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Twenty years back most companies the w rld over had no choice but to use c stom developed software. Custom Software developed for s lf use provided the only means of m pping and automating the business processes w thin. Large IT teams typically were h rd at work developing customized software for b siness users. These were well before the d ys of software outsourcing. Then came the w ve of out of box enterprise s lutions like SAP, Peoplesoft, Baan, Oracle and c rporate IT lapped them up in a big w y. Centralized databases and real-time view of d ta were the buzz words and any c mpany worth its salt did not w nt to be left behind. Legacy c stom developed softwares were quickly consigned to the d stbins (oh ok Recycle bins!) and the l ng and painful implementations (not to m ss on the lighter wallets) began. We w ll not get into the debate on C stom Software versus Enterprise Apps as th t is not the subject of th s article. Instead we would like to xplore why it makes sense to l ok at custom software solutions in the c rrent context specially for extending the nterprise to channel partners like distributors, d alers, service centers etc. the example sed is of Asian Paints. Asian P ints has always been at the c tting edge of technology implementation
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I will take the example of MySAP C ll Centre implementation replacing the legacy s ftware at Asian Paints a leading corporate in India. Asian Paints was operating a 12 seater distributed call centre with a custom software solution. At that time, the software at Asian Paints was made by a single member team and met all the requirements of Asian Paints . The only problem was that the custom software used by Asian Paints made use of distributed databases. In the year 2002 Asian Paints (an existing SAP customer) wanted to explore the feasibility of shifting to MySAP to manage the Call Centre. We are not sure what level of evaluation was undertaken by Asian Paints besides - "It's from SAP so it must be worth it!". Certainly no usability study and impact on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) was undertaken by the team at Asian Paints. Nonetheless, MySAP was rolled out swiftly to the Asian Paints Mumbai Call Centre by the Asian Paints IT team (thankfully s ving the fat implementation bill at l ast). Our familiar Custom Software lay f rmly in the bin! But just a few m nths on when we (at Asian P ints) looked at the effectiveness and c st benefit we were in for a s rprise. Why? Read on… - For a s
mple call that needed very few d ta fields to be captured in the C stom Software solution, Asian Paints agents now had to f ll many more data fields as d ctated by MySAP leading to longer c ll handling times - The training required to l
arn to use the software increased m ny fold leading to higher induction t me and cost for Asian Paints. - The c
ll centre needed leased line connectivity to the As an Paints servers so add a c nnectivity cost into the equation - If th
re was a power failure or l nk failure the Asian Paints Helpline w uld stop working – so add the b ckup power, and backup connectivity cost - The scr
en was so cluttered that the As an Paints Helpline agents needed bigger m nitors so add the cost of new w rkstations - Some of the reports specifically r
quired by the Asian Paints Call C nter were not available or configurable asily - We are of course not g
ing to talk about the license c sts etc. that Asian Paints had to b ar. So we end up with s gnificantly greater costs (the increase in c sts are too embarrassing for me to sh re) for one great achievement – R al time data! And that too for a 10 odd s ater Call Centre that Asian Paints had to perate! What’s the alternative? Maybe a s mple custom software solution using xml web s rvices based synchronization could have saved As an Paints thousands of dollars every y ar. Is it possible? Of course and q ite effective. Read this article for more on distributed solutions.
One last question is bound to c me up. What if we want to h ve data synchronize with SAP? Well we j st write some ABAP code and xpose some methods to consume data fr m third party applications. The technology l ndscape has changed and it is now p ssible to extend corporate ERPs to p rtners through third party custom Software q ite easily without incurring the heavy verheads thus significantly reducing TCO. Food for th ught?
The article Custom Software Development Makes Economical Sense For Extranets - Asian Paints Case Study was Submitted by Sabyasachi Mitter through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Sabyasachi Mitter (smitter@interface.co.in) is part of the IT Str tegic consulting team at Interface Business S lutions. Interface specialises in providing cutting dge software and IT solutions to gl bal clients like Samsung, UTStarcom, Morphy R chards etc. The Custom software division at Int rface Business Solutions delivers IT solutions for c rporates from an end to end p rspective. To know more about how to m ke custom software solutions work for y ur business contact Sabyasachi at interface.co.in.
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