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Aspire Systems among the TOP IT Innovators

Ganesh Rajendran — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:16:12 +0000

“Just as energy is the basis of life itself, and ideas the source of innovation, so is innovation the vital spark of all human change, improvement and progress” – Ted Levitt

Yes, I am talking about the source of innovation called ‘Producteering’ for which Aspire has been awarded and I am pleased to inform you that Aspire has been chosen among the TOP 50 IT Innovators 2009 in India! NASSCOM, the premier trade body and the chamber of commerce of the IT-BPO industries in India, announced the IT Innovators 2009 award recently.

‘Producteering’ approach has been chosen among the “Top 50 innovations of 2009″. We had nominated ‘Producteering’ under the Process Innovation category and the following were showcased:

The key Principles and Practices of Producteering and its relevance to our customers
Our Project/Technical Health Audits that help fine tune our effectiveness/efficiency on a periodic basis
Propel platform that helps shrink go-to-market timeframes by 30%
Impact Training that transforms fresh engineers in to Producteers
www.producteering.org -This forum where we write articles about best practices of software product engineering and product management

Overall, Producteering was positioned is our approach to building great software and also as a key factor in delivering successfully and profitably in fixed-bid or risk-reward models. Here is what one of customers says about Producteering:

Two years ago when we were looking for a development partner, we were attracted by Aspire Systems’ “Producteering” messages. We were concerned that many offshore groups were too “project” focused and didn’t understand the nature of agile product development. It was essential that we found a “partner” – an organization that could work closely with our product management and development teams to design, build and maintain our SaaS solutions. We found that in Aspire Systems. “Producteering” was more than a slogan. They’ve been a “true” development partner. - Steve, VP – Solutions Management & Development, Education Software Vendor

About the Awards: The objective of the Innovation Initiative is to encourage innovative practices across the IT-ITES Industry and provide support for these by developing an ecosystem that is conducive to fostering innovativeness, technological advancement and the creation of IP. Through this initiative, Nasscom seeks to position the Indian IT Industry as a thought leader engaged in technology advancement. Further details are available at the NASSCOM site.

I see this award as a milestone in our Producteering journey of following the 4P’s approach.

Happy Innovating – All Producteers!

SaaS Breakfast Event in Chicago on Dec 4th, 2009

Rajalakshmi — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:52:42 +0000

Aspire Systems is hosting a breakfast event in Chicago on December 4th, 2009, titled “SaaS Adoption Challenges: Identify, Measure and Manage”. If you are a traditional on-premise vendor looking to transition to or considering SaaS, please join us for an interactive session on the challenges you can expect along the way and how you can identify, manage and overcome them.

Shankar Krishnamoorthy, CTO of Aspire Systems will be discussing various aspects of what it takes to transition to an on-demand model, or build a SaaS solution from scratch. He will also cover the importance of having a thorough understanding of the SaaS ecosystem.

Date & Time : December 4th, 2009
08.15 am – 10.00 am

Venue: TechNexus
200 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 1500
Chicago, IL 60606
+1.312.924.1026

Agenda:
08.15 am – 08.30 am: Registration, Networking and Breakfast
08.30 am – 09.30 am: SaaS Adoption Challenges: Identify, Measure and Manage
09.30 am – 10.00 am: Networking

Seats are limited, grab yours here!

Roger Staubach and SaaS

Karthik Viswanathan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:56:49 +0000

Image credit: http://www.star-collector.net/

Roger The Dodger first captured public imagination when he won the MVP honors in the 1971 Super Bowl and went on to become a popular quarterback in the history of (American) football. So what does that nugget of history have to do with SaaS? Read on.

After he retired from NFL, Staubach started working in the Texas commercial real estate business. He saw how frustrated commercial tenants were when they dealt with landlords. As you know, buying/leasing office or retail space is not a simple process (http://www.zananetwork.com/business-learning/wiki/real-estate/faq/index.aspx)

The traditional real estate brokers were, in general, driven by the commission fee that they could collect from both the buyer and the seller. In the process, a few rules were bent and I guess many a heart burnt. Enter Staubach. He asked: Why don’t we build a company that focuses on being the advocate of the users of office and industrial space?

Staubach Co. was founded in 1977 with this simple yet powerful premise. At that time, it was indeed a pioneering effort in the brokerage business to build a company around tenants (as against owners or developers). What he recognized was that taking care of end-users/customers can actually help his business grow. To reinforce his approach, he offered the revolutionary “unconditional guarantee of value” – giving refunds to clients who thought they didn’t get the expected services/benefits. Though the refunds were not frequent, they did happen and it hurt. But for Staubach, there was no other way to prove the integrity and value.

Do you now see a connect with the license-fee-mongering-product companies to SaaS and the service culture? Are they any such stories in other industries that can be considered fore-runners for the current SaaS trend in the software industry?

Note: In July, 2008, The Staubach Company was sold to Jones Lang LeSalle for $613 million.