Strategic Software Consulting

When 1 +1=3

First and foremost, InterSoft Associates is a problem solving company. We listen, collaborate, guide and advise with strategic consulting. Even as our solutions are built on technology, our approach is built on relationships.

Why You Need a Big Data Consultant?

Big Data is a phrase that essentially means connected information – a great deal of it. In the hands of the right Big Data Consultant, that information becomes transformational for you . Better business decisions get made, sharper insights are discovered, and ultimately the information – the data – can become a competitive differentiator. Let’s explore the critical value of a Big Data Consultant and how the right one can be part of your business strategies.

What is a Big Data Consultant?

A Big Data Consultant understands data technologies and how to use them to better achieve your business goals. This process requires a holistic perspective on your business and what it does. What is your business presently doing with data? What more could it be doing? The right custom software consultant can help you understand how, with the right technologies or combination of data, new strategies and practices can be developed to positively impact your business.
 

Characteristics of a Strong Big Data Consultant

A Big Data Consultant has to see your business and your problems with an attitude of problem solving, potential and possibility. They should understand:

• The science of information trends, and how to properly see and exploit trends in your data
• The potential of data your business has accumulated and what additional data is necessary to achieve the optimal results
• How outside systems, software or applications could have a positive impact when integrated with your data
• The ability to forecast and seize opportunities

Seizing Opportunities: The Value of Experience

A Consultant brand new to Big Data is likely to be fascinated with technologies – shiny gadgets and fancy tools available to the capable technologist. Certainly competency with digital tools and technologies is critical, but an experienced Big Data expert knows where and when to use which tools  – and what data they need to help you achieve your business goals. This helps increase efficiency, decrease costs, develop more accurate models, and uncover opportunities

At InterSoft Associates, nearly every Big Data Consulting project we engage in draws from our rich wealth and depth of experience with clients of all sizes in many disparate industries. We can recommend strategies because we have seen other similar strategies work well. We can advise against a course of action because we have seen and can foresee the problems that might await you down a certain path.

Yours does not have to be a huge enterprise-scale business to benefit from the advantages of Big Data. Any business, of any size, is likely already collecting data. The right Consultant can help you do more with that data, more efficiently, even for the small or mid-market business.

The Future of Big Data in Business

Business is in the midst of a fascinating technological explosion, with the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, augmented reality, virtual reality, wearables, health and wellness, smart homes and much more creating new data and new opportunities where you can appropriately leverage the vast amount of data available to you. What does all this data mean? Is it useful? Will it be to your business?

Again, here is where the value of the Big Data Consultant is demonstrated. The experienced and capable custom software consultant will be able to prognosticate in some ways. Is what you are considering now going to be valid, useful, or accessible in five years? As technologies advance, will the data strategies you are considering be future-ready?

As new technology trends emerge they will introduce new ways of thinking about and leveraging data. A Big Data Consultant naturally stays educated and informed about these and other aspects so you do not have to. This means the initiative you are engaging in today will be ready for tomorrow, too.

Custom Problem Solver: Your Software Developer

Custom Software is essential in ensuring that an organization has the proper software to meet its needs and expectations. Just about every company runs on software in some crucial aspect, from communications to customer service. Sometimes off-the-shelf solutions don’t satisfy specific needs or capabilities. This is when businesses need a Custom Software Development Company to create solutions that are flexible and capable of changing, adapting and growing with the organization.
 

At InterSoft Associates, we work on perfecting the art of providing the best Custom Software to businesses and organizations. This starts with developing an understanding not just of technical objectives, but business goals. What are you trying to achieve? What is stopping you? What problems are you facing, and who in your company is struggling most, or has the most opportunity for improvement or success? We employ a collaborative and highly consultative process that gains information from all key stakeholders. Our robust review strives to identify your needs and your goals – both short-term and long-term –  and your current processes – both manual and automated.

Having the right software for your company is essential in helping you grow your business and improve your profit. Many important factors come into play in order to be an effective Custom Software development company.

What is Custom Software Development?

Custom Software Development is the process of creating and maintaining software to meet an organization’s unique or specific needs. These needs are generally not being met by off-the-shelf software, creating a two-sided issue: On one side, off-the-shelf software isn’t robust enough to meet known challenges, so an organization is not as efficient or productive as it could be. On the other, new potential capabilities or improved outcomes cannot be realized because you don’t even know what might be possible were it not for the limitations of “stock” software. Custom Software solves both problems.

In many cases, an organization would not know it needs Custom Software – it will only know that it is frustrated with the status quo. This can lead to frustrating, time consuming research on the capabilities of existing systems or what alternative off-the-shelf software might be a better fit. At InterSoft Associates, this is the key to our collaborative process: Before we focus on the technical elements, we explore the human elements. Through active listening and guided discovery the right Custom Software Development Company will help steer your strategic direction.

Once it is determined that Custom Software is the best strategic direction for your organization, a team of software developers helps to create the vision that they see for the organization. These developers should work directly and collaboratively with key members of your organization to clearly define the features and goals of the software and then implement the software that is required.

Commercial Software vs Custom Software

There are generally three common types of software.

Commercial software is an application that provides tools for general work. A popular example of commercial software is Microsoft Office, which allows users to perform office and productivity tasks.

Off-the-shelf enterprise solutions like Netsuite or SAP are full-featured, integrated business systems, helping to manage everything from accounting to inventory to customer management.

Custom Software is software that helps your users perform very specific tasks that are unique to your organization in order to positively impact the business. When exploring if Custom Software development is right for you, a business or organization should typically seek out help from an experienced development team. As discussed, this should include a discovery process to better understand goals and objectives. Look for a Custom Software Development company that doesn’t just start writing code and flipping switches. You want a trusted advisor to guide you through what you might need, why, and how your Custom Software will address your specific opportunities and problems.

Benefits of Custom Software

Unique to a Company

Commercial Software is excellent for general office work, and off-the-shelf integrated software is designed with many different features. However, most businesses and organizations need access to software that is a little more unique and specific.

In determining that Custom Software is the right strategy, specific features can be developed to help a business with its particular needs, often helping them gain a competitive advantage. Trying to perform niche tasks on commercial software likely won’t get anyone very far and can be frustrating and inefficient; niche tasks just aren’t what off-the-shelf software is typically designed for. When there is a need, Custom Software Development and deployment is a great way to increase overall productivity and, ultimately, revenue.

Security

Security is an issue that many companies do not consider when using Commercial Software. Yet as technology grows, threats to manipulating the code in common software are more and more prevalent.

When a company utilizes Custom Software, the risk of a security breach lessens significantly. Developers will need to create a custom code to go along with the software. Because the code is new and not on the market for regular consumers to buy, there’s less exposure to security threats like hacking and ransomware. Of course, it’s imperative that Custom Software is developed with best security practices in mind.

Compatibility

Compatibility is another great benefit to having Custom Software, because part of the development process can include an understanding of how the software should integrate with other systems in use. Where many commercial software systems are limited in their capabilities to “talk” to other software, Custom Software should always be developed with this integration in mind.

Custom Software allows an organization to work efficiently and cohesively across entire systems. Increased efficiency leads to time, and ultimately cost savings.

The Importance of a Design and Development Process

Where software development allows a team of programmers to create and complete a series of tasks, the development only happens after a consultative design is achieved. This is why at InterSoft, our IsAware process starts with discovery, before development.

A robust and effective design and development process is essential to creating a software system that meets the needs of an organization for many years to come. The steps of a development process should involve interactions with stakeholders to explore objectives, understanding functional requirements, and implementation strategies. At InterSoft Associates, we have perfected our Custom Software development process and credit it with our continued success.

The InterSoft Associates’ Interview Process

Our first and most crucial step in our development process is properly identifying the requirements of a business. To accomplish this first step, we conduct thorough interviews with the organizations that we work with.

We interview stakeholders and conduct an in-depth review of all business processes within the organization. The analysis that we perform on an organization’s work processes allows us to pinpoint all business touch-points and then defines how Custom Software can help achieve business goals and opportunities as well as any other problems that may exist..

Development interviews extend to all of management, employees and project managers who will be using the software. Interviews can also extend to those who have helped create designs and developed similar Custom Software programs within our organization.

Not only do we need to gather information to develop software, but interviews also allow us to build healthy business relationships, learn more about the organization, and help us develop a common vocabulary for the project. After this discovery process we can then move to understanding functional requirements and building project plans.

Understanding the inner workings of a business on a professional and personal level is what helps us establish our long-term clients.

The Importance of Long-Term Partnerships

At InterSoft Associates, we view every client as a new partnership. By establishing a partnership, we can do our jobs better and serve you better as well.

Close communication with a business or organization means that we can respond to any issues quickly, and we can stay current to our clients’ upcoming projects. A trusted long-term partnership also lets us innovate and adapt to emerging trends or needs that will shape the evolution of how Custom Software continues to be meaningful to you, our client. This helps companies avoid the struggles of legacy or outdated software, and it ensures that custom systems will continue to integrate with new software solutions a company adopts.

Software Testing Process

To provide high-quality software, a developer team must put their software through a rigorous testing process. The process is to ensure that there are no flaws in the end product. Implementing Custom Software successfully is only possible with a robust testing process.

The Process

At InterSoft Associates, we continuously work on perfecting our Custom Software testing process. Our testing and review processes aren’t just designed for flawless technical performance, but to make refinements with a client’s feedback. The software is reviewed, demonstrated and revised as it is being developed. This iterative process helps to ensure that all objectives are being met as the software development project moves forward. In the rare case of issues arising, these can be dealt with and resolved quickly, with minimum impact on project timing and cost. We also have our developers perform tests on the software during development and production. Every part of our team is a link in a chain of high-quality assurance for our Custom Software. A thorough testing process helps us develop software to perform as expected while revealing any situations we didn’t expect so they can be accounted for in continued development.

Teamwork

At InterSoft Associates we prioritize our personal and business connections with our clients. We involve our clients in the process of designing and in the testing process for their Custom Software, including in creating a testing plan and in conducting their own internal reviews. We compare our clients’ experiences with our own development team’s.

Collaborating with our clients is one of the countless ways we at InterSoft Associates maintain our long-term clients. Allowing our clients to take part in the process builds trust and educates everyone involved, including us.

Development Strategies

Design

A Design Document provides details about the requirements and goals of the new software, in response to what we’ve learned in the Discovery process. This may include business rules, key data elements, processes, and workflow definitions. We align with clients on operational, managerial, and decision support information and reports. The Design Document is shared with all key stakeholders, reviewed, and modified accordingly until it is approved.

Create a Final Project Plan

The creation of a development strategy and plan is vital for providing a framework for successful system development and implementation. In our case, our Final Project Plan also details the Custom Software development projects plan and analysis of expected benefits to the client. Major milestones and project timing help keep everybody accountable to delivery dates and positive forward progress.

Development

If you’re keeping score, it’s only now – five steps into our Custom Software Development process, that we actually start development. Everything to this point has been about listening, aligning, and creating a development strategy.

As we develop your Custom Software, we use an iterative methodology that demonstrates work-in-process and allows users to “take it for a ride.”

This approach has two major benefits: it ensures that users’ expectations are aligned, and this approach often fosters new ideas based on what was demonstrated.

The development process naturally helps us iterate any scope or timing changes as a result of in-process reviews. After rigorous testing and once we’re all confident in the outcomes, we move to System Implementation and deploy the Custom Software throughout the organization, ready to deliver on key objectives.

Ongoing Review

After deploying the software, regular review meetings should be scheduled within the first 90 days to review issues and any new requirements or capabilities that can help the organization. After this initial period, meetings, usually quarterly, should be scheduled to answer questions, address issues, and discuss opportunities for improvement.

More About InterSoft Associates

InterSoft Associates has been in the game for over 35 years now. We work endlessly to improve our techniques and help develop and create the best Custom Software to help our clients. Whether a business is big or small, we treat each client in the same friendly and professional manner.

Our goal is to work with our clients to help them achieve what they need to accomplish. We don’t merely provide a service, we provide our clients with an engaging experience.

InterSoft Associates brings a spirit of innovation and collaboration to Custom Software development. We understand that the world of technology is changing. Mobile applications, social media, and the overall internet are changing the way we handle our office work. At InterSoft Associates, we use emerging capabilities and evolutions in technology to your advantage.

Conclusion

To be a good Custom Software development company, the company must have a process and a strategy. The company must also show support for its clients, long-term or short-term.
 

InterSoft Associates has been working for the past 35 years to provide support and satisfaction to our clients. Each client is a potential long-term business partner in our eyes, and we treat them as such.