wants nothing to do with installing and running a sales app. In the case of funding software and its implementation, this can be a make-or-break issue for the sales and marketing budget, so the lower cost really makes the difference.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduced time to benefit/rapid prototyping</span>. In the SaaS model, the software application is already installed and configured. Users can provision the server for the cloud and quickly have the application ready for use. This cuts the time to benefit and allows for rapid demonstrations and prototyping. With many SaaS companies offering free trials, this means a painless proof of concept and discovery phase to prove the benefit to the organization. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay as you go</span>. SaaS business software gives you the benefit of predictable costs both for the subscription and to some extent, the administration. Even as you scale, you can have a clear idea of what your costs will be. This allows for much more accurate budgeting, especially as compared to the costs of internal IT to manage upgrades and address issues for an owned instance.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The SaaS vendor is responsible for upgrades, uptime and security</span>. Under the SaaS model, since the software is hosted by the vendor, they take on the responsibility for maintaining the software and upgrading it, ensuring that it is reliable and meeting agreed-upon service level agreements, and keeping the application and its data secure.&nbsp; While some IT people worry about Software as a Service security outside of the enterprise walls, the likely truth is that the vendor has a much higher level of security than the enterprise itself would provide. Many will have redundant instances in very secure data centers in multiple geographies.&nbsp; Also, the data is being automatically backed up by the vendor, providing additional security and peace of mind. Because of the data center hosting, you’re getting the added benefit of at least some disaster recovery. Lastly, the vendor manages these issues as part of their core competencies—let them.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integration and scalability.</span> Most SaaS apps are designed to support some amount of customization for the way you do business. SaaS vendors create APIs to allow connections not only to internal applications like ERPs or CRMs but also to other SaaS providers. One of the terrific aspects of integration is that orders written in the field can be automatically sent to the ERP. Now a salesperson in the field can check inventory through the catalog, write the order in front of the customer for approval, send it and receive confirmation, all in minutes. And as you scale with a SaaS vendor, there’s no need to invest in server capacity and software licenses. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Work anywhere</span>. Since the software is hosted in the cloud and accessible over the internet, users can access it via mobile devices wherever they are connected. This includes checking customer order histories prior to a sales call, as well as having access to real time data and real time order taking with the customer.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/SaaS__1_.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":""}}