S4Support has played a pivotal role augmenting my application support and development staff. They have been in constant communication and over the last year and starting to understand my business. Simply stated, with the current economic conditions, they provided an option that allows me to continue to move my project forward with a reduced operating cost. It’s been a pleasure working with S4Support and I appreciate their valued services.
- Donnie. C
From: New Zealand
Indian Developers Work for Dancamps IT
The globalization leaves its mark on the camping sector. Dancamps has its own IT-developers in India, because modern technology and communication through Skype make it possible to have colleagues far away. Thus it is Indian development hands which are behind the technology when you book a holiday at Dancamps
Indian Development Hands at Dancamps!
Two skilful IT programmers are sitting thousands of miles away working on the development of the new version of Dancamps own booking system. This work means an easier web editing and an optimization of the technology which is behind Dancamps booking department.
At Dancamps everybody is satisfied with the Indian colleagues who supply extra IT resources and development hours.
"You see, it is almost as if the developers enter the door, when they announce that "I am online" each morning, says Nicolai Dvinge, Head of Development at Dancamps. He explains that owing to the 4 hours time difference for Mumbai, the Indians work from 12.00-20.00 o’clock, local Indian time. In this way their work hours are corresponding more or less to a typical Danish working day, which facilitates the communication.
For almost a year ago, Dancamps chose to put a part of its IT and web development in the hands of the Indian programmers.
Even though Sushil and Vaibhav (from the left) have never put their feet on Danish or European ground, they are nevertheless close by through the computers.
The two developers are a part of a larger IT company in India with whom Dancamps is collaborating. All five Dancamps campsites will naturally benefit from the new developments in India, and the staff – yes, it is looking forward to the new functions in Dancamps’ programs.
Nicolai D
From: Denmark.
Case Study 1
Case Study - European Company
European Company used S4support to set up its own development center in India using the Build-Operate-Transfer approach.
Background
European Company provides data services solutions for enterprise customers. It is recognized worldwide for its unique competency and patented technology in object management, virtual memory architectures, high-performance caching, and data distribution technologies.
The Challenge
European Company wanted to expand its R&D operations in India. While its top management wanted to reap the benefits offshore development, its Engineering Team was not entirely convinced. This was because European Company had a technologically complex product. Moreover, it had no experience in outsourcing development, even locally in the US.
European Company was looking for a risk free way to setup an initial team in India, convince some of its own management about the feasibility and benefits, and then go ahead and expand India operations.
The Solution
European Company leveraged S4support's Build-Operate-Transfer service, BuildODC, to quickly set up a team in India. The initial team consisted of experienced developers (all IIT/REC graduates) hired specifically for European Company as per its requirements.
The offshore team adopted the product development methodology followed by European Company's development team in USA. Access to the source code and bug system was provided through a secure infrastructure.
Communications were mainly through scheduled weekly status calls for each product team as well as daily informal discussions between the two teams on design and implementation issues. Although bulk of the communication was through e-mail, members of both the teams also used voice and internet messenger services as needed.
Quarterly visits by European Company Product Managers &Engineering Managers to India ensured that the offshore team always had a clear vision of the product roadmap.
Once European Company was convinced that the Offshore Model worked for them, they set up their own subsidiary in India and exercised the transfer option. All S4support Employees working for European Company were transferred to European Company India.
Even after the transfer was completed, S4support helped Company Stevens transition the management.
A risk free way to setup a subsidiary in India
European Company could defer capital investment for setting up its own subsidiary in India till it was convinced of its success. It also learned a lot about hiring and retention of people in India and processes required for successful dual shore product development. Since the transfer option was priced in the initial contract itself, there were no valuation surprises.
The right people to work
The entire team was selected as per European Company's requirements of experience and qualifications. Hiring of developers was restricted to graduates of the top colleges in India (IIT's and REC's). Thus, European Company got developers with the qualifications it required, instead of having to manage with a team built from pre-existing resources with the Indian partner.
Full Management Control
With a dedicated team, managers at European Company had the freedom to manage and reallocate developers between tasks as per their needs.
Higher productivity and quality
Team members hired for European Company were worked exclusively for them. This ensured that European Company continued to get maximum productivity after the initial domain knowledge transfer.
To learn more about what we have to offer, write to us at info@S4support.com
Case Study 2
Offshore Development Center for European Software Company
The Customer
The customer is a Medium sized Software Development company based in UK, with a staff of 20 people, including developers, project managers and customer support executives.
The Challenge
With an increased need to automate processes and tasks, the customer was overwhelmed with the demand for their services, to consult and develop solutions. With the increase in work load the customer was forced to turn down new project requests, which obviously did not help them grow.
Increasing manpower locally was an option the customer did not want to use, because of increased overheads and problems in future in case they did not have the same amount of work. Local policies do not allow them to fire people overnight.
The Solution
Web Werks studied the requirements of the customer in terms of additional resources and came up with a solution which allowed the customer to convert all his existing people to project managers, who would work with Indian Developers. The Indian team would be involved in most of the development, while their European project managers plan all the tasks as per project requirements.
Phase 1: Team 1 Setup, team size 5 resources
- A team of 5 c#,.net developers was setup. The team consisted of 4 senior developers and 1 project manager who coordinated with the European team.
- Team members were actively available on Instant Messengers and Skype for seamless communication.
- A project management system was used, to log work which is done, and the European team added their own tasks assigning it to various offshore team members.
- Result: The 4 month project was completed in record time, and the European company bagged the order for expansion of this basic system which was developed.
Phase 2: Team 1 Increased to 10 resources
Team 2 Setup with 5 resources
- With the success of Phase 1, the existing team was increased to 10 to take care of the additional requirements. 4 more senior developers were added along with 1 new project manager.
- Another team of 5 developers was setup, with php /ajax experience. The customer wanted to build their own content management system using php and ajax using this team, in addition to maintenance work for existing customers.
The Benefits
- Lower overhead costs upto 65% savings - helps the company become competitive
- Quick increase / decrease in team size as and when needed
- Easily available resources for any platform
- Working in common time zone as the customer
- Existing people move to higher level tasks such as planning, helping the company get more at the same cost
Case Study 3
Support Desk and Network Operation Center (NOC) for US based Hosting Comp
The Customer
The client is a leading Hosting company in North America with over 25,000 hosted accounts, 30 servers and over 300 resellers across various time zones.
The Challenge
The hosting industry is very competitive, with various companies offering lower prices, it is a challenge to maintain the same level of customer support and also maintain machines which may sometimes be overloaded with a little extra customers.
The Solution
Web Werks setup a team of 9 people to support customers 24 hours, 7 days a week. A shift pattern was designed of 8 hours each, which included a hand over mechanism, so that open tasks could be taken care of even with people moving in and out of the shift. 4 Shifts were designed with 2 people each to cover 24 hours and 7 days, along with 1 project manager, to manage shifts and high level tasks.
Training of resources was done collectively by Web Werks and the client, and documents of common problems were provided and created.
Systems Used
- A trouble ticket system is used to enable multiple people to login, and check problems and also read history of a particular case. The ticket system also enabled easy training of people on the existing systems.
- arrow A Knowledge Base is setup using the trouble ticket system, to record common problems and their solutions.
- arrow A VOIP phone is also setup to enable voice based support.
- arrow A Virtual Private Network is setup, so that administrators could securely login to servers and the client's local network in the US.
- arrow A Log Management System is used to log the complaints, calls and work done by each person to help understand regular problems. This helped us to automate tasks which customers had a regular problem with, helping to reduce the time spent by the resources on these tasks.
The Benefits
- Lower running costs
- arrow 24 X 7 maintenance, monitoring, troubleshooting and customer support
- arrow Instant response to customer queries
- arrow Lower time for training and recruitment
- arrow Quick Expansion to cater to more customers seamlessly.
- arrow Completely Expandable solution, in case the customer wanted to cater to double the number of customers, it would be simple to increase the number of resources in India.