It’s Time For Software Engineering To Grow Up

 The recent market correction has been a long time coming. For over a decade, low interest rates and easy access to capital fueled a period of unprincipled growth in Silicon Valley. “Cash-flow positive” had become a distant memory of a bygone era. But as Edward Abbey put it, “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” He was referring to the erosion of wilderness at the hands of uncontrolled urban expansion in his beloved Arizona, but the analogy applies to companies as well.

How To Manage Software Developers Who Moonlight?

 With a booming technology industry comes the potential for software developers to engage in moonlighting—working on multiple projects and earning additional income in the process. While this can be a lucrative opportunity for software developers, it can pose significant risks to employers. So, how can employers effectively manage their software developers who moonlight?

As with any business challenge, the first step is to understand why software developers engage in moonlighting in the first place. Taking on additional work can provide a significant boost to their income. Additionally, the tech industry's remote working environment makes moonlighting even more attractive, as developers can work from anywhere and still receive a paycheck.

Achieving Next-Level Value From AI By Focusing On The Operational Side Of Machine Learning

Technology research firm Gartner, Inc. has estimated that 85% of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) projects fail to produce a return for the business. The reasons often cited for the high failure rate include poor scope definition, bad training data, organizational inertia, lack of process change, mission creep and insufficient experimentation.

To this list, I would add another reason that I have seen many organizations struggle to achieve value from their AI projects. Companies often have invested heavily in building data science teams to create innovative ML models. However, they have failed to adopt the mindset, team, processes and tools necessary to efficiently and safely put those models into a production environment where they can actually deliver value.

To avoid this trap and achieve greater value from AI, here are four recommendations to help your organization translate your data scientists' amazing algorithms into real business impact.

1. Adopt a software mindset.

ML models are undoubtedly important, but developing ML code is just one part of the AI/ML life cycle. Data collection, feature extraction, data verification, machine resource management and other activities adjacent to the ML code actually consume the bulk of time and resources in the ML life cycle.

To be successful, companies must stop thinking of models as an end on their own. The fact is that a model is just a way to transform data written in the form of a function. In short, the model is just software.

When software engineers think about putting a model into production, their concerns are around how the model handles errors, whether the model will do what it is expected to do, whether it can respond quickly enough and whether it will integrate effectively into the organization's software stack.

Adopting a software mindset means moving away from an "artisanal" approach of handling every model as a one-off toward an "industrial" approach focused on putting the tools and processes in place to get models into production efficiently and effectively.

2. Build an ML platform team.

Since models are software, companies should look to their software organizations when they think about how to structure the ML operations team that will be responsible for bringing models into production.

Where a software organization has product development teams supported by an applications platform team (along with a core group to manage the infrastructure), the AI/ML organization should have data science teams supported by an ML engineering group—along with a team whose mandate is to assemble, manage and monitor the platform that the data science and ML teams use (i.e., an ML platform team staffed with ML platform engineers).

The ML platform engineer is a crossover role—similar to a DevOps position, plus software since they might need to build APIs or support the development of infrastructure patterns, for example. Awareness of data helps because data is so intertwined with ML. The ML platform engineer role also requires strong soft skills, curiosity and a collaborative mindset since they will work with diverse teams across the ML life cycle.

3. Establish end-to-end processes.

When a company is still in the "artisanal" stage of ML and is working with only a few use cases, it can get by with bespoke processes, treating each model as a one-off. However, as it expands the number of models that it's putting into production, it needs to standardize its processes to ensure a high level of confidence in both the processes themselves and in the models that it's putting into production.

This means establishing processes across the entirety of the model life cycle—which can be challenging because of the diverse teams involved throughout the life cycle. For example, different groups or individuals tend to be involved in promoting models from lab to staging and then to prod. As a result, different processes need to be implemented for each stage.

It's worth saying again that processes need to be established across the entire model life cycle. Yes, handoffs need to be defined all the way from experimentation to production. However, a model's life cycle doesn't end when it goes live in production, and procedures should be vetted for monitoring and retraining models as well.

4. Incorporate an operational platform.

Many companies that are successful with AI/ML invariably have a dedicated platform for operationalizing models for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, the computational workloads that a system supports in experimentation or training are very different from the workloads in the operationalizing phase.

In experimentation, the limiting factor is how quickly you can spin up resources independently so that you can use your Scikit-learn or TensorFlow and so on. When you go into the implementation phase, you care about a completely different set of capabilities. Is the platform resilient and high availability? Does it have hooks into Datadog or New Relic?

That's why even companies that have a training platform should consider incorporating an operational platform. As a rule, the ML platform itself should provide "self-service with guardrails," allowing data scientists to quickly and safely deploy models into production. At a minimum, the tools that a high-functioning ML team requires for managing operational AI workloads at scale should include:

• A training platform.

• An operational AI (or serving) platform.

• A data platform.

• DevOps to orchestrate everything.

• A workflow system, which may or may not include a batch prediction platform.

By adopting a software mindset around ML and putting in place the team, processes and tools to safely and efficiently deploy ML models, companies can significantly reduce the time required to put models into production and see value from their research innovations.

Implementing standard end-to-end processes can also improve model governance and prepare teams for upcoming regulations around AI, such as the EU's AI Act and the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA).

Finally, these companies can free up their data scientists to develop even more innovative models to deliver intelligent products and services, ultimately increasing AI's value and impact on the business.

Looking to hire skilled software developers? Contact TP&P Technology - Leading Software Outsourcing Company in Vietnam Today

Article resource: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/01/17/achieving-next-level-value-from-ai-by-focusing-on-the-operational-side-of-machine-learning/?sh=22fd8f682d7e

How Transparent Is Your Software Outsourcing Vendor?

 Over the years and across the countless number of products that I have helped bring to market, the ones that nearly failed were the ones that an organization I worked with at the time used an external software outsourcing vendor. The vendors in question ultimately were selected because an executive's friend referred them or had a piece of the action getting some sort of kickback.

In one particular case, it led to quick agreements that based the relationship on just sheer speculation that the vendor was to be trusted, and thorough vetting was not required. 

The first red flag popped up when the vendors refused our software engineering teams to review detailed resumes. Instead, we received a card stating that the individual had "X" number of years of experience with the exact technology stack that we were using. Because of this, the executive team put pressure on the engineering team to get started right away.

There was not a single test, nor line of code reviewed, nor even questions about code structure and object-oriented programming — not even a problem to solve to see how the engineer approached complex problems. The team grumbled a bit and just focused on the day-to-day while getting the new front end, back end and, supposedly, a tech-lead ready to ramp up on the systems.

The second red flag came when the first group of engineers started onboarding with our teams. It took days of back and forth with the engineers because they were nine hours ahead. It took four to six weeks to start seeing production delivery. The code that was delivered did not pass testing. And a junior developer replaced the senior tech lead.

Staff had to spend more time coaching, teaching and guiding the outsourcing team, which took focus away from critical deliverables and ultimately delayed business objectives by several months. The outcome affected the business, which lost opportunities and frayed existing client relationships. In the end, we all learned a valuable lesson, and we had to have a heart-to-heart talk with the decision-makers concerning all the problems encountered when our teams could not vet the vendor and its candidates thoroughly.

After that, I made sure to review in-depth every single vendor. Yet I still faced enormous challenges when it came to vendor transparency on talent, costs, skills and performance. Other problematic areas I commonly discovered using different vendors was talent assigned to other projects while working on my products, talent rotation and engineers unavailable when meeting critical production deadlines.

To this day, when talking with technology executives, those similar gaps still come up, so I decided to tackle that challenge and push for greater industry transparency.

In leading a software engineering services organization, a strategy I share with business owners, engineering stakeholders and economic buyers is to approach software outsourcing vendors with a vetting plan that focuses on total transparency, talent evaluation, onboarding process strategy, training and retention programs. Furthermore, the vendor needs to be able to understand fully what your needs are. If they don't get it, move on.

So even if you are a small startup or mid-size company, it is useful to have preliminary documentation on the following, if applicable. Based on my experience, here are a few questions to ask about your business before engaging a vendor.

What are your business overview and objectives? 

Spell out what it is that your business is trying to achieve. Also, review the reasons the initiative requires certain technical elements to materialize and maximize ROI.

What does your tech stack look like?

Break down the technology stack you are using or looking to use. This overview guideline is basic and can expand depending on complexity and scope. This includes a full technical stack review, meaning apps and data, utilities, DevOps and business tools. A basic product introduction might entail:

• Agile PM Platform: Documentation (e.g., Jira, Rally, Trello, etc.) 

• Repositories (e.g., GitHub, GitLab, etc..) 

• UX: Adaptive, technical feasibility, asset manipulation

• UI: Performance-optimized

• Front End: Performance/ReST APIs focusing on the presentation layer of architecture schema

• Back End: Schema cocreation/authentication/data management

• iOS: Objective C/Swift/React Native/Flutter

• Android: Android Dev Kit/Java /Kotlin/React Native/Flutter

• QA: Test-driven development/unit testing

• DevOps: Docker/Kubernetes

• Security: Best practices 

• Compliance: Protocols 

• Server Setup: Local, staging, testing, release/production 

What does your architecture overview/workflow/diagram look like? 

1. Presentation Layer: This entails all the components for users to interact with the application (UI stuff too). It is for processing the user's input and returning the accurate response to the user.

2. Service Layer: This serves as a transactional boundary and contains both the application and proprietary infrastructure services.

3. Business Layer: This includes the core business rules and functionality of the application.

4. Data Layer: It's the bottom layer of the application. It communicates with stored user data.

After signing an NDA and presenting the software outsourcing vendor, your business requirements document should cover the following, which you may want the vendor to address:

• Ability to review resumes

• Ability to review preliminary screens from the resumes proposed

• Ability to provide calibration feedback and pivot the search

• Review preliminary technical screen 

• Review technical testing video and actual code of those tests and challenges 

• View resource salary requirements, taxes, benefits costs, insurance and vendor profit (total cost of ownership calculator)

• Review onboarding strategy

• Resource equal replacement contract clause

Bottom Line

Doing your due diligence before embarking on a technical project with software outsourcing vendors is vital to ensure business success. Take time to review all necessary components of such a partnership to ensure goals are understood and processes are outlined across the team from the start of the collaboration.

Looking to hire skilled software developers? Contact TP&P Technology - Leading Software Outsourcing Company in Vietnam Today

Article resource: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2020/07/13/how-transparent-is-your-software-outsourcing-vendor/?sh=200113e6ef2a

Why User Feedback Is So Important For Software Development

 How often are you taking the time to collect user base feedback? When you’re developing a new app or software, it’s highly beneficial to learn from your user base. After all, they’re the ones who will be purchasing and using the product. You need to get to know your customers’ pain points and needs before you can figure out how to solve them. This is the only way to create something that will actually be adopted.

To do this, you need to create a more collaborative process that involves your customers every step of the way. In doing so, your user-based feedback can improve the development process, allow you to create better applications and help you grow. Here's a more detailed look at the benefits you could see when you properly leverage feedback from users.

Reduced Risk

Without getting user-based feedback early and often, you run the risk of wasting your time and money developing something that doesn’t address a genuine customer need. Instead, you need to prioritize finding out what your customers do and don’t want. That will guarantee that you’re always spending time on something that is both valuable and useful to your user base. You can dramatically reduce risk and cost as a result.

Balancing Speed With Quality

In the past, it was standard to take years to push out new software or large updates. But now, people are used to speed. They might be willing to wait weeks or perhaps even months for a new feature, but they certainly won’t be around for any longer than that. Someone else will jump in to provide what they’re looking for if you’re too slow. You can leverage user feedback to eliminate wasted time and focus on what your customers want—when they want it. As a result, you’ll speed up the process while maintaining quality.

Greater Agility

When you’re basing your software development cycle on user feedback, you’ll inherently become more agile. This is essential in today’s world of software and application development. If you’re consistently listening to customers and making user-feedback-based decisions at every stage, you can quickly adapt, even if the market is changing at breakneck speed. And when you can ensure the scope and specifications of your project are on target, you’ll be able to figure out your top priorities and thus make better business decisions.

Ensuring You Have The Correct Audience

Your test group should represent all the different types of users you want to target. For example, if you’re creating a program geared toward real estate owners, it might be essential to find people with varied real estate holdings and varying technological skills. This way, you can ensure that you’re not alienating any of your desired customer bases and that you’re meeting everyone’s needs.

Improved User Experience

In addition to helping you determine your priorities, user-based feedback can help you with design and thus improve the final product. Improving the usability of your software is essential to long-term success, and it should never be an afterthought.

Improved Quality Of The Final Product

When you collaborate with your user base, you can generate a wider range of ideas. You can give more time and effort to ideas that get the most positive feedback and change (or scrap) ideas that are generating mostly negative feedback. If a certain tool is going completely unused in the prototype, you’ll know ahead of time that it isn’t working and you can make decisions accordingly. Features that you hadn’t even thought of might become the top priority, depending on what your customers need.

Retaining Customers

If you want to keep your customers around for the long haul, you’ll need to incorporate their feedback into your decisions from day one. Your user base wants to know you value them, understand their needs and are on their side. Collaborating with your users by gathering and incorporating their feedback is often an effective way to build customer retention.

The time is now to start incorporating more user-based feedback into your agile software development process. Don’t wait until your application is almost completed. With consistent user feedback from the beginning to the end, you can improve both the process and the product.

Looking to hire skilled software developers? Contact TP&P Technology - Leading Software Outsourcing Company in Vietnam Today

Article resource: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/05/31/why-user-feedback-is-so-important-for-software-development/?sh=5bfd5f6533f1

How Outsourcing Helps Tech Businesses Thrive In Times Of Economic Uncertainty

 The American economy has seen quite a bit of turbulence this year. It makes sense that, between inflation, supply chain issues and falling stocks, many are worried that our economy is on the brink of a recession. In response to these concerns, many technology leaders have cut headcounts, scaled back operations and focused on paring down line items to make weathering the expected economic downturn more manageable.

These are understandable approaches that can certainly help leaders meet goals in the short term. However, taking this route could come at the expense of larger business objectives as it may lower quality, stifle plans for growth or lead to overworked teams that are unable to contribute their best to the company.

Opting to outsource certain areas, rather than downsizing or eliminating their function, can help up-and-comers and established technology vendors meet quarterly goals while staying on track to meet long-term goals. In times of economic trouble, allowing experts to take the lead where possible can help ensure the continued quality of a company’s products and services while helping to lighten the load on internal teams.

The Perks Of Partnership

Opting to outsource in times of economic uncertainty can help software and other tech companies open new doors and streamline operations. It also allows leaders to meet budgetary goals by doing the following:

1. Tapping Into New Labor Markets

As inflation rises, wage increases follow close behind. Outsourcing certain processes and business functions—like customer service, bill processing or records management—opens more affordable labor pools, which can help keep costs low.

While hiring outside help may feel counterintuitive when trying to cut back on costs, it’s actually far less expensive when you compare rates. For example, if a tech start-up operates in a high-cost American city—like New York or Los Angeles—engaging customer service representatives in a market with a lower cost of living can help reduce costs significantly. By tapping into labor markets in more rural areas, either domestically or abroad, managers can cut labor spending without running on skeleton crews.

Furthermore, the return can be even more significant when working with an outsourcing partner that has an international presence. In fact, a business process outsourcer (BPO) with operations in emerging regions can help cut costs significantly while extending their partners’ global reach and bringing lucrative work opportunities to underserved regions.

2. Reducing Risk

In uncertain economies, removing risk can also help tech leaders find more peace of mind. Building new facilities or hiring seasonal workers to meet spiking demand are risky endeavors, especially in times of belt-tightening and cost-cutting. There’s always the chance that it won’t pay off or go as planned.

Outsourcing these and other functions can help mitigate that risk. Most companies that offer outsourcing services become responsible for the financial risk associated with staffing, managing teams, opening new locations, onboarding and more.

Even though adding another entity into the mix can feel like a risky choice, doing so ultimately helps start-ups and legacy institutions operate with more confidence, so employers are able to get back to running the ship without all the added stress.

3. Increasing Flexibility To Facilitate Scalability

Outsourcing certain teams to specialized partners can help tech companies increase their flexibility and scalability, which is incredibly important when navigating a tumultuous economy. It allows companies that specialize in emerging tech to streamline their operations, offering the agility to pivot or scale offerings at the drop of a hat.

Companies that outsource customer service, for example, will be better positioned to accommodate spikes in demand as their service partner has the resources to reallocate labor, train any new workers and oversee progress to ensure quality service despite changes in volume. If demand drops, the BPO can take the lead when restructuring teams, re-strategizing or suggesting alternative methods that may drive better results.

4. Boosting Efficiency With Expertise

Finally, expertise is crucial in times of uncertainty—and BPOs offer just that. Whether it’s a software company looking to get help producing content or running communications or a start-up looking for guidance on developing new internal processes or managing customer service teams at scale, working with an experienced partner can streamline the experience.

They’re experts at delivering top-quality work and alleviating growing pains. BPOs invest in the latest technology, have tried-and-true strategies for success and cultivate teams that are highly skilled at delivering excellence in their fields. The result? Fewer mistakes, more unique ideas, better execution and, ultimately, more satisfied clients and customers.

The Power Of Outsourcing In A Down Economy

While adding something new to the budget may seem counterintuitive in turbulent economic times, it’s imperative that leaders take a step back and consider the big picture. Being cost-efficient isn’t just about slashing line items, it’s about creating more streamlined and productive teams and processes.

Leaders looking into next steps for outsourcing should determine their organizational needs and weigh them across several BPO offerings, clearly communicate their budgets and outcome expectations for the partnership and set up trainings for internal and external partners to understand the evolving roles within their customer service systems.

Companies that decide to outsource often get a significant return on their investments. The expanded access to talent, reduced risk, increased flexibility and boosted efficiency outsourcing can help tech leaders build more agile, confident and productive businesses. In today’s unstable market, that is the key to ongoing success.

Looking to hire skilled software developers? Contact TP&P Technology - Leading Software Outsourcing Company in Vietnam Today

Article resource:https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/01/13/how-outsourcing-helps-tech-businesses-thrive-in-times-of-economic-uncertainty/?sh=12ea43012bd2

Top Priorities For State Government CIOs In 2023

 State government IT leaders are evolving services to address citizens’ growing demands of remote access to their benefits, whether it be applying for them or receiving them. The urgency also stems from the accelerating shortage of talent that is available to manage and maintain the existing IT infrastructure and portfolio of software applications that execute state policies. As a result, their priorities are changing.

In a survey released at the recent National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) annual conference, senior government IT leaders said that expanding and accelerating the provision of digital government services in 2023 would require departments to focus on cybersecurity and legacy application modernization as their top two priorities.

Why is this the case?

User expectations for exceptional digital experiences soared during the pandemic and are here to stay. In addition, citizens’ increased use of services for benefits exposed the fragility of existing legacy applications that weren’t designed for digital-first interactions. Government agencies also have substantial technology debt to overcome since, historically, IT budgets have lagged behind needs. It’s no surprise, then, that 48% of CIOs say that at least half of their applications need to be modernized to support their transformation objectives.

Fortunately, new legislation has designated more funds for state CIOs to invest in IT. The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act all provide state funds for IT investment. As a result, state and local governments have $130.5 billion to spend on IT in 2022-2023, up from $118.7 billion in 2021-2022.

How Are State Government IT Priorities Changing

Given the new funding, what will state government leadership be investing in for 2023?

• Redoubling the focus on cybersecurity: Government agencies collect, operationalize and store sensitive data to develop and deliver mission-critical services over the internet. Cyberattackers target government systems to access customer data, destabilize services, steal intellectual property and demand ransoms. In 2021, government agencies were the second-most attacked sector. As a result, “Sixty-four percent of government IT leaders will spend more on cybersecurity in 2023 than in 2022,” as shown in the 2023 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey. “You boil it down to the CIO, it is cybersecurity. Absolutely…That is the highest priority,” says Chris Howard, chief of research at Gartner, in the WSJ.

Agencies struggle to harden defenses with disparate cybersecurity strategies, an abundance of legacy systems and workforce shortages. As just one example, many state government legacy applications are not compatible with the latest security features. Only 14% of state agencies had fully implemented an identity, credential and access management solution as of 2022. Agencies will be modernizing applications to eliminate security gaps and utilize the latest security advances to protect their systems and underlying data.

• Implementing GOTS software: Private sector companies use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products to accelerate the modernization of their applications while reducing development timeframes and costs. Government agencies want to achieve the same goals.

One approach is to implement government off-the-shelf (GOTS) solutions, which are tailor-made to agency requirements. By adopting GOTS solutions, agencies can exit the business of developing software while also being able to share, reuse or resell it. Agencies pursuing this path will strive to build software that solves common problems, increasing its usability. CIOs will want to develop long-term application strategies that demonstrate how new solutions will gain a wider user base and achieve the desired ROI. They’ll also seek to secure long-term funding for updates and provide teams with modern technologies to evolve GOTS platforms.

• Deploying a workforce with modern IT and security skills: While the C-suite now has more IT funds available, these leaders want to spend them strategically to accomplish top priorities such as recruiting, developing and retaining top technology and security talent. A recent survey found that 40% of public sector workers’ core skills will need to change within the next five years and that nearly 1 in 2 workers will require at least three months of re-skilling to be able to meet new government objectives.

The top five skills that CIOs and CISOs are looking for include data analytics and cloud technologies, cybersecurity and privacy, the internet of things, and artificial intelligence and machine learning.

CIOs and CISOs will be teaming with HR organizations to create talent strategies, recruit and develop new hires and upskill existing workforces in conjunction with investing in advanced capabilities.

• Transforming digital services to empower citizens: State citizens expect the same high-quality, personalized experience from state government agencies that they enjoy from digital leaders such as Amazon and Apple. Today, citizens often bridge multiple channels to research services, pay bills and taxes or access benefits, providing data with each interaction. Agencies are aggregating customer and operational data to develop a single portal that integrates all services and provide citizens with a single digital ID to access services. Artificial intelligence and automation guide workflow and personalize service delivery, making it easy for consumers to complete tasks. Citizens benefit by receiving the same experience regardless of which touchpoint they access. Illinois is among the states that have rolled out a single digital ID, and it plans to use analytics to understand service usage and make personalized recommendations.

By centralizing data access, using automation and deploying richer digital offerings, agencies reduce non-value-added work such as employee data gathering. As a result, employees are better able to focus on decision-making and other high-level duties.

It’s A New Era Of Transformation

State government CIOs and their teams are leading their agencies into a digital-first future. They made significant strides during the pandemic. Now they’re increasing those gains by evolving cybersecurity capabilities, implementing GOTS software, hiring and upskilling workforces with modern technology skills, and transforming digital services. Modernizing applications will help agencies accomplish all of these goals, resulting in services that meet citizens’ demands, increase worker productivity and scale with growth. These outcomes are ones any state government CIO can get behind.

Looking to hire skilled software developers? Contact TP&P Technology - Leading Software Outsourcing Company in Vietnam Today

Article resource: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/01/03/top-priorities-for-state-government-cios-in-2023/?sh=6f6a97a68a27 

Four Things To Consider When Joining A Software Development Outsourcing Tender

Large-scale industries and governmental organizations are constantly searching for new vendors and partners. And many organizations find fitting service providers through tendering. At the same time, by joining a tender, a service provider gets the chance to win a contract for an innovative or challenging project.

Though tendering may seem challenging and daunting for software outsourcing companies who have never dealt with it, winning the right bid can transform your emerging business.

In this article, I want to share my company’s experience participating in software development tenders hosted by various organizations.

How You Can Take Part In A Tender

There are several ways an IT outsourcing company can take part in a tender.

• Receive a request for proposal (RFP) directly from a company seeking vendors or from a partnership program that assists such companies

• Establish contacts with procurement consultants who deal with organizations of interest

• Search for RFPs for large projects from major market players on online bid posting platforms

• Visit official websites of government institutions that open tenders within the procurement procedure

Requests for proposals can be public, private or closed, depending on the organization posting them.

Government organizations are a subject of public procurement practices, so they issue public RFPs. Public entities usually have requirements and limitations regarding the providers they can cooperate with, so it’s best to consult tender advisors who are familiar with them. For instance, a public company may require service providers to be located in a particular area or possess specific certifications.

Private businesses and non-public organizations may place closed RFPs on their websites or social media profiles (rarely on bid platforms), or they might not post their RFPs at all. They may prefer sending a call for bids to a procurement company or directly to a selected group of potential vendors.

Private organizations also have their requirements for suppliers. For instance, to submit a proposal to a large company, you usually need to spend some time registering with the company’s procurement managers to be verified and added to the approved supplier list. Midsized companies may have simplified tendering procedures, allowing you to arrange meetings to provide project evaluations, such as for the budget and timeline.

What To Consider When Participating In A Tender

With more than 20 years of experience with various tenders, my company has come up with several principles we always follow when taking part in a tender

• Provide the exact information you are asked for.

For vendors, strictly meeting tender requirements is a must. Find out precisely what information you have to provide and how it should be provided. Usually, you have to fill out a standard request form, but make sure to check for additional documents and conditions. Make a presentation about your company if it’s required. But if tender rules ask for a three-year project plan, work on project estimation first. Then, you can attach a presentation with additional information about your company.

• Focusing on the value you can deliver increases your chances of making a winning proposal.

Tender initiators have different criteria for vendors. Some are limited in budget and look for the best proposal at the best price. Others strive to solve challenging tasks, so your first step to winning the bid would be presenting the most relevant solution. In any case, when my company works on a proposal, we always focus on how we can help our future partner improve their business value. This approach allows us to meet clients’ requirements while avoiding budget overruns.

• Information about your company is equally as important as your proposal.

Make a well-prepared company profile to prove your reliability. Be ready to provide data on your company’s structure or business activity, including financial reports. Verify that all your certifications are valid at the time of sending the tender proposal. A competent outsourcing provider has a stable company structure, a transparent financial history and its own mature development processes.

• Let your experts dedicate enough time for tender participation.

Participating in a tender is a tedious and time-consuming process requiring the utmost attention. Allocate a separate expert team that can dedicate all their time and efforts to preparing and submitting the proposal and other documents by the required deadline. Also, only the availability of mature and sufficient expertise on the project’s subject can ensure an outsourcing provider will deliver the best quality of services. That’s why, when taking part in tenders, we always involve our software development experts either in creating the project solution or evaluating the project.

Tenders can be great stimulators for your business. Winning a bid can bring you a stable partnership and business growth. Losing a bid can be a chance for your business to revise its bidding strategy and improve. Either way, remember that this is a long game into which you need to invest much time and many resources before reaping the fruits of victory.

Looking to hire skilled software developers? Contact TP&P Technology - Leading Software Outsourcing Company in Vietnam Today

Article resource: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/01/02/four-things-to-consider-when-joining-a-software-development-outsourcing-tender/?sh=13dbf7a75818

Transformational IT Leadership: Redefining The Modern CIO’s Role

 As the chief information officer of an IT business, how do you essentially define your role?

While some may talk about on-paper job roles, when I think about the responsibilities of a CIO, I often find myself thinking about a vague outline of possibilities. As the tech world is grooving toward more service and data-centric processes, the CIO’s role in fast-moving businesses is constantly evolving at a propelling pace. And often times, the CIO himself isn’t aware of how he is transitioning into one of the most needed technology leadership needs.

So, let’s define the changing role of the modern CIO and the business-critical need for techno-leadership skills. But let’s first explore the most basic query about the role of a CIO.

Does The Role Of CIO Require A Tech Background?

As the chief information officer of an IT business, how do you essentially define your role?

While some may talk about on-paper job roles, when I think about the responsibilities of a CIO, I often find myself thinking about a vague outline of possibilities. As the tech world is grooving toward more service and data-centric processes, the CIO’s role in fast-moving businesses is constantly evolving at a propelling pace. And often times, the CIO himself isn’t aware of how he is transitioning into one of the most needed technology leadership needs.

So, let’s define the changing role of the modern CIO and the business-critical need for techno-leadership skills. But let’s first explore the most basic query about the role of a CIO.

Does The Role Of CIO Require A Tech Background?

Does The Role Of CIO Require A Tech Background?

The answer is both yes and no. Of course, you will not be writing codes or building applications. So, core tech expertise could give you an edge, but it’s not a prerequisite. However, in all probabilities, you, as a CIO, will spend 90% of your time thinking of technology. More precisely, you’ll spend your time on ways to take advantage of technology and bring digital agility to your business.

It’s important to understand that your role is the bridge between your firm’s business vision—closely securing the knots, ironing out integration issues and securing platforms that can untap new channels of revenue. To put it straight: The most important role of a CIO is to unravel value generation for a business through the correct use of channels or platforms. It is less about technology and more about being in alignment with a firm’s digital vision.

CIOs As The Facilitator Of Digital Transformation

As the CIO of a fast-moving business, building digital dexterity should be the C-suite’s top priority. Hence, it is extremely essential for CIOs to understand that digital transformation isn’t a one-day process. As much as a CIO needs to be digitally literate, they must also promote digital literacy across the departments of the business.

Also, the trends in the digital market keep emerging one after the other in waves. So, no matter how proactive and far-sighted a business is, there will always be something new to implement and integrate. A CIO can be a technologist, preferably a strategist, but most importantly, they have to be a catalyst for facilitating this shift within the organization.

Regardless of the CIOs title, their purview is deeply ingrained across departments like operations, finance, legal, sales and marketing. As the torch-bearer of digital literacy across departments, it is the CIOs function to promote a collaborative spirit within departments, involving all stakeholders to work toward transforming all digital investments to significantly grow and transform.

CIO As The 360-Degree Value Creator

The world of IT has already seen a significant shift. From once being referred to merely as a cost center, it has now emerged as a tool for value creation and a catalyst for business model change. As businesses across the world are moving from legacy systems toward platform-based revenue centers, the role of technology leaders, too must shift toward value creation at the core.

A CIO must remember that rapidly developing technology tools is not the end goal. The leaders of tomorrow should narrow their focus on being the bridge between technology, revenue, and 360-degree value for all stakeholders. As the CIO, your prime focus should be architecting seamless customer journeys and experiences through relevant business model change.

CIOs Juggling Data Protection And Experiments

The modern IT business is largely capacitated by enterprise data and analytics capabilities. As much as it is crucial to protect data from breach concerns, it is also important to experiment with data functions to stay ahead of the competition. The trick is to bring about the right semblance or coordination between data engineering and ML that empowers business functions.

In this regard, we see the CIO’s most critical function of protecting the other side of the digital investment coin: digital risk management. A CIO must recognize that while database experiments are a must, and individual risks might seem minor at the start, they have the potential to emerge as major factors in the processes, customers, employees, and, most importantly, the brand. Thus, the CIO must take into account the enterprise’s view of digital risk, analyze it to the best of their capabilities and drive digital risk management strategies.

CIOs Of Tomorrow—The Catalyst Of Cultural Change

Organizational culture is at the root of any IT business, and the CIO is one chair that connects the dots (data, digital, platforms, risks, values, revenue and culture). While most departments are occupied with their own business functions, the CIO is silently tasked to have an enterprise view of risks, opportunities and cultural change.

Thus, the CIO of tomorrow is a juggler of critical business needs and change management, actively connecting people to the long-term purpose and pivoting them toward creativity and tech innovation.

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Article resource: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/12/27/transformational-it-leadership-redefining-the-modern-cios-role/?sh=334be6c245c7

7 ways CIOs can build a high-performance team

 Having a clear vantage point within the organization, CIOs play a vital role bringing together engaged and motivated employees to work toward a common outcome, increase productivity, and achieve better business outcomes. Many CIOs know that a high-performance team is usually greater than the sum of its parts, comprised of talent with highly complementary skills, a broader set of objectives than other teams, and fine-tuned approaches to collaboration and communication. Parallels with sport are often drawn in that simply getting the greatest players together doesn’t guarantee the greatest team because each member has a different function, and each function requires different competencies. The key is understanding where the opportunities lie and how varying strengths can dovetail with each other. That’s when a high-performance team takes shape. 

Here’s a look at some of things that modern CIOs do to assemble a high-performance team to maximize potential.

Focus on the human element

According to Robert Brine, director for cyber and intelligence solutions at Mastercard SA, many businesses focus too much on the technology and struggle with the human element. But if business leaders want to attract and retain talent, they have to think about people. If you have a Formula One team and you spend all your money on the car but your data analyst working in the background has to use an old, beat-up laptop, they’re going to struggle to deliver the insights the team needs to perform optimally.

Prioritise culture

When talking about people, you have to think about business culture, so approach it with the same care and dedication you would developing any other asset, says Seugnet van den Berg, founder of South African IT and management firm Bizmod. “In the new world of work, companies with an attractive culture have a strategic advantage over companies without one,” she says. Culture is not a one-off activity, she adds, it’s a journey and should be maintained and reinforced regularly over time.

Also, take a look at some of your most recent projects and do a critical evaluation of how well you fared, advises Brine. “In asking how well different members of your team were able to handle different tasks, you can develop a list of skills shortages that need to be addressed right away.” And then do the same exercise with an eye on the future, he adds.

Future fit your employees to retain them

“Keeping the right people in a very competitive job market is a challenge we share with many tech companies today,” notes David Cohn, CIO at supermarket retailer Shoprite Checkers. This situation has become exponentially more challenging with the explosion of investment in, and use of, technology since the start of the pandemic.

According to Cohn, addressing this starts with knowing your people and understanding what different individuals want from their career. “We encourage our employees to take ownership of their career paths and empower themselves,” he says. “It’s up to them to determine what training they require and then we work with them to make it available.” As part of this, Checkers’ management and leaders do their best to ensure that various structures are in place to allow for successful learning. Again, it comes back to listening to people, he says.

Enable room to grow

People want to grow and change, and good business leaders are willing to give them the opportunity to do so,” adds Cohn. Here, you can get HR involved, encouraging them to bring their expertise and ideas to the table to help you come up with the right approach to training and employee development.

In addition, it’s important to remember that an empathetic leader understands that people come from different places and therefore won’t grow and develop in the same manner. Modern CIOs must approach upskilling and training with this reality in mind, advises Benjamin Marais, CIO at financial services company Liberty Group SA.

You also need to create opportunities that expose your employees to what’s happening outside the business, suggests van den Berg. This is especially true where it pertains to future technologies and skills because if teams know what’s out there, they better understand what they need to do to keep up.

Put your best foot forward

Given the rise in competition for skills in the market, you have to demonstrate your best when trying to attract top talent and retain them, stresses Cohn. Today’s candidates aren’t only looking for an employer who will help them achieve their career goals, they also want their work to align with their personal values and beliefs, adds Fred Swanepoel, CIO at Nedbank.

“Obviously, people are looking for a competitive package,” he says, “but we believe people are equally attracted to purposeful growth and meaningful work.” Prospective employees want to know what the organization does, so you need to talk about and promote the exciting projects being worked on so they can get a glimpse of what they’d do if they join the business. They’re also interested in what other talent is joining and the type of talent that already works for the business. “They want to know what the organization looks and feels like to decide for themselves if it’s a good fit,” he adds. “This is why diversity, equity and inclusion—a key focus area for most businesses—is so important.”

“With the CIO being promoted from the basement to the boardroom, we now have a seat at the leadership table and must transform the information we have into something the business can use to learn, grow and make better decisions from in the future,” says Swanepoel. “Today, you can’t pass yourself off as a CIO if you’re not central to how the organization operates. And as such, I think the CIO is equally responsible for an organization’s mindset, behaviour and culture because they have all the data around how the business has been doing in these areas in the past.”

Turn failure into a positive

If you want to build a high-performance team, you have to not only embrace failure but encourage it. This mindset is essential so you can use each setback as a learning opportunity. “You have to be okay with making mistakes, with failures and with pushing each other harder so you can turn stumbling blocks into successes,” says Swanepoel.

If you aren’t sure about something new, don’t be afraid to ring-fence it as an experiment and give it a try, adds van den Berg. “Employees love being part of something new when it’s framed as an experiment and when they understand that the purpose is to see how it works, to determine if it will work for us and to decide what we can learn from it,” she says.  

Embrace fusion teams

Gone are the days when IT was a standalone department not integrated within the rest of the enterprise, outlines Marais. As a result, the role of the CIO is to foster new ways to work and build fusion teams so ideas flow. Fusion teams are multidisciplinary that blend technology and business domain expertise and share accountability for business and technology outcomes.

A typical fusion team may include roles such as product owner, scrum master, developers and domain experts. These cross-functional teams not only help the business think more broadly, but bring new ideas and solutions to the table in times of crisis. Swanepoel agrees. The new world of work is all about multidisciplinary interaction, he says. This makes it important to rethink how we organise our business—moving away from grouping people by business function and instead grouping them based on shared outcomes. This also means putting a greater emphasis on soft skills. 

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Article resource: https://www.cio.com/article/415874/7-ways-cios-can-build-a-high-performance-team.html