RPA – Can it boost ROI?

Robotic process automation (RPA) is actually the use of software with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to handle high-volume, repeatable tasks that previously required humans to perform.

These processes can include queries, calculations and maintenance of records and transactions. Some industry experts believe it may be even more transformational than cloud computing. It is sometimes called a software robot or bot, mimics a human worker, logging into applications, entering data, calculating and completing tasks, and logging out.

Glance at the Benefits of RPA – 

  1. Enabling better customer service for all SME’s by allowing processes to be completed much more rapidly.
  2. Ensuring business operations and processes comply with regulations and standards.
  3. Providing improved efficiency by digitizing and auditing process data.
  4. Creating cost savings for manual and repetitive tasks ultimately benefiting SME’s.
  5. Enabling employees to be more productive.

Applications of RPA –

  1. Customer service Sector: RPA helps SME’s offer better customer service by automating tasks, including verifying e-signatures, uploading scanned documents and verification of information for automatic approvals or rejections.
  2. Accounting Sector: Organizations can use RPA for general or operational accounting, transactional reporting and budgeting.
  3. Financial Sectors: Companies in the financial services industry can use RPA for foreign exchange payments, automating account openings and closings, managing audit requests and processing insurance claims.
  4. Healthcare Sections: Medical sectors also have the use of RPA for handling patient records, customer support, account management, billing, reporting and analytics.
  5. Human resources : RPA today automates HR tasks, including on-boarding and off-boarding, updating employee information and timesheet submission processes etc.
  6. Supply chain management Sector: RPA is used also for procurement, automation of order processing and payments, tracking shipments and monitoring inventory levels.

How can an SME benefit from RPA technology (in general and specifically regarding your business)?

SMEs can use robotic process automation (RPA), or put more simply – software robots – to automate their business processes, for example, back-office functions in HR, finance, procurement, IT or other core processes. By automating time-consuming, repetitive tasks SMEs stand to improve productivity which will help them gain competitive advantage.

Is this game-changing technology all that new?

Any BPM user with a sense of history knows that RPA has been around for a long, long time. For example, inbound call centers have been using Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVRS) for years. These systems employ robots to guide customers, accept key tone or voice-based responses, and pass on instructions to the underlying application to complete a transaction.

Moreover, the industry has always used internet BOTs (short form for Robots) for auto-posting of data. Software Testing industry has used similar type of automation in applications to manage functional, integration, user and more significantly regression testing.

What is different about the latest wave of RPA is the maturity of both technology as well as the business processes?

In our view, this transformation will be driven by a pursuit of five outcomes:

  1. Cost reduction: Software robots are typically at least one third the price of an offshore FTE.
  2. Efficiency: RPA can operate 24X7 without breaks provided the underlying core applications are available.
  3. Accuracy: Human FTEs make data entry mistakes, whereas robots perform the same task the same way every time provided processing transactions.
  4. Improved audit and regulatory compliance: Robots can provide a detailed audit logs enabling advanced business analytics and improved compliance.
  5. Ease of change management: Robots preserve application and data integrity by leveraging the existing application presentation layer and re-using existing application logic, databases and validation without deep understanding and re-engineering.

Feature List Comparison among the trend setters or top RPA Vendors :

  1. Learning : Basic developer approach is followed in Automation Anywhere, Whereas Uipath has Visual design as a learning approach and thirdly BluePrism has its own ability to develop and control.
  2. Re-usuality : Automation Anywhere,Uipath and BluePrism are all highly resuable.
  3. Cognitive Capability :  Automation Anywhere has still a quite better and medium level of Cognitive capability in comparison to UiPath and BluePrism which have quite low feature of this cateogory.
  4. Accuracy : Reasonable accuracy across mediums is there in software of Automation Anywhere , whereas Uipath shines in citrix automation designed for bpo automation and on the other hand in BluePrism desktop, web and citrix automation are available.
  5. Robots : Automation Anywhere and Uipath both offers front office & back-office robots, unfortunately BluePrism offers back office automation only.
  6. Operational Scalability : Large scale robot deployment is limited in case of Automation Anywhere. Limitation of Uipath being it frequently crashes in medium project. BluePrism however has Good features And Execution speed is very high.
  7. Macro Recorders : Automation Anywhere and UiPath both have faster process mapping whereas for BluePrism they say this is due to security constraints but a recorder is just a useful tool that you can choose not to use.
  8. Architecture : Client server architecture is followed both in Automation Anywhere and BluePrism but Uipath follows web based orchestrator.
  9. Access : UiPath control room – The Orchestrator – is web based, you can access it from the browser or mobile. Automation Anywhere and Blue Prism on the other hand have client based servers, accessible only through their apps.
  10. Process Designer : UiPath and BluePrism on one hand have Visual process designer whereas Automation Anywhere has Script based.
  11. Base Technology : Automation Anywhere follows Microsoft Technology whereas Uipath follows Microsoft – sharepoint wf , elasticsearch and BluePrism is based on kibana C#.
  12. Realiability : BluePrism till date is leading with high reliable features though has a tough competition by Automation Anywhere but Uipath lacks in this.
  13. Pricing : On one hand Automation Anywhere has higher cost of deployment,UiPath has Aggressive, attractive entry level pricing but for BluePrsim the high cost of acquisition being a problem in addition to limited training available.
  14. Certification and education : Automation Anywhere has been launched recently with certifications, whereas Uipath has Free online training and certification and BluePrism although have certification program available.

Why is it important to embrace emerging technologies, like RPA, in the era of disruption?

We like to think of us all being part of a huge ‘digital river’ where technology is changing so fast, and changing the way we can operate and do business each and every day, that if we don’t embrace it then we will be swept away.

Blockchain – Bubbling Trend

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“Blockchain” is one of two “B” words that are all the fuming lately — the other being “Bitcoin.”
While Bitcoin is grabbing most of the headlines, many people are mistakenly lumping “cryptocurrency” into the same category as “Blockchain.” True, the two are certainly related, but they’re not one in the same.

What is blockchain doing?

Blockchain, helps us imagine a world in which contracts are embedded in digital code and stored in transparent, shared databases, where they are protected from deletion, tampering, and revision. So, a blockchain is simply a digital ledger, much like what’s above your chequebook in your wallet. By allowing digital information to be distributed but not copied, blockchain technology created the backbone of a new type of internet. Blockchains use cryptography to process and verify transactions on the ledger. Encryption and coding improve transparency, efficiency and trust in information-sharing.

What makes blockchain unique and really cool?

Instead of some company having it stored on a server somewhere waiting to be hacked, the blockchain exists decentralised. This means anyone running a full node( a special type of wallet that hosts the block chain essentially) from their computer at home is storing every transaction that has ever occurred on that blockchain. Its network lacks centralised points of vulnerability that computer hackers can exploit. We all rely on the “username/password” system to protect our identity and assets online. Blockchain security methods use encryption technology.

The basis for this are the so-called public and private “keys”. A “public key” (a long, randomly-generated string of numbers) is a user’s address on the blockchain. Bitcoins sent across the network gets recorded as belonging to that address. The “private key” is like a password that gives its owner access to their Bitcoin or other digital assets. Store your data on the blockchain and it is incorruptible.

How is transparency and incorruptibility maintained?

The blockchain network lives in a state of consensus, one that automatically checks in with itself every ten minutes.  A kind of self-auditing ecosystem of a digital value, the network reconciles every transaction that happens in ten-minute intervals. Each group of these transactions is referred to as a “block”. Smart contracts are “conflict-free” ways to exchange money, property and shares or anything of value via Blockchain. These contracts define the rules and penalties for each agreement and also enforce obligations automatically. Two important properties result from this:

  • Transparency data is embedded within the network as a whole, by definition it is public.
  • It cannot be corrupted altering any unit of information on the blockchain would mean using a huge amount of computing power to override the entire network.

Who and where all will the blockchain be used? Some instances –

  1. Finance: – Currently, finance offers the strongest use cases for the technology. International remittances, for example. The World Bank estimates that over $430 billion US in money transfers were sent in 2015. And at the moment there is a high demand for blockchain developers.

  2. Health Care: – An example: MedRec, an MIT-backed initiative designed to be a digital family history of medical records, uses Blockchain to create for patients a family medical history that can be passed down from generation to generation. MedRec was implemented using Ethereum blockchain and uses that technology’s smart contracts to execute scripts on the blockchain.

  3. Music World: – Myceria’s Blockchain-based platform has created a way for musicians to push smart contracts for the sharing of free-trade music, ensuring that profits go back to the artists. These contracts allow artists to sell directly to consumers without the need for labels, lawyers or accountants; and royalties are paid out automatically.

  4. Human Resources: – San Francisco-based company, Bitwage. Bitwage operates on a Blockchain-based payroll system to facilitate cross-border payments through Bitcoin. This allows the company to pay employees, contractors, even vendors, worldwide in their preferred currencies. What Blockchain can do is simplify the process and eliminate these middle men, making investment in the technology attractive.

Any instance of Benefits achieved?

By adopting Blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) the tech giant is investing in enterprise systems that leverage cloud infrastructure. The launch of this service in February of 2016 helped create opportunities for IBM to transition to cloud services and to use them to build custom blockchains for its customers.

Why will blockchain transform the global economy?

Similar to how the internet changed the world by providing greater access to information, blockchain is poised to change how people do business by offering trust. The benefits of blockchain for business are numerous, including reduced time (for finding information, settling disputes and verifying transactions), decreased costs (for overhead and intermediaries) and alleviated risk (of collusion, tampering and fraud).

Digital Marketing roadmap for startups

How should a startup prepare for their digital marketing roadmap?

Once you have an idea in place and you have got the necessary legal protections for it, the logical next step is to get an MVP done ( more on MVP and Legal Protections on follow up blogs ). Let’s assume you have your MVP done and you are all set to start promoting your idea/MVP or services. But wait did we talk about promotions, you bet we did, and these promotions are very key thing for your idea to takeoff from the ground, in other words this is the escape velocity which makes or breaks the launch of your startup. That is why we are covering this very important topics in this blog.

Website –

The very basic of online promotion is to have a website of your startup. This is absolute must, it serves the purpose of base address something like an online permanent address for your startup from the existence of the startup can be proven. This is a place where you are going to pitch your product or idea to prospective customers, the investors or even your consumer ecosystem. A solid platform for your product or services. It is very important to get this basic fundamental concept right any compromise in this can cost you a lot. A very common dilemma the startup founders often face is Custom vs Ready Made Themes, It is always recommended to get a custom tailored website designed and developed to suite the idea or the product you have, we understand that each idea is unique and different from other and that is why it is in business, however if you believe that your idea is not so different or unique there are so many readymade themes available but make sure you get those tailored from experienced UX designer and get your branding done correctly in one of those things. A custom basic website costs ranges somewhere around 250 to 750 US Dollars at the time this post has been written.

Social media sites –

The next online promotion tool are social media sites, which is a secondary mean of putting the word about your startup or idea out there. These social media site can serve up to a great extent and can be very powerful if used wisely and correctly. The idea is to put out little info about the actual source or in other word micro blog about the actual blog. Let us explain how this works, Social media site is for socialising where your connections and connections of your connection and so on gets connected now this opens an opportunity to get the review and feedback from the real people who are one way or other connected with you so the authenticity of this information is debatable and subjective, how do you filter this into real insight, and that is where a primary source of information comes into picture you can filter the web traffic into real insight in your primary source of information. The cost of social media promotion ranges from 0 to infinite based on your marketing budget. 0 cost for your organic promotions.

Mail Campaigns –

Mail Campaigns are the third way of online promotions which are a good way to keep your existing subscribers engaged and and informed about your product or idea. This has compliances and laws associated with it depending upon the operating locations and countries i.e you need to have a proof of subscription or consent from the subscriber’s that he/she willfully subscribe to your mail campaign. You should also be registered as bulk mail sender for sending these emails the limit vary from one mail service provider to other.  Generally a zoho mail costs about Rs 99 annually for standard packs, while mail-chimp provides rates of $10 per month. These are quite reasonable and make your startup ready to handle clients and projects.

Content Marketing – Blogs, articles and white papers –

Blog is as necessary as a website. No business can get by without a successful blog. From 2009 to 2012, the percentage of respondents with company blog grew from 48% to 62% – don’t be left behind. It’s the core of a modern, ‘social’ marketing and communications strategy.  To support and drive the company’s web presence and social media marketing activities a digital PR and partnering program needs to be kicked off.’

It should enhance the company’s strategic positioning, promote its product/service category, define credentials, messages, and benefits as well as drive a successful thought leadership and ‘challenger’ framework. The blog is your marketing front foot – make sure it strikes out for you. Blog sites should be set up properly, designed professionally and managed tightly. Editorial strategies need to be developed, writers appointed, guest programs implemented and content carefully planned and produced.

Crowdsourcing campaigns –

“A friend in need is a friend indeed.” Yes, with time this popular adage has come true again. For a startup, getting funds is the biggest impediment. But with social media and the emerging concept of crowdsourcing, getting funds for your startup has become an easy job.

Crowdfunding is a super hot formula to win over funds. The basic idea is you need to get popular wherever you trend. Develop your product in its MVP stage and sell it among your network. Once you get popular half the deal is done.

Crowd Sourcing can be done by these few ways:

  • Create hype with pre-sales
  • Stating ROI
  • Proposing right Workflow
  • Proper test before go-Live

Large brands and SME’s are tapping into the power of the Crowd for contest based campaign ideas as well as viral content development and marketing. Crowdsourced campaigns have become another key arrow in the Social marketing quiver. Crowdsourcing can also be used for cost effective business development, market research, opinion gathering, customer service support and more.

DevOps – Value Proposition for SME’s

DevOps is a methodology which solves the operational and logistics challenges of technology Delivery.

What is DevOps –

Imagine these scenarios –

  • Scaling up your Technology infrastructure and Landscape for another geographical region
  • Scaling up your Online Marketplace for Thanksgiving or Black Friday sale
  • Recovering from a massive data center failure
  • How to improve Go To Market Time, to improve customer satisfaction ?
  • How to improve delivery time to the customers?  
  • How to get faster ROI ?

To address above points what is your game plan? How much is automation involved here? How much manual effort and time does it cost? Is there a way that these all can be optimised? Answer is DevOps. If you have it in place you are already ahead of most competitors. To get the details on how these questions get answered by DevOps keep reading ..

DevOps In Business

Why is DevOps important ?

Advancement today has set for a world which is full of new technology that change at fast pace like Big Data, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and so on. Inspired by these just-in-time development and business process improvement, DevOps has become a global trend in the tech industry.   

Advantage of DevOps –

DevOps is a culture,  where as the term suggests Development (Dev) and Operations (Ops) teams align much closer together and share in-between knowledge in improved ways. But DevOps is much more than this – it is a ‘state of mind’, a common approach to a problem. Businesses today has a point in implementing DevOps only if it’s directly contributing to the company’s increased productivity, effectiveness and, profitability. The only way that it is possible for small and medium enterprises is when the Development and Operations team work in sync and streamlining the provision of tech solutions that solve the business needs. Moreover Unbounded collaboration is achieved with notably higher rates of employee loyalty and engagement.

How to improve delivery time to the customers?

Analysis- DevOps methodologies when implemented in business models enable to break the complex and big projects into smaller modules of functionality that can be delivered on a steady rate. Hence the clarity and speed up of the release schedules and delivery timeline are reduced, allowing to create a buffer for any future changes on the same project.

Recovering from a massive data center failure

Analysis- Research also show that DevOps companies have an almost supernatural advantage of 30x the deploy frequency of their non-DevOps peers. Meantime to recovery process of DevOps also reduces 168x reduction to recover customer failures.

How to get faster ROI ?

Analysis- DevOps allows a business to release twice as fast, they can effectively double their annual revenue.Getting Paid for Faster returns in DevOps Is basically, reverse-chronological order of importance for an ongoing business:

  • Get money after you bill.
  • Bill after you deliver benefit.
  • Deliver benefit after you ship.
  • Ship after you’ve made the product.
  • Get money to make product.

Over a mid to long term duration there is 20% increase in annual revenue would be on par with enterprise averages, thus definitely a better ROI.

 

How to improve Go To Market Time and improve customer satisfaction ?

Analysis- Failure in DevOps is a mandate notion which is taken as a must to happen in real world. DevOps provides embracing the notion that you will fail and that you should even practice failing, this is a key mental step to focusing on meantime to recovery (MTTR). Moreover the process of Continuous deployment = continuous feedback allows  a chance to test users’ satisfaction in real time, adjust their products to customers’ needs, thus shaping a tighter market-product fit. Hence reducing failure factors in business models.

 

Realisation of the Hour!

DevOps for business

Currently Agile teams used automated build, test automation, Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery.

With DevOps that is extended further to “Infrastructure as Code”, configuration management, metrics and monitoring schemes, a toolchain approach to tooling, virtualisation and cloud computing to accelerate change in the modern infrastructure world. DevOps brings some tools on the block as well like configuration management (puppet, chef, ansible, cfengine), orchestration (zookeeper, noah, mesos), monitoring, virtualisation and containerisation (AWS, OpenStack, vagrant, docker) and many more. This makes the SME’s prosper with clients much better.

It makes ONE team with an objective to delivery software fully to the customer. So DevOps becomes the need of the hour for an organisation aiming to stay ahead of the competition. Get in touch with us if you would like to implement DevOps within your organisation or simply need any consultation or advice on it.

Technology as Business Enabler

We strongly believe that technology is an enabler for business Here is how we think technology can help to gain momentum for the business –

Real life implementation Challenge

An ordinary artist with extraordinary craftsmanship, a living embodiment of the miraculous fine portfolio of paintings, pottery and jewellery, yet sadly have painful need to knock each door, just to sell his valuable, handmade articles. Imagine how far can his feet can walk, each step forward results into loss of energy and his most valuable possession i.e “Time”.

Just then he learns startups also shares the same passion of serving customers, but ofcourse, in a much better way. The nerves of technology powers the machinery of supply chain. With these startups at his disposal and great technology as a leverage, success comes by design not by luck. Selling products online and meeting the demand of customers becomes a super sustained, self managed affair.

 

Plan to make the business always ready for market ?

Shopping Cart for MarketTechnology today is the foundation for all success. Falling behind the Technology Curve, that compares the linear growth of technology and the rate of change is simply not possible. Today industries have become obsessed to achieve maximum efficiency at minimal cost. Modern businesses can’t afford to be technology laggards. Bridging the gap between today’s technology and tomorrow’s innovations is essential to transitioning seamlessly.

 

 

Keep a track of latest technology trends?

Tracking Device Improving ROI by infusing technology has always been a primary purpose for any business. Starting with the goals we want to achieve, and then plan backwards, finding a suitable technology that supports and improve performance to expected benchmark. This is what makes business and technology work hand in hand. After all “Technology doesn’t drive success: people using technology do”. Staying abreast of the latest trends allows a business to pivot before competitors can react.

 

 

Strategy Shifts and plan to adapt changes

Change by wrench Today Enterprises can no longer afford to think only in terms of efficiency and the 10-year plan. The new business model relies on fluidity: a company poised to pivot is one that’s best prepared for the future. We need to focus less on tomorrow and live in the present as that would make an impact.

The technical shifts today can no longer be limited to upgradation of system being done once. Trend says this era “Change is the only constant”. Oracle which was once known for its database models is towards being outdated, as today the cloud is becoming the core paradigm for delivering business technology, with an aspirational promise of “zero infrastructure which says anything-as-a-service”. Since the workers and management in the zone of business become more dependent on tech, they are increasingly able to help out with the process of digital change and transformation. So for business the digital transformation is required, however, it may be complex, time consuming, and expensive, and it affects every aspect of the enterprise.

 

Correct Go To Market Strategy?

Head thinking about go to market strategyA careful crafted plan on approach of marketing product and services, is the need. Do we need a website and if yes what kind of website? Is having mobile application at this time is right thing or should we wait? Worry not we would soon cover this topic in detail about what needs to be done and exactly in what order ?  Since the commercialisation and use of technology became more widespread throughout the world, the adoption of advanced products can generate new business opportunities and various benefits.

 

Pricing and decision before choosing a technology

The market today stands long-term visible capability of the decision makers.The wise ones choose a developed product with considering below points –

  • Should encourage designers to explore Creative Routines and apply them in work.
  • Should encourage developers to explore Understanding Routines and apply them in work.
  • Should encourage parents to study Visible Thinking and encourage their children to try them.
  • Should not only develops solution for SME’s but also provide a supportive system for their backup.

 

Checkpoints for latest technology trends

Remember CheckpointsFew Instances of technological boost is once there was an era where it was all cash, then it was credit cards, and now it’s time to start to accept mobile payments. These make daily transactions much simpler. Similarly today current tech can help business keep track of all the necessary documents, invoices, deductions, and expenditures and made that all a little less painful by generating and tracking invoices way more better than manual work. Hence the best business growth is with trending techs, you need it you get it.

To help progress and success thrive, the first step is research to check whether there is a more recent, advanced program, app, or tech development that can aggregate multiple needs into one process. Thus the latest technology trends can make your job easier and will also show the customers that business is modern and evolving. What’s needed is to keep up with what’s hot in the industry and make the effort to integrate the technology that’s best for your business.

 

Here in AppsWise we try to solve a business scenario in most optimised and efficient technical way, by keeping all the edge cases in mind for any SME’s to grow. Get in touch with us for any challenges you deal with in technology scope or even if you just want to optimize your technology operations.

Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) – Implementation

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At the Implementation phase we do execution of the blue print Technical Specification (TS) prepared in design phase. Which means care fully developing each and every component of the product as per the given specification. These developments get performed by different developers or engineer depending on the project size. To continue our previous metaphor below are the exact steps which we perform in this phase –

  • We create rechargeable energy cell and assemble it in a way that it takes minimum space and maximum energy.
  • We build the adaptor to convert ac to dc to charge the battery with exact power required.
  • We start building the overall products shape of circle and build other component in such a way that after complete assembly it gets into round shape.
  • We procure heat sustainable light weight glass and cut it in round shape.
  • We prepare the over all circuit with the capacitor timer, AC to DC adopter and battery so that it provides constant heat for given time and power.

After building each of above component we test each individually and make sure it passes the test and if not we fix it. This is called Unit Testing of individual components. Once we are done with unit testing we assemble the component to give it final shape and test the overall working of it. This is called Integration Testing (I&T).

Digital_Induction_Stove

Once integration testing is finished this phase completes and we ship the product for next phase which consist different regress testing steps.

Since you are with us so far we are sure it started making sense, if so please share your feedback with us in comments section or even you think otherwise. We would be covering the testing phase of SDLC in followup post, stay tuned.

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Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) – Design

This is the followup post for previous post about SDLC where we discussed about the Requirement Analysis Phase, you might want to visit before continuing, and if so please visit Requirement Analysis.

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In this phase we do systems design: Describes desired features and operations in detail, including screen layouts, business rules, process diagrams, pseudocode and other documentation. Not simple enough ? Let us continue with the previous example from Requirement Gathering & Analysis phase.

So now by statement of work we know requirement is to design and develop a smokeless light weight stove with automatic timer and consistent heat generator. To suffices the requirement we decide

  • We evaluate different source of energy like
    • Can we build it with electric battery, we think it won’t be a good idea battery will run out eventually and wouldn’t be good for long run.
    • Can we build it with electricity, we think that it wouldn’t be portable enough if we go with this option and what if there is no electricity or at power cut.
    • We decide to use both rechargeable battery which can be charged by electricity would be a good idea.
  • We also look for form factor whether it is going to be square or circle.
    • Square would require more material and unnecessary material would add cost, weight and logistic effort to final product.
  • Material for cook top
    • We evaluate stable & heat sustaining cooktop for surface. We evaluate glass, stone and fibre for same purpose and find glass as our best bet due to high melting point lighter in weight then stone.
  • Electric components & circuits
    • We also identify the electric and electronic component required for our product like ac to dc adaptor to charge battery for stove.
    • We need capacitors and resisters to provide consistent energy for heat.
    • We need timer to keep track of the heating time.

In Above exercise we design the complete, to be architecture and technologies we are going to use. Which summaries the design phase. The takeaway of this phase is a technical blue print of whole to be product called Technical Specification (TS). The TS would be passed to development team, who will execute it and come up with the final product.

Are you with us this far? Does it sounds interesting? Please share your feedback with us in comments section. We would be covering the design phase of SDLC in followup post, stay tuned.

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Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) – Requierment Gathering

Can you articulate Software Design Life Cycle (SDLC) to your child?

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The answer to above question is yes if you have a metaphor, simple enough and easy to understand I often get asked what is Software Design Life Cycle (SDLC) and what exactly we do in this complete cycle? To explain in plain simple words I share an interesting metaphor and here it is

The very first phase is requirement gathering and analysis. This phase helps in evaluating the customer on his understanding of the process and requirement to come up with the agreed Statement Of Work (SOW). This is the first contract document between customer and service provider. We also educate the customer to clearly outline their requirement in this phase, for example customer comes with the requirement of a stove because they are sick of the conventional clay stove.

Clay Stove
Conventional Clay Stove

At this point we ask what they want or what were their pain points with previous experience and we list it down

  • It shouldn’t produce smoke, because the traditional one was a pain in  the eyes due to smoke.
  • It shouldn’t need to be watched continuously, so that the person cooking can also do something else while cooking.
  • It should’t over cook or under cook the food should be smart enough to know once food is cooked.
  • It should be portable and easy to clean for obvious reasons.
  • Should be energy efficient.

Provided the above facts we underline the requirement as below

  • It shouldn’t burn the fuel that is the only way to completely eliminate smoke. We need alternative source of smoke less energy.
  • It will need a time counter or timer and an interface to capture the time.
  • Needs a temperature regulator and should be able to provide consistent temperature.
  • Should be made of lightweight heat resistant material.
  • Should consume energy wisely.

Customer need to be educated that it would require consistent source of un-conventional energy such as electricity instead of wood and charcoal. Once agreed and SOW is signed deal is sealed.

What is your metaphor of SDLC let us know in comments, We would be covering the other phases of SDLC in subsequent follow ups of this post stay tuned and share your understanding of it did we succeed to simplify it for your children or we confused you more share your thoughts in comments below.

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Emotion Driven Architecture ( EDA )

Even the machines can work on algorithm and structured control flow, It takes wisdom to follow the heart and get driven by emotions”

 

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Would you be surprised? If we tell you “Emotion Driven Architecture (EDA) is new Paradigm shift in Software development approach”. Did we not talk about making paradigm shift if required in our manifesto, this is part of the plan we are up to. In case you wonder why we care so much about EDA, because Great User Experience design’s are mostly build around User’s emotions.

When we say Emotion Driven Architecture we are essentially talking about a frame work which helps to develop product, and user should be able to emotionally associate with it. The rest of the user experience should be designed with keeping this relation in mind. However wizardry it might sound, trust us, it is not rocket science and is completely doable, we are planning to implement Appraisal Theory with right set of cut and mix, here is what we have in mind to implement as first phase of it –

  • User’s experience study for particular use case should be done properly. continuous evaluation and enhancement for future scope should be planned, if any user experience survey for use case available in any inorganic way should be utilised and enhanced or extended, if required to save effort and time.
  • Should have an algorithm which should dynamically choose the flow path, when provided the user experience pattern discussed in above step.
  • Have checkpoint if the flow is proceeding into right path and nothing has been missed, any deviation should be logged tracked and corrective measure should be taken.
    Repeat from step 1.

So this is the initial draft of design idea we have for Emotion Driven Architecture, tell us what you think about it in the comments below and stay tuned for future updates and contact us if you want to be part of the development.

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The Paradigm Shift – Appswise

Do you think the way information flows in current system is wise enough ? Why do you need to fill lots of personal information while booking tickets, getting admitted into hospital opting for a new gas or telephone connection?

 

We at apps wise think that industry needs paradigm shift for simplifying information access and transformation.  Here is how:

By connecting the disintegrated systems for source of information:

The problem is information which already exist in information system is not always part of network or talks a different language all together, i.e the countries where police verification is required to issue a valid passport to citizen, why passport department need to send the information offline to police department and then police needs to manually verify the records and get back to passport department and only then the process moves ahead. Wouldn’t it be wise if anytime a crime is reported and criminal is identified his record gets updated. The same information would be available to passport department and process doesn’t wait for police department to get back to passport department, however in some cases where passport department doesn’t find the record for a particular person they can request a manual intervention.

Making it easy to access by realtime API’s

Even if the information exist in system it is not accessible easily because the systems were designed to be isolated. If the system can be designed in such a way that it can update the information and provide the updated information seamlessly with the help of realtime apis. i.e. If person have an account in some bank and he wants to open another account in same bank or another bank he should not need to fill the redundant information again and again.

Introducing the internet of things as new source of information to existing information system.

Internet of Things ( IOT ) is slowly getting into mainstream information sources, which is a good way to track and update the current information system. It should be utilised to full potentials. Consider a scenario where a persons location data indicates different location then his recorded location for a sufficiently long period then by the wise system he should be reminded to update the record or present a valid reason for ambiguity.

Effectively utilising the existing information.

Apart from maintaining and managing the information it is equally important to utilise the existing information effectively instead of keep asking for it again and again from the user and maintaining multiple copies or truth. For example All financial transaction and investment related matter’s should be routed through credit score & income tax systems to validate the details instead of asking for bank statements and income proof of so and so months

Keeping the information system up to date always.

If you maintain a single source of truth you get the responsibility to keep it up to date as well, for this very reason the system which serves the information should also expose the APIs to update information as well.

So due to above facts we strongly advocate for paradigm shift across industry for the way we access and expose the information. Let us know what your opinion is ..