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Loading ...This is my first blog entry on the emerging forum of NASSCOM; hope will be the beginning of many more to come. I represent S7 Software (s7software.com) as CEO and also happen to be one of the co-founders, a Bangalore based firm specializing in software migration, re-engineering, and legacy modernization services.
I used to regularly blog on s7software.blogspot.com. My profile is attached to this site. My main intention of writing blogs is to share my thoughts and views especially oriented towards helping and encouraging new and emerging and wannabe entrepreneurs and share my experiences too. Also write about how I see the market, what strategies might make sense, what are the issues we are facing in this global business, how to tackle them and what is in the store of SMEs like us and hopefully lot more but I will restrict myself as much as I can to business with a special emphasis to software and Indian business even though no guarantee can be given on the same J I might now and then wander off to my other favorite topics – cricket and politics, just watch out. BTW, I hope readers find my blogs interesting and knowledgeable and informative and will help to rethink on their strategies and probably come out with strong comments either favoring or disagreeing what I talk about. I hope to write one every week unless I am traveling. I hope I keep up with what I have promised.
I want to start off with an interesting topic which I have been toying with ever since I heard something on similar lines from one of my clients (thanks to him for the initiation of the thought process for the same). Today we are not taking about should one outsource or not but what is the right way to outsource. One of the major issues of outsourcing is the security of the source code/Ideas/inventions/Strategies etc collectively what is called in the industry as the Intellectual Property or the IP. The biggest issue today is safe guarding the IP from leakages and contaminations.
The issue is of paramount importance when you outsource your IP creation or share your IP to a third party. It becomes all the more important on an outsourcing company to protect the IP of its client. There are various ideas and process in place right from the best firewall security to roving cameras to access controlled doors to bio-metric locks to very strict agreements and penalty clauses. Inspite of all there is always fear of IP loss or news of such things happening.
Keeping the IP issue aside for now, there is another facet of outsourcing which is becoming popular off lately, to reduce risk on dependency of one outsourcer and using the horses for courses theory, cutting the bigger shore to small modules and outsourcing the specific modules to the experts in that technology area or domain. This is what is called multi-sourcing in the industry and is of lately very popular especially considering the number of outsourcing vendors and technology or domain experts available in the market.
Combining the IP safeguard issue and multi-sourcing, I have been toying with a new way of outsourcing – something what I call – Puzzle Sourcing. This is nothing but a specific way of multi-sourcing but the chore is split more like puzzle pieces and outsourced to different vendors (can to be to experts of that module) and the whole software makes sense when combined, like a puzzle and separately don’t have much value. Is this can be achieved, and adding the usual things what we do today, the IP loss can be cut to negligible.
Ofcourse cutting the given software or the IP into strategic pieces such a way that the actual IP value of the software is got only by actually joining all of it still not easy or trivial task but I feel is worth a try. If this is the way to go, I am assuming even the programming way might change from say object oriented programming to say puzzle-oriented programming - very far fetched idea but why not J
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i really like this blog.
so i have put the article about this blog on my blog without your prior permission.
i apologize for that.
the link is,
http://myjourneytobillionaireclub.blogspot.com/2008/06/emerging-businesses-blogging-new.html
your blog is excellent….