The starting point in evaluating whether an idea is protectable is to understand that there is no abstract right in law to prevent competition, or to protect an idea. The courts and governments of the day for centuries have supported competition between rival traders and have been reluctant develop laws encroach on a freedom to compete. Ideas may be protected to the extent that they fall under the relevant areas of law, the primary area being intellectual property law.

Confidential Information
Confidential information is a well established area of law that that protects ideas and information regardless of its form (whether spoken, or in a recorded form such as electronically or on paper), provided that the confidentiality of the information is maintained. The law of confidentiality plays a part in other areas of law. For instance, that a disclosure of particular information at a relevant time completely dissolves the right to obtain patent protection.

There are traps for the unwary when dealing with business ideas. When entrepreneurs are looking to disclose sensitive information, they should enter into a non-disclosure agreement prior to any disclosure to at least enshrine the terms of the disclosure in writing. To be legally enforceable, the agreement must be properly drafted and ideally lay out some background to the circumstances of the disclosure, so that if worse comes to worst there is some documentary evidence of the disclosure and what it related to. This does not mean that the information itself should be disclosed in the non-disclosure agreement, but rather the circumstances and general subject matter of the disclosure. If the company or person to whom the idea is to be disclosed is reluctant to enter into a non-disclosure agreement, then the business idea should probably not be disclosed to them in the first place. It would not be the first time that a company says after the disclosure that they are “already working on something” similar. A well drafted NDA will cater for this contingency.

When a business idea has been implemented and trading commenced, it will of course lose its confidentiality and fall into the public domain. At this point (and in keeping with our comments about rival traders at the outset of this brochure) there is nothing preventing any other company from copying the essence of business idea and altering it or improving it and by doing so creating a competing product or service – subject to the following. If parts of the business idea can be protected by intellectual property rights, then competitors will not be able to copy the business idea to the extent that the intellectual property rights protect the idea.

Overview of intellectual property rights

Each of the different intellectual property rights serves a different purpose. They all apply independently – if subject matter qualifies for protection under more than one type of intellectual property protection, then the rights associated with the particular intellectual property right may be enforced independently of the others. No one IP rights serves all purposes, and the best right depends on what the business idea is and how the business wants to use it.

Loosely speaking, copyright protects written and recorded material from copying; registered trade mark law protects business names and logos from being used by other businesses; patent law protects truly innovative products and processes from being copied or offered for sale; the law of passing off protects established reputation in a business from being exploited by others; the law of confidential information and that of trade secrets protect information from disclosure or misuse provided it remains secret. Lastly, designs law primarily protects the aesthetic features of a design as it is applied to a product. There are different tests for infringement in each case.

So, if a logo is created that is intended to be used to identify a business, it may qualify for trade mark protection. It will also qualify for protection from passing off. If the logo is an artistic work, it will also qualify for copyright protection and protection as a registered design. Likewise, if a design has been created it may be registered as a design, the unregistered design right may also protect it, and if it is to be used as a trade mark, it may qualify for registered trade mark protection as a shape, and protection from passing off if it has accrued the requisite goodwill for the business.

It is important to realise the intellectual property rights are territorial. For instance, there is no such thing as a worldwide patent or trade mark. A reference to a worldwide patent usually means that registered patent protection has been obtained in many individual countries or ‘territories’. With trade marks, there is an important exception where a single trade mark may be obtained covering all of the countries in Europe (except Switzerland) with a single application.

Individual Areas of Intellectual Property Protection to Business Ideas
Copyright Law This area of Copyright law is said to protect the fine arts, whereas patent law protects the industrial arts. Copyright protects materials in their recorded form whether it be art, photographs, graphic works, music as a embodiment of a business idea. Copyright will not against someone reading the written work, extracting the concepts from it and implementing their own version of it, provided they do not copy the way it is expressed. It will protect against someone copying the materials that they read word for word. It does not protect against someone extracting the ideas from the document and using them for their own purposes.

Patent Protection and Business Ideas Some people say that patents protect ideas. They say this on the basis that at the time the patent application is filed you do not need an existing invention, because the patent invention only needs to be produced when the application proceeds to examination, about 9 months after the application is made. Strictly speaking, patents do not protect ideas – it protects products and processes that have been invented, that has not been seen before and contains an advance over what existed in the market at the date of the application.

The UK and Europe do not allow protection for pure business methods (amongst others). This contrasts with US patent protection that does allow for protection of methods of doing business. A good example is the “One-Click” purchasing method used at amazon.com – it is patentable in the US, but not in Europe.

Design Rights Design protects the appearance of a product brought about by its shape, contours, ornamentation and surface decoration. There are exceptions to these rules. Nevertheless if the design is new and has an individual character, it may be registered for protection. The unregistered design right applies automatically in the same way as copyright and has some similar characteristics.

Trade Marks If the business idea is the name of a business or a logo, it may be registered as a trade mark. A trade mark is simply a name or symbol that indicates that goods or services originate from a source associated with the trade mark. For instance, if Google were to produce a mobile telephone with word ‘Google’ applied to it, you know that the Google, Inc had a hand in producing it. Trade marks do play a role in the promotion of a business idea, because it allows the business to associate the business idea when it goes to market with a distinctive name, which is readily differentiated in the market.

Contracts Contracts, when properly prepared, are simply agreements in a legally binding form. Contracts may be verbal or they may be written. In a commercial context, there is real difficulty in proving what the terms of a verbal agreement are. It is commonly said that contracts are not required unless things go wrong. The problem with this approach is that when a value judgment is made at the outset of transaction that all will go well, there is no decisive written record of what was actually agreed, which makes enforcement of the contract more difficult and in our opinion, for most cases too risky to try.

When dealing with intellectual property rights, some transactions dealing with intellectual property must be in writing, such as transfers of ownership and grants of exclusive licenses.

Furthermore, contracts with employees may be drafted with a view to preventing competition from employees and freelancers when they leave finish their engagement with their employer

Conclusion
The focus of this article has been the application of intellectual property rights and contracts may used to protect a business idea and their limitations. Intellectual property rights and contracts may be tailored to maximise the level of protection that is available by law for a particular business idea in the circumstances that it is intended to be used. The way this is done for any particular business idea relies on the nature of the business idea and its origins.

By not taking measures at the outset, you run the risk of losing rights that may otherwise have been enforceable and in the process, compromising or losing a powerful negotiating position in the event of infringement of legal rights that you otherwise might have had.

Leigh Ellis is a business solicitor and contract lawyer providing legal advice on litigation & intellectual property disputes. He prepares contracts dealing with intellectual property, and advises his clients on protection of business ideas, contracts and intellectual property disputes.

You might have many questions, and, as there already are so many myths regarding: – a) How these Service Providers work? b) What Quotient of control we are left with, after we hand over our secure data or projects to some BPO House or PEO? c) How much economical it falls on needs? You can find lots of questions regarding do’s and don’ts about these services but truth is stranger than fiction as it came out be a blessing for small business houses in U.S, who are inefficient to place highly skilled Software developers just to fulfill there short term needs.

Most of the times, it has seen and becomes a matter of worry when for weeks, you have no work and you still pay your employees. As you may need them for future since we all know how much pain, time & cost does it take to place a new employee. Why should we pay someone even when we do not need his/her services? For such employers this PEO/BPO or so-called KPO (knowledge process outsourcing) has become a Midas touch because these organizations serve you with employee(s)until or only when you need them.

It not just cut down overall HR costs & time but also exempt you paying other benefits like Health insurance, Setup maintenance costs which is huge, and in-case we are not happy with any of these virtual employees they immediately provide you a better replacement. Where, as far as qualification and experience is concerned I can bet they provide better talents than ones we interview and recruit ourselves since, these organizations could survive only if we are impressed. That is why most of these famous organizations like “PEO7.com” work 24/7 and have employees who can understand and speak our language (English) nicely.

Dealing with security can perhaps be the one major issue you may be worried about! Since, once you hand over your codes to some far located employee you may get dependent, But as we all know about Citrix RSA (Remote server administration) i.e. how safe and securely work is done over these servers. No matter what they develop remotely, they are proscribed to save it to their local machines, or we can say they are forbidden for any such accessible rights. It helps you to keep full control over your projects. You can even see what is being typed! What else one can ever look for, Despite the only major difference is that employee is located somewhere else, but virtually it is right there, in your own office! Technically, it is called PEO (Professional Employee Leasing Organization) a name similar to KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) OR some call it BPO (Business Process Outsourcing).

Last time when I met one of my co-employers we discussed a lot about outsourcing and PEO services but the truth is, there is no harm in trying it once as it may help us begin a new business era and who knows in coming days you write your own experiences happily like me. My main motive is to reveal the truth behind the reality. I myself was a bit depressed the way my business was going. Nevertheless, I did not find any risk in using these services especially when some Leasing company is offering a free 15-day introductory trial. A USA based employee leasing company(peo7.com), they help you setting up every thing from scratch even if you are technically a rookie as I was and help you quite nicely to understand every thing.

I really owe them a lot, as it has been a year I am using there services continuously and I already have saved more than I could have earned in years.

Stephen Seinfeld is running a small-scale software company in Texas, also a business strategist and branding expert with Herald Group.

While offshore manufacturing is increasingly common, service industries can also benefit from offshore outsourcing. In some instances, cost is reduced while customer service has improved. Still there are challenges in the transition.

The main obstacles that need to be addressed revolve around language and communication, expectations of contracted work, and cultural differences. For purposes of this discussion, I will focus on India as an outsource location for service sector firms.

India’s service sector employees are typically English speaking, college-educated, stable, and very technical, which makes for a great fit for U.S. based software or technology companies. India-based employees have proven a good fit for help desk and call center support for complicated software products. Additionally, the labor pool is large, available, and inexpensive by U.S. standards with India labor rates often 25% of the U.S. equivalent labor rate. This economic gap is closing, but for now the cost savings can be huge.

One exception to this success is the high turnover rate of women employees in India. This is related to the Indian culture where women live with their families until they are married and then they rarely work. Although this cultural characteristic is changing, it is still the norm.

One additional complication with women employees in India is time zone. The U.S. based firm work U.S. business hours, which is basically the middle-of-the-night in India. Indian families are uncomfortable with their daughters, wives, and mothers commuting during those hours.

Many U.S. based service sector firms have been reluctant to outsource. This is true because of a fear of the unfamiliar. This could be the perceived lack of control, cultural issues, fear of what customers will think, fear of the unknown, and the cost of starting up an outsourcing program.

Another reason that some service sector companies don’t consider outsourcing relates to loyalty to the American worker. This loyalty which may be admiral can be misplaced if the firm’s competition chooses to outsource and creates cost savings. This leaves little choice for the U.S. based service sector firms.

Yet, with these challenges the cost savings can be remarkable and the competitive pressure is increasing for the service sector firms. Offshore outsourcing can help U.S. based service sector firms be more competitive and profitable.

Dr. Joe Greco is Director for the Center for the Study of Emerging Markets (CSEM) located in Fullerton, California. As part of the College of Business and Economics at California State University, Fullerton, CSEM was established to promote the flow of global information and technology between the academic and business communities. In particular, CSEM studies offshore outsourcing and it economic and cultural impact on U.S. based emerging markets. You may contact Dr. Joe Greco at 714-278-4125 or csem@fullerton.edu or at http://www.thecsem.org

The AEC Business Trends Survey 2007 conducted by Zweig White identifies the four main challenges facing leading AEC firms today: lack of qualified workers, overall performance of the US economy, providing necessary training and profitability. Smooth, dependable and customer-oriented operations is a key part of the financial equation, this is where AEC firms need to make a choice: setting up a shared services set-up/captive or involve a third-party vendor, which is more lucrative.

The argument proffered in favor of the captives is that if the volume of architectural design, CAD services, engineering design and documentation to be transferred to India, Philippines or any other potential AEC outsourcing hub support a viable business venture why give the business opportunity to some third party. There is also a parallel thinking afloat that captives, better called Shared Services Organizations (SSO), are actually not as efficient, cost or otherwise, as third party providers who are pure players.

Outsourcing models adopted by AEC firms are based on ease of operations at low costs. The rates offered by established well-staffed and equipped Architecture Engineering Outsourcing firms are in many cases 10-15% lower than the price at which the captives perform the task. This has prompted the parent organizations of the captives to seek competitive quotations from third-party vendors. Experience of SSOs in the US has been uncertain. ENR Top 30 AEC firm in the USA, for instance, set up a huge Design Support Center to centrally provide complete CAD documentation and drafting but sold off its facility after some years to a leading third party CAD Outsourcing firm HQ in Chicago and design operations in New Delhi, India, and started outsourcing all its design process needs from the third party supplier. Some of the reasons why the growth of SSO is stymied are governance issues, technology and best practices, investment, human resources, and transfer pricing.

The shift to third party vendors is due to considerable efforts needed to establish captives. The third-party vendor model for architectural and engineering outsourcing is ideal to hand-over repetitive tasks (like CAD drafting services, architectural documentation services, and, engineering design services) to vendors in the global AEC outsourcing domain who are experts in your non-core functions. Outsourcing to a third-party vendor is all about getting superior quality service at lower cost and minimum involvement in a company’s non-core but essential operations.

India has an edge over other outsourcing hubs. Reasons why AEC firms are opting for the third-party vendor model, especially in India, are due to recognized higher education system, technological edge, infrastructure with global standards, English as an advantage, India’s success as a BPO market. Satellier, based in Noida and Kolkata, in India, is a good example of a third-party vendor which caters to top 15 of the 30 leading AEC firms in the world providing innovative, end-to-end design support services for the architecture, engineering and construction industries.

The third-party vendor model is definitely where the market is moving. With the advantages of being able to delegate non-core functions and concentrate on value-addition AEC firms worldwide are opting for third-party vendor specializing in architectural and engineering design, drafting, CAD and Building Information Modeling services that suit their needs. Third-party outsourcing will deliver benefits to the company in the areas of focus, process optimization, and streamlined information processing and most of all cost savings. Captives have several challenges to face and only those who are able to source and sustain a minimum workforce of 300 professionals will be able to successfully run their offshore operations. AEC design services being a specialized highly technical knowledge service, AEC firms must carefully evaluate which model to adopt based on pros and cons of each.

Before you consider offshore outsourcing, it is prudent to review the challenges that may be encountered. The risks include cultural differences, communication, quality measurement, managing specifications, security, and organizational issues.

Cultural differences can cause risk when you presume that your culture does things the right way and that other cultures do things the wrong way. Worse yet is when you assume that everyone understands your culture, or when you assume that you know theirs.

Interesting enough, these biases are not specifically American; although it might seem so when you talk to other executives from foreign companies that work with American companies. American companies come across as both arrogant and ignorant at the same time. US companies will be well served to solicit help from international business consultants when doing business with a different culture for the first time.

Measurement of quality can be risky due mainly to differing methodologies for measuring quality along with the ownership of the quality process itself. Outsourcing partnerships must agree to a standard measure of quality and to the steps in the measurement process such as design reviews, which might catch quality problems before they happen. This could include inspections throughout the process along with orders “padded” with additional inventory to account for unexpected quality problems. Also, there is no substitute for strong documentation of work processes to insure adherence to quality standards.

Offshore outsourcing communication can be fraught with risk due to time zone differences, language differences, and technology challenges. Dramatic time zone differences can slow communication in our fast paced business world, while language differences can cause errors and rework in addition to conflict in the workplace. Both the offshore outsource partner and the US headquartered firm need to invest in staffing who are fluent in the language and have specific cultural knowledge.

Security breach or the loss of intellectual property can also be real concerns. In this case, extensive reference checking is in order to verify the integrity of the partner before going into contract. Additionally, an outsource partner should have documented policies protecting the rights of the US based firm; of course, this policy needs enforcement. A good rule of thumb is to provide sufficient sensitive information needed to complete the work, but no more than that. Auditing the outsource partner’s facility ahead of time is a good idea; the audit should include a viewing of the security policies and inspecting the physical plant for security.

Further, specifications or requirements can be a troublesome area and once again is a problem stemming largely from poor communication and rushed schedules. The offshore partner can be pressed to meet tight schedules without proper “pre-flight” planning. This pre-flight planning time is well spent on the front end of a project since expectations can be thoroughly communicated along with concrete specifications of the final product. Slowing down and verifying milestones and commitments makes for successful projects, while last minute expedites and verbal instructions open the project to unnecessary errors.

In summary, US organizations may be structured and operate differently than the partner organizations. Accommodations to these differences might include routine meetings with key project management personnel from both sides; weekly meetings may prove the best frequency. These meetings should include the review of project status reports while providing a forum for problem solving.

Dr. Joe Greco is Director for the Center for the Study of Emerging Markets (CSEM) located in Fullerton, California. As part of the College of Business and Economics at California State University, Fullerton, CSEM was established to promote the flow of global information and technology between the academic and business communities. In particular, CSEM studies offshore outsourcing and it economic and cultural impact on US based emerging markets. You may contact Dr. Joe Greco at 714-278-4125 or csem@fullerton.edu

Whenever the topic of Internet phone service comes up, I’m surprised to find that most people don’t know that they already have everything they need to save money on their phone bill using an Internet phone.

Fact is, you really only need two things:

1. A regular telephone

2. Broadband Internet access.

If you have these two things (and most people do), then you can take advantage of Internet phone service to save money on local and long-distance calling.

And another thing: sooner or later all telephone service will use some form of Internet telephony, which is another name for Internet phone service or VoIP (voice over Internet protocol). The only question is when are you going to jump in and get started?

These days, Internet phone service is rapidly becoming more and more reliable. It is gaining a wider audience all the time. Many cable companies are already taking advantage of this technology to capture a wider audience for their services. But make no mistake: like any newer technology there are some wrinkles that need to be ironed out.

So, to help you make an informed decision, let’s look at some of the pros and cons to Internet phone service.

PRO’S

Cost

Most Internet phone companies will charge you a monthly fee and in return you can get (and make) unlimited calls within the continental United States. You also have the ability to make international calls for a tiny amount of the cost that your making those calls for now.

Again, if you’re already paying for broadband Internet than you already have most of the system in place to make telephone calls from PC-to-PC anywhere in the world — pretty much for free. Of course there are other more convenient ways of making Internet phone calls. For example, you can make a phone call from your PC to any standard landline phone. It does cost a little more, but the savings are still substantial.

Mobility

Pretty much anywhere you go now you are within the easy access of a broadband Internet connection. So if you have a cell phone that is VoIP-compatible then you can logon to your account and make a phone call. If you’re a frequent traveler you probably already have the proper headset and cables for your phone.

In other words, Internet phone service of this sort is just as convenient as checking your e-mail while you’re on the road.

Portability

When you get an Internet phone service account, the phone that you use is going to be assigned a unique phone number. This number will remain good, whether you’re making phone calls in New York or Los Angeles or Miami or Chicago or St. Louis or even in London, England.

Familiarity

Internet phones have all the familiar features like call waiting, voicemail, caller ID, call forwarding, and three-way calling. All of this is available to you with pretty much any standard Internet phone package at no extra cost to you. And if you need to, you can even send pictures and documents while you’re on the phone.

CONS

Power outages

With conventional phone service from the phone company, your telephone receives power even in the event of an outage to the electrical grid. This is not the case with standard Internet phone service. Your computer (and any associated equipment like a WiFi router) needs to have power. If any of these are not working, your Internet phone service will not work.

Emergency 911 Calls

Another downside to Internet phone service is that emergency or 911 calls don’t work the same way. When you call 911 with conventional phone service, if you can’t talk the emergency personnel receiving your call can still pinpoint your location and send help. It doesn’t work that way with Internet phone service. Newer technologies may be able solve that problem but that’s not universally true just yet.

Voice Clarity

Another downside to Internet phone service is that the quality and reliability isn’t quite as good as compared to a traditional landline. This is because the same technology that makes the Internet possible is not optimized for voice traffic.

When you send an e-mail on the Internet, the message is broken up into small pieces and sent to its destination over different pathways. Then it is reassembled at the end. This is OK with email, but not with a voice call. When you make a phone call you don’t want there to be a delay, or an echo, or any bad quality on the call at all. While quality is better now, Internet phones aren’t quite perfect yet.

Conclusion

The future for Internet phone service is very bright. There are some disadvantages presently, but with time those are being solved. I look forward to the future and all the benefits that Internet phone service can provide.

Ara Rubyan is not a part of the VoIP industry, nor does he sell VoIP services, nor does he pretend to be a guru of any kind. Instead, he is like you: a consumer, a business owner, and someone who has been researching the industry so that he could make an informed decision about the best VoIP service for his needs. Now, he’s put all his research (so far) in one convenient location and he’s sharing it with you, no strings attached.

For more info on Internet phones, visit Ara Rubyan’s VoIP Solution.

Many people do not have any imagination about VoIP. The task of this article is to consider what is VoIP at all, its technologies, software and billing.

What is VoIP?

This abbreviation means Voice over Internet Protocol. VoIP technologies include different technologies that give us possibility to use IP networks for voice applications of various types. For example, it may be voice instant messaging, telephony, teleconferencing etc. Many software developers think that VoIP technologies have great future because it has different solutions almost in every level of IP network. It may be voice applications for specialized application, like Skype, which is one of the most popular VoIP software, or quality measures of the lowest levels that allow to run those applications in a smooth way.

There is also such utterance as VoIP billing. This is a new concept and its application will allow you to save a lot of money on paying of your telephone bills.

VoIP and its applications

As it was mentioned above VoIP technologies include different technologies that give us possibility to use IP networks for voice applications of various types. This applications may include the following: telephone services, desktop applications and phone systems of corporate type. At first, telephone services. This is a service that will allow you to save money on telephone billing, it was named VoIP billing.

The next applications is desktop applications. This service was named VoIP software. It will allow you to use different software from voice-chat which was loaded on your PC desktop to IP-based telecommunications networks, such as Mac, which are used in large corporations.

On the one hand, VoIP technologies is technology investment which will allow to develop a lot of streams that will make possible to get your own profit.

On the other hand, VoIP technologies will allow to simplify your corporate network and to make some improvements of telephony experience for users of network, this is a great advantage for enterprise network engineer.

For the home user, VoIP technologies is really great possibility to cut the charges on the old telephone bill.

Services based on VoIP

Many companies suggest voice calling services which are really cheap. This is realised with the help of your broadband connection. Some of the offer calling services even cheaper than $9.95 per month. This is allowed with the help of VoIP technologies. Providers of IP service over voice usually use the internet to transfer voice signals from their own networks up to the phone located at your home. That is why their bills are much more cheaper that bills of other companies, because VoIP telecommunication is not organised in that way like traditional telecommunication phone lines. What is expected for VoIP in the future?

One of the new VoIP technologies is cell-phones based on VoIP. It is almost ready for application. It will allow people to avoid interruption of communication driving your car, entering your office and then the signal will be transmitted to your laptop using Wi-Fi network. This type of technology is already existing but it is not widely used.

There are also a lot of different VoIP technologies which are not very widespread today. But it is expected the great future for them.

Victoria Malinovskaya, I work for US-based offshore outsourcing software development company, TechnoPark Corp. http://www.technoparkcorp.com

Nowadays, I am being asked this question with some regularity — “Salaries are raising fast in India; does India still make sense as the outsourcing destination?”

Current Indian salaries for developers are in the range of US$15K to $20K. Silicon Valley salaries for similar skills are in the range of $60K to $90K. When you add other costs – additional management, travel, productivity difference, communication, duplication of equipment and so on, cost in India is still a fraction of the U.S. cost.

Projecting into the future, average salary increases in India are in the range of 15% annually. If you assume 8% salary increases in the Silicon Valley, over the next 5 years, India will continue to have much lower salary than the Valley.

Instead of salaries, fully burdened cost is a better metric. If you were outsourcing, vendors would charge you in the range of $50K per developer; if you were to add $10K for additional costs, your fully burdened cost will be in the range of $60K vs a range of $100 to $120K full burdened cost in the valley.

In the case of one company who decided to bring back their development, their stated reason was high cost; turns out they had a staff of 20 to 25 developers in India and set up their own subsidiary. Subsidiaries require significant overheads –administrative staff – General Manager/Managing Director, HR Manager, Finance Manager, Office Staff, IT Staff and possibly unused office space to accommodate growth. They may have been better off outsourcing to a vendor who could have allocated overhead costs over a larger base. If their operating structure was set up right from the get go, cost may not have become an issue.

In selecting a country for outsourcing, cost is only one of the considerations; take other factors into consideration – market potential, talent pool available and ability to scale, proven infrastructure and start up time, language skills and availability management talent.

Prior to deciding which country, you need to carefully evaluate and decide if off shoring per se makes sense for your situation and the best way to go about it. Those who have figured out how to establish and manage offshore operations are finding that it can make a strategic difference; but many are struggling with less than expected results.

Do you want to learn more about key ingredients for global outsourcing success? http://www.offshoringsuccess.com/web_log.php M. M. “Sath” Sathyanarayan was executive at a Fortune 500 corporation and CEO of a startup; now a consultant, author and trainer, he has published a book and dozens of articles on global outsourcing.

Software development process is a really complicated and long-lasting procedure. People think that technical expertise is the only one thing that is necessary for software development process and for its successful ending. However, that is not really true. If you have your own company and you want to get profit from it and, consequently, to make it successful, you should know the ways where success come from.

There are 6 elements of profitable software development business. The first is quality assurance. It is vitally important to have quality assurance for software development process. It is necessary to provide quality assurance of full-cycle for different projects. The experience of previous companies shows us that it is better to provide ISO 9000 principles of quality assurance, that will help you to follow the most important and the most demanding business principles and requirements. It will also help you to give almost 3-month warranty and solve any problems within 3-month term of software acceptance. You may also continue the warranty term and support the system for different terms of using.

The second element is requiremets analysis. It is also necessary to follow because requirements analysis is the element which is the second after quality assurance according to importance for business and it is basically not only for software development process. Understanding of your needs will help you to built successful system which will help you to make the business more efficient.

Latest technologies and the knowledge of it is the third element of efficient process. It will help you to find the individual approach for every client and, consequently, to find the best solution for them.

Extensive experience is also one of the most important parts of software development process. It would be better to have vast experience in different software development projects in various fields of activity.

Management is the fourth important element, because the success of the process depends on the successful management. It must include control of the progress, assignment of the work and resources, outworking of communication process between different groups, plan of your project, schedule, status reports and delivery etc.

The fifth element is the communication with the client. The connection between you and client will help you to understand the needs of the client, time frames and requirements. It would be better if you organic your feedback within one day term. It will also help you to show the progress of your project and to get some notes.

So, you can see that all five elements of successful software development process from quality assurance to communication have great importance for efficiency of your project. You may follow this parts or you may try to create your own rules of successful process that will help you to make the business. Anyway, it is necessary to have fixed scheme of project building, even if it has not Quality Assurance or Expert Management, but it helps you, use it to make software development process successful.

Victoria Malinovskaya, I work for US-based offshore outsourcing
software development company, TechnoPark Corp.
http://www.technoparkcorp.com

DESPITE the Philippines is considered as one of the third largest English speaking countries in Asia yet the report released by the US State Department, in its “2007 Investment Climate Statement” this month cited that the “English language proficiency, while still better than in other Southeast Asian nations, is declining in the Philippines.”

This report is a ticking bomb that caused alarm to the Philippine Government, the business sectors and especially the business process outsourcing (BPO) companies, which serves as a foundation of call centers in the Philippines.

“High levels of corruption, ongoing efforts to reform the judicial system, weak but improving protection of intellectual property rights, the slow pace of energy sector reform and privatization, the need for further fiscal reforms to boost depressed spending levels for infrastructure and social services, and political uncertainties combined to dampen investor interest,” are the major considerations highlighted by the US Government on basing their statement.

I learned that various sectors put the pressure to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on how she will address the report. She kept on saying that English should use as primary medium of instruction in all schools nationwide. In fact, Mrs. Arroyo highlighted stressed that “knowledge is the greatest creator of wealth”. With this development, the President allocated PhP150 billion, which is PhP29 billion increased last year in education budget. She stressed that that almost young Filipino professionals are employed in a call center in the Philippines and received enjoyable salary package from the different contact centers they are working for. She also reported that most schools in the country have accessed to the Internet because of the program designed by the Department of Education (DepEd).

The report alarmed the business councils both foreign and domestic because it might cause panic to our call center industry, which one of the vibrant industries in the country today. The business council noted that the Philippines is the home of the world largest call center companies aside from India, China, Singapore and among others.

The US State Department noted that “the comparative advantages the Philippines once enjoyed vis-à-vis its neighbors in attracting foreign investment need to be restored in order to attract more investment and support higher growth.”

Meanwhile, Beau Rudd, chief executive officer of Unique Interaction encourage his call center agents to always use English as the first language. Mr. Rudd said that there are so many big call centers in the Philippines and they have a strict policy about English only when you come into the office.

“I have been trying to figure it out for a long time and the only reason I thought it was for is because the customer might hear Tagalog in the background. The reason these company have put this in place is because of this, when you are always taking in English you will always think in English,” he stressed.

It sounds funny but all Filipinos may speak good English but they are converting it in the mind from Tagalog and the problem with them is Tagalog is all backwards, he added.

In a call center in the Philippines, it employed about 200,000 call center representatives working in different companies. This is according to one of the executives in a call center in the Philippines reported during the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) roadmap conference held last July 11 and 12 this year. Call center managers relayed that this business remained to be a sunshine industry and continue to grow faster. The CCAP further revealed that the industry needs at least 500,000 contact center agent professionals by 2010, a target the organization has come up with after extrapolating its current demand but considering the 19-percent yearly attrition. CCAP is now composed of 34 contact center companies based in the Philippines.

This is no joke. Losing employees for call centers will only reflect that we, Filipinos failed to implement the English program policy. Or shall I say, the government is incompetent enough to improve the country’s learning English skills. The good focal point, however, that we Filipinos are dedicated to learn this language in order for us to have edge especially when applying for jobs. Even call center companies expressed their statement that deterioration of English sounds “painful”. These call center leaders blamed the soap operas dubbed in Pilipino, and too much focusing on cell phone text messaging. The education sector blamed the influence of pop culture and the domestic media, where the dominant language is Taglish, a combination of Tagalog and English.

The US government further outlined that the country’s fiscal conditions, helped recently by new revenue legislation, seem nonetheless to be improving and the general economic outlook is cautiously optimistic for 2007. The figures indicates that the Philippines’ GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth accelerated from 5% in 2005 to 5.4 percent as of September 2006, spurred by a recovery in post-drought agricultural harvests, more robust export growth, the continued strength of remittances from Filipinos overseas, and a vibrant call center business.

Roberto L. Bacasong
Customer Service Representative
Unique Interaction Asia
Ortigas, Philippines
http://www.uniqueinteraction.com
http://www.voipmanila.com