Starting with this quote from the moderator, the tone for this month’s Producteering teleconference was set, which focused on Professional Services being a potential differentiator for business success.

At the outset of the discussion, one of the participants discussed on how his company started working with one of their customers through a trial version of their product suite. Once the PS team got in, they observed that in their customer’s organization, there were several best-of-breed systems, which did not talk with each other and that was the main cause of their IT problems – not the need for another independent product focused on one particular area. As a result of understanding what was actually the need of the customer, the PS team was able to recommend and implement a solution which solved the customer’s integration problems, while earning much higher revenue for itself and bettering its relationship with the customer.

This interesting example was then highlighted with the fact that the Professional services revenues from this company was almost 60% compared to the revenues from sales. This trend is not something new and all PSOs are aware that they are making a huge difference to the top and bottom-line growth of their organizations – this was further supplemented by a quote from the moderator that 52% of IBM’s revenues come in from Professional Services.

During the discussion, one point that was brought up was whether Professional Services should be done by the organization (ISV) itself or should it be done by partners and resellers. Salesforce was cited as an example, by one participant, as one company whose partners were able to do many successful product implementations. However, a conflicting opinion to this was that unless your size and geo spread forced you to tie up with several partners, having your own Professional services team doing product implementation was valuable as your thinking and way of doing things can be directly brought to the customer rather than getting diluted by a partner.

Another important aspect of the discussion was of SaaS becoming main stream rather than a buzzword. While there still remains a concern of security in the SaaS model, many small and mid-sized companies, which cannot invest on expensive enterprise products, are now looking at transitioning to SaaS to reduce upfront costs and also shorten the time for product implementation. Integration e.g. integrating a project management suite with a CRM or ERP tool therefore becomes a key service, which ISVs have to provide as an add-on service, to become a differentiator in the marketplace.

The time has come for ISVs who do not want to adopt professional services as a key focus area for growth, to reconsider their decision, as PS has become a backbone of differentiation in the market. What they seem to have ignored for long is the fact that a product, in itself, is a service at a higher level. It targets and caters to the needs of the customers. And under this umbrella, ISVs can go far beyond implementation and integration to solve customer’s daily business problems.

Amidst this mind shift in the way ISVs stand as providers, it was unanimously concluded that professional services can be a potential differentiator for them and it can help them improve their products’ visibility, customer satisfaction, increase their revenues, margins and market share.

A comparative study of product development with rocket science will throw up the similarities between the two and highlight the complexities involved, and characteristics needed for product development.

Vision

Every space project has a vision that acts as a preamble to guide rocket engineers through the project, from start until launch. In the case of nations building their space program, several political, scientific and economic factors influence the program’s vision.

Similarly, every software product has a vision that attempts to solve a business problem. The vision for any product should always be significant and precise, in order to guide the evolution of the product over time. More importantly, it should create a blue ocean strategy for the product to create uncontested market space and capture new demand.

People

Quality resources make the vital difference between the success and failure of any project. A space project, for example, requires hardworking, explorative, process-driven, imaginative, persistent and meticulous scientists. They must also possess a can-do attitude and a team-player mindset, in order for the overall project to succeed.

Same is the case with a product development team. Highly skilled people with all the above mentioned attributes, who can work as a team, help in accomplishing the defined goals of developing a product. The product development team must have the capability to understand the product requirements and work around challenges to meet the exact needs of the end-users of the product.

Management & Communication

Rocket building entails pulling together millions of parts, designed and built by different in-house and external agencies. Therefore, there must be close coordination with all the agencies involved to get a complete rocket built within a stipulated timeframe. Communicating with different teams and managing system engineering, technology and organization integration are key factors of successful rocket building.

Likewise, effective management and communication plays a decisive role in developing a successful product. Transparency while communicating the requirements between the project lead, project management team and the development team will result in developing a product that matches its vision. The project management team takes the responsibility of developing the product from scratch to finish while product management takes care of product positioning and other related activities.

Rapid Engineering

Rocket science involves developing products and technology that have never existed before and can never be practically tested until it is actually used. Hence, engineers designing rockets have to rely on their design skills and engineering acumen, rather than experience, to solve complex problems that arise during development.

Comparatively, complete business requirements are typically unavailable when a product is conceived. Adapting to market requirements necessitate that the development team be capable of incorporating constantly changing requirements into the product. This has to happen in such a way that the base product itself does not change too much – which means that the architecture is flexible to incorporate changing needs. Only skilled product engineers can build a product which accommodates rapidly changing requirements.

Testing and Simulation

Before putting a rocket into space, scientists must take into consideration several functional requirements and environmental factors. Multiple scenarios are simulated and tested several times to ensure that the rocket will not malfunction when launched or in orbit.

Excellent products should also be able perform well in different scenarios. The product should be well engineered and tested against various combinations of scenarios. Functional testing, performance testing, load testing and security testing all play their role in making a software product successful.

Budget, Time and Quality

Space projects often involve tough decisions with respect to cost, quality and time. Compromising any one of the factors would adversely affect the others and the entire project.

In the same way, for any product development effort, even before the development process begins, the product development team must be made aware of the product launch date and the features to be developed within the budget. Thereafter, the product and project management team should consciously choose the best approach (from structured engineering to unified modeling) that would suit their product development effort.

Perseverance

Failures or accidents are always a possibility when engineering products are built, especially when it is a very complex project that is attempted. Hence, the ability and willingness to learn from mistakes and overcome them are important lessons in space science.

Every product evolves before it matures and becomes a success. The product should not be abandoned when faced with a challenging situation. Instead, the experience gained by facing and overcoming challenges must become a lesson for the future. Courage and perseverance are key factors in the success of a product development effort.

To be successful, product development efforts require more than just software engineers who can design and develop code as per requirements. Just like rocket science, software product development is a stupendous task and demands dedicated, highly skilled and knowledge thirsty resources.

While developing software products may not be in the same league as developing rockets and space technology, in today’s competitive world, product development requires similar strengths as those required for rocket science. Hence, product development is indeed rocket science!