Enterprises of all sizes need a good mix of different software and applications to automate their processes. In our previous blog ‘5 Benefits Of Bespoke Software Development’, we have already discussed why custom-made software is a more suitable, cost-effective and robust alternative to off-the-shelf software. In the global marketplace, the use of bespoke technology has now become a sure-shot way of gaining a competitive advantage. But the real challenge most enterprises face is when choosing the right partner to outsource their technology requirements to. As an extension to that blog, today we will discuss the things you need to keep in mind when choosing a development partner for your custom software project.

1. Reviews and References

People you know personally or people from your professional network are some of the best sources to ask references from. Additionally, scout B2B review and rating sites such as Clutch, Glassdoor, Sourcelysis, AppFuture, etc. would be very helpful in painting a picture of how well the company has handled similar projects in the past. Browsing through official social pages (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) of the companies would also not be a bad idea, as it will give you an idea of the company, culture, knowledge capabilities, etc. And most importantly, never forget Google. Sometimes, a simple Google search might tell you what no one or nothing else can.

2. Check their Portfolio

A company’s portfolio is always a good confidence builder for a service seeker. Enquire well about the previous projects, challenges faced and problems addressed to understand the scope and capabilities of the development team. Aside from completed and deployed projects, also request a peek into projects currently under development, as the technology scene keeps changing all the times and you will need a partner who can keep up and adapt. Many companies maintain a blog on their website. Reading through the blogs and other content on the company website will give you a fair bit of idea of the company’s technical knowledge and expertise. The company’s social media pages are a good indication of how well the company keeps up with the latest happenings in the industry, news and trends, etc.

3. Requirement Understanding

When you are pitching your requirement to the development partner, ensure that the delivery partner shows you a user story for your requirement. An ideal development partner will analyse your business needs by evaluating the gaps, problems and pain points, and discussing the possible solutions with you. This will give you confidence that the potential vendor has understood your requirement.

4. NDA

Before moving things ahead, insist on an NDA, which protects the confidential information that will be shared during the project. Your data, which is your intellectual property, would be handled by the vendor, and its confidentiality is of utmost importance.

5. Budget

Your custom software development partner and you must be on the same page when it comes to the size and cost of your project. Decide the deadline for the project and insist on making it a part of the contract. Ensure that the partner is agreeing to the deadline, but also giving your team enough time for orientation and onboarding, to get used to the new system.

6. Timeline

Similarly, your partner also needs to understand your budgetary requirements and limits. Before approaching a company to partner with, consider the cost of the project and its implementation, and how much ROI you can get from it. Stay away from companies that compromise on quality to offer their services at a lower cost, as well as from companies who bloat the size and price of your project with unnecessary add-ons.

7. Methodology and Workflow

Instead of going for a full and final delivery system, pick a company that does sprints. If a company has divided a project into sprints, it would be able to demo it to you in phases. This allows you to chime in with important inputs/suggestions on the go. And for this reason, a company that follows agile or similar delivery models is a preferable choice, as it makes easy for them to adapt to changing requirements without losing out on the delivery deadlines, while also maintaining a clear channel of communication with you.

8. Tools

Understand from the service provider the tools they use for internal communication and project management. You will be able to gauge the level of sophistication and transparency the vendor brings to the table. If your prospective business partner uses industry-standard or higher tools such as:

i) Slack or Skype for communication
ii) Balsamiq or Proto.io for wireframe design
iii) Trello for project management
iv) Buffer or Hootsuite for digital marketing
v) Apple, Adobe, Google or Microsoft Suite of products, etc.,

then you can rest assured that the project is in good hands.

9. Security and Communication

While sprints can have deadlines and budgets can have limits, there can be no quantification of a company’s trust factor. While you have to go with your gut and experience on that front, there are a few steps you can follow. Ensure that you pick a software delivery partner who has regular security and network audits in place. The partner should be able to keep your data safe and private. Additionally, an ideal partner would provide you with a single point-of-contact (such as a dedicated account manager or a project manager) to ensure regular and transparent communication between both the parties.

10. Support and Maintenance

As is the nature of the universe, nothing is perfect. Neither will your custom-made software be. To ensure continued service after deployment to fix bugs, maintain and upgrade systems, enquire well about a post-deployment service and maintenance contract.

Why Telemerge Is Your Ideal Bespoke Software Development Partner

Telemerge IT Services empowers businesses by designing and building custom software solutions that align with your business goals and requirements. At Telemerge, we steadfastly believe in delivering quality solutions through our trademark mix of agile approach and flexible delivery model with real and measurable results. With Telemerge as your custom software development partner, you can be assured that all the above checkboxes will be ticked. Link to bespoke.

To get your custom project started, get in touch with us now.

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28th January is an important day for anyone who considers privacy a basic tenet of human rights. On 28th January 1981, the world’s first data privacy policy was signed. The convention for the protection of individuals with regard to automatic processing of personal data, also known as Convention 108, is a treaty signed by the Council of Europe to protect the right to privacy of data provided by individuals to organizations for automatic processing. To commemorate this historic day, International Data Privacy Day is celebrated annually on 28th January.

Necessary Awareness

Data breaches have become common news these past few years. Some of the recent breaches that affected millions of users across India include SBI, Facebook, JustDial (2019), Aadhar, Quora, Marriott (2018), and Zomato (2017). Millions of people are unaware of how their personal information is being collected, used or shared online. Data Privacy Day aims to inform individuals and companies about their rights over their data and empower them to take action to protect it.

Global Data Privacy Policies

As technology has changed and evolved, the importance of data privacy is also evolved. Data is processed differently, and hence, needs a different approach when it comes to its protection against misuse. As individuals too have become more aware and concerned about how their data is used, landmark policies such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act are further improving providing data privacy and protection safeguards.

India too has caught up with global standards of data protection and is taking the privacy of user data very seriously. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), constituted a committee to prepare robust and comprehensive Data Protection Laws applicable to India in July 2017. This committee submitted a draft in July 2018 known as the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill 2018. Section 96 of the Bill specifies that the provisions of the bill will prevail over any inconsistent laws and focuses especially on consent, data retention, Sectoral Regulator for fair code of practices, erasure of irrelevant personal data, processing of sensitive personal data social media intermediaries and localization and cross border data transfers.

Responsibilities of Companies

Collecting data is a great way to get to know your users and make future interactions/transactions easy. Companies are bound by law to protect user data, but also have to understand their moral standing to make sure user data is well protected.

Similarly, for companies that deal with other companies, taking the right steps to protect data becomes extremely necessary. SaaS companies that regularly transact in enterprise solutions have to wire large amounts of funds online. This makes it extremely important to take the right steps to safeguard data related to accounts and transactions.

Some steps companies can take to protect data are:

1. Up to Date Security Softwares
2. Encryption and Data Backup
3. Regular Risk Assessments
4. Staff Training and Awareness
5. Surety of Vendors and Partners maintaining high Data Protection Standards
6. Third-Party Security Evaluations

Future of Data Privacy

Data privacy laws and policies will have to keep evolving to encompass a plethora of modern technologies. As more data is processed using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), lawmakers will have to alter their understanding of data privacy and protection.

Most data privacy guidelines pertain to personal data of a user such as name, location, financial information, etc. But non-personal data has faced a more ambiguous debate when it comes to ownership. Non-personal data points such as travelling patterns collected by map apps, lifestyle collected by social media networks, location data collected by weather apps, etc. are also being increasingly processed by AI. In some cases, this data could well be traced back to identify an individual. Thus, laws pertaining to the protection of data privacy will have to be a lot more complex and layered.

Protecting Your Data

While laws and policies are there to protect your data, individuals too need to follow certain steps to make sure, they’re not giving it all away and compromising on their data.

• Use strong passwords for sensitive accounts.
• Disable lock-screen notifications on your phone and keep an eye out for device attacks.
• App permissions can be customized, especially if you use an Android phone. Make use of this setting and give phone, camera, location permissions only to apps you can trust.
• Always read the privacy policies on websites before clicking on Submit or I Agree.
• Using a VPM while browsing can be very beneficial, especially if you’re connected to a public network.
• Be careful when connecting to open networks or unknown devices via Bluetooth. Your device and all the data on it can become vulnerable in such cases.

In the end, data privacy is a shared and collective responsibility. Respecting privacy is a balancing act between the companies collecting data and the users providing it. While companies need to show meaningful transparency and legal compliance for the data they store and use, users also need to be proactive when it comes to their personal data – what they share, where they share, who they share it with, etc. are questions that need to be asked before submitting data to companies. Users also need to hold back on what they share online and all of it is classified as public information.

Anti-virus software and passwords are no longer the only guards against data theft. The digital world has evolved beyond that. As legal policies and user understanding also evolve with it, we shall see a more safe and sound future for online data.

Let us pledge commitment to make a #safedigitalindia by the year 2022.

HAPPY DATA PRIVACY DAY from Team Telemerge!

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Imagine a morning where you wake up to the alarm of the clock instead of a customized alarm clock with snoozes set on your smartphone. Imagine having to sift through the newspaper for the news you want instead of accessing a personalized news feed on your phone. Imagine having to step-out and looking for a bus or a cab instead of having one arrive at your doorstep after booking it on your phone. Imagine jostling with money and asking around for change to pay the cab fare instead of paying it using your digital wallet.

Smartphone apps have surrounded us and there’s no escaping it. Smartphone apps have automated the simplest of tasks (setting alarms, reading books, paying bills, etc.) and have also made complex tasks a little easier (ordering food, booking cabs, etc.). As developers jostle to build apps that are more innovative and less complicated, technologies too are evolving.

Behind the scenes, there are thousands of mobile app frameworks at work that make coding for an app a little easier and provides developers with dynamic options to create functionally flawless and eye-pleasing apps. Here are the five best frameworks that act as the best backend for smartphone apps.

1. REACT NATIVE

Created by Facebook, React Native is an open-source cross-platform development framework. React Native heavily uses ReactJS like Syntax, which is a major advantage for developers, as it makes it easy to move from one project to another. One of React Native’s important features is the ability to reuse components. By reusing components, developers can directly compile blocks with the native app. Thus, developers can create platform-specific versions of these components by using single codebase across various multiple platforms. Despite being only four years old, the framework has a dedicated following and a thriving community of followers.

Features of React Native:

• Cross-platform development (supports iOS and Android)
• Declarative style coding for predictive UI
• Compatible third-party plugins

Apps Developed using React Native:

Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Pinterest, Skype

2. IONIC

Ionic is an HTML5, CSS and Javascript-based open-source framework that allows developers to build cross-platform applications. Started in 2013, Ionic as a project has undergone several severe changes over the years. Since 2019, Ionic started supporting other frameworks like React, Vue.js, and web components. Ionic emulates native app UI guidelines and uses native SDKs, bringing the UI standards and device features of native apps together, thus giving apps access to all the native features of the operating system, such as Contacts, Calendar, etc.

Features of Ionic:

• Open-source and cross-platform support
• Over 100 native plugins available for developers
• Optimum performance, thanks to hardware utilization

Apps Developed using Ionic:

Pacifica, McDonalds Turkey, JustWatch

3. XAMARIN

Xamarin is a Microsoft-supported open-source framework to build fully functional and modern applications for iOS, Android, and Windows. Xamarin is one of the oldest frameworks in existence (since 2011) and originally started as a suite of mobile products using licenses from Mono for Android and MonoTouch. After Microsoft acquired Xamarin in 2016, it decided to open-source the Xamarin SDK and announced that they will bundle it as a free tool within Microsoft Visual Studio’s integrated development environment. Xamarin features various tools, libraries, backend, API, and support for many programming languages. Xamarin allows code-sharing which saves a lot of time and helps developers in building robust apps with remarkable turnaround time.

Features of Xamarin:

• Comprehensive development ecosystem
• Simple development environment due to C# code
• Native API access including access to ARKit and Android Multi-Window mode

Apps Developed using Xamarin:

The World Bank, FreshDirect, Alaska Airlines

4. FLUTTER

Flutter is an open-source UI framework developed by Google. While Flutter has editor plug-ins for both Visual Studio Code and IntelliJ / Android Studio, it works with any development tool. Flutter’s fully customized widgets make developing full-fledged native apps real easy and quick. During its early days, Flutter’s team evaluated dozens of languages before settling for Dart. Dart’s ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation makes Flutter very fast and customizable. Although Flutter is a relatively new ecosystem compared to other frameworks, it has gained a big following rapidly and is one of the most contributed topics on developer networks such as GitHub and StackExchange.

Features:

• Highly fast and heavily customizable
• Support for material design
• Rich motion APIs for aesthetic design, and beautiful animations and transitions.

Apps Developed using Flutter:

Google Ads, Alibaba, The New York Times

5. PHONEGAP

PhoneGap is a great framework that allows developers to build cross-platform hybrid applications using web-based languages such as HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. PhoneGap bridges the gap between native apps and hybrid apps by wrapping web apps with native apps in a WebView browser object. This object is a high-quality, high-performance standalone application. PhoneGap framework can be used to create apps for iOS, Android, Windows, Ubuntu, macOS, and even Blackberry.

Features:

• Extensive cross-platform functionality
• Robust support documentation and a solid community of developers
• Availability of a wide choice of libraries frameworks to save time and effort

Apps Developed using PhoneGap:

Wikipedia, TripCase, Untappd

With the evolution of modern frameworks such as React Native and Flutter, building modern and slick mobile apps has become easier than ever. Developers have plenty of options to customize the apps and make it more functional to align it with the business goals of the app.

If you would like to know how Telemerge IT Services has leveraged the power of various mobile app development frameworks to deliver robust and eye-pleasing apps, Get in touch with us, to discuss your requirements.

The IT industry is going through a major transformation. Companies are struggling to stick to agile methodologies in the face of rapidly changing technology ecosystem. When business demands a shift, however, finding the right resources to keep up with these changes becomes a nightmare for most companies. This becomes a major drawback when new projects are incoming and/or current projects are high-volume.

Traditional practices are unable to cope with the speed and nature of such constant changes, thus leaving organizations either short of critical resources or in possession of resources that cannot deliver the required output. This is where staff augmentation can come handy for a lot of organizations.

Staff Augmentation is a process where organizations outsource resources with niche specializations on a fixed-term (long-term or short-term) basis. Staff augmentation resources act either as experts on a project or an extension to the on-site talent. Staff Augmentation allows companies to skip the tedious recruitment process, which doesn’t yield any beneficial outcome anyway, and save time and money involved in the hiring, training and onboarding process. But more importantly, it gives companies access to a wide and niche talent pool without having to make any compromises on the quality of the resource.

Essentially, what companies cannot leverage internally, they outsource; and this approach comes with many benefits of own.

COST-EFFECTIVE

Hiring resources required only for a specific project comes with its drawbacks – contracts, benching, idle time after deployment, etc. Additionally, hiring new employees involves sending out requirements, screening candidates, conducting interviews, etc. This process is heavily time-consuming as well as costly. Working with specialized resources on a project-to-project basis helps organizations eliminate all the unnecessary overheads. Thus making their process a lot more sustainable, and hence, a lot more competitive.

ACCESSIBILITY OF TALENT

Companies hiring new staff are wary of the quality of the incoming resource, their commitment levels, culture clashes, team bonding, etc. This becomes a bigger worry of the company is looking for an experienced resource with a higher salary margin. With staff augmentation, companies can stop worrying about these things as the resources they find via staff augmentation are pre-screened, have achieved a particular skill level and are available at a relatively lower cost. Furthermore, companies get access to a wider pool of resources who are experts in their domains as the market is extensive.

PROJECT CONTROL

Companies cannot retain complete control of their project if they outsource it completely. Deploying resources via Staff Augmentation helps companies to set their own standards and deadlines. The company, internally, stays in charge of who leads the project, who drives client communication, who coordinates with the team, etc. This also contributes tremendously to the transparency factor – with your project in your own command, you know where it is headed. Additionally, for companies that juggle multiple projects, companies retain full control over resources hired via staff augmentation services.

SCALABILITY

With staff augmentation, the size of the team working on a particular project can easily be scaled up or down as required. With full-time hirings, come full-time commitments, which are difficult to adhere to if the nature or size of business demand changes. By hiring resources that are available only when needed, companies have the freedom to change their blend of working team according to project requirements.

Staff Augmentation is a nearly full-proof resource finding and hiring process which more and more companies are now opting for. In a dynamic market like software and technology, top-class talent comes at a premium. With Staff Augmentation, companies have access to this premium tier of talent at relatively lower costs. Thus, also allowing companies more space to grow their business in a sustainable manner.

At Telemerge IT Services, we provide you with Staff Augmentation services that gives you access to our wide pool of world-class resources. Our talent has already been pre-screened and vetted to funnel out the best we can lend to our clients. Enterprises can busy themselves with their project and its workings, while leaving the organizational and administrative nitty-gritties to us. If you are looking for staff augmentation services, reach out to us at connectus@itstelemerge.com

The old adage ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ does not apply to business processes. Business processes need constant upgrading and progressive automation. Businesses often invest in software solutions that can streamline their work processes to optimum efficiency. Using technology effectively allows businesses to increase productivity, make operations more efficient and maximize resources. Software for business is usually divided into two categories: packaged and bespoke.

Packaged software suites are bought off the shelf or from a company that makes and supplies them. Despite its advantages such as lower costs and quicker turnaround time, packaged software has its limitations. This has sparked greater demand for customized software, which is tailor-made and designed to suit the requirements of an organization.

Customized or bespoke software solutions are designed and built in such a way that the design and functionality are (mostly) unique to the business that has commissioned for it to be made.

BENEFITS OF BESPOKE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Here are 5 benefits you can reap by opting for bespoke software solutions:

FLEXIBILITY

Bespoke software makes the flow of information easier between departments and processes, thus streamlining operations. Organizational processes change over time and bespoke software makes it easier to adapt to these changes. This is because this software is developed to align with the business process.

SCALABILITY

As a business grows, business requirements change, and off-the-shelf software products will be rendered useless once these changes come into effect. When you hire a software development firm to create bespoke solutions for your business, they build a solution that is ready to scale as needed.

CONTROL AND OWNERSHIP

Off-the-shelf products are proprietary products of the vendor selling them. A bespoke software product is created specifically for your organization and hence you are in complete control and ownership of the product. The product is designed to align with your brand identity and business requirement, thus allowing you to dictate the functionality of the product.

EASE OF INTEGRATION

Mid-scale or larger organizations use more than one automation and management software to run their processes. Customized solutions ensure these applications can also be integrated into the larger scheme of things as required by the company.

MAINTENANCE

When you opt for an off-the-shelf solution, you’re one of the many customers buying it from the vendor. The vendor has a common customer care line defined for all the customers, which often can be frustrating and long-winded to get through. With bespoke solutions, the company also offers a maintenance contract, which means that every bug or problem is addressed on a personal level. Most companies offer support and maintenance with bespoke solutions, which can be extended over time going ahead. This ensures your bespoke solution is up-to-date, free of bugs and fine-tuned to suit your changing necessities.

Opting for bespoke software development is a smart strategy as it ensures your company has complete ownership of the product. It is a great long-term investment that is tailored to support your current requirements as well as future upgrades.

HOW TEAM TELEMERGE DOES BESPOKE

Telemerge IT Services is one of India’s leading bespoke software solutions providers. We are experts in developing web and mobile solutions and software products that align seamlessly with the objectives of our customers’ businesses.

We create studied and focussed bespoke software for companies that are looking for scalable and modular solutions. Our solutions are in complete ownership of your company and we offer top-class support and maintenance post-deployment.

As the year-end holiday festivities draw to a close, we have inched into 2020 with much fervor. January is a month of new beginnings. New calendar. New decade. New year. New resolutions. New beginnings. New excitement. It is an exciting time at the Telemerge office too, and we wanted to share a bit of it with all of you.

OUR GROWTH ARC

For the last 4 years, Telemerge IT Services has grown by leaps and bounds. What started as a small personal endeavor among a few passionate technology and business professionals, has now grown into a team that shares common goals, works hard and parties harder, and comes together to celebrate the smallest and biggest of our successes. Our technical ingenuity and determination have brought us this far. To this ingenuity and determination, we are now adding business understanding and confidence, to step into a new phase for the company.

Come 2020, Telemerge IT Services is all set to expand its services. Under our new strategy – 2D (Diversification and Development) – we are ready to enter new markets and expand our capabilities. We have partnered with associates in the UK, the USA and India to kick-off the first step in making Telemerge a truly global entity. Furthermore, we are expanding our team to cover a wide and versatile stack of technologies, which will allow us to deliver optimal bespoke solutions for more complex challenges.

Over the last few years, we have helped some big companies in USA, UK and India to meet their niche talent needs, and will continue to do so in the future. Telemerge’s team augmentation services will also see a greater push as we empower organizations with the right set of talent.

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

2020 will also see us get the ball rolling on some of our most exciting product offerings. Our ERP system, an end-to-end solution for educational institutes of all types and sizes, will see a greater push. We have also built a plug and play eCommerce platform, which offers businesses a white-label eCommerce portal to launch their storefront in a matter of few hours. With a feature-packed and powerful platform as this one, anyone who wants to sell their products or services online can now do so in the simplest way possible.

Last, but not the least, we are also all set to revamp and launch our website in a few days. The new website will be a peek into our new reorganized work approach. Apart from the new developments, it will also cover all our prior success stories and give you a peek into all the awesomeness we delivered to various clients between 2015 and 2019.

But there’s more…

SOMETHING PATH-BREAKING

2020 is all set to be our biggest year yet as we look at expanding our team to its largest capacity ever, as we prepare to take on more challenging work, as we buckle up to announce our successes louder, AND; as we get ready to announce our biggest association yet.

Team Telemerge has partnered with a new project this past year that took a lot of research, meetings, and hard work to come to fruition. Let us call it ‘Project Her’ for now. ‘Project Her’ is going to be disruptive and transformative in many ways, and Telemerge is proud to be a part of it. If 2010s proved to be the decade when women discovered their innate strengths, 2020s will be the decade that women will use those strengths to stamp their authority on. Project Her is our contribution to make this bold aspiration a reality. This exciting new project is inching closer towards completion and we will be announcing it soon.

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Before wrapping up, we would like to take this opportunity to thank our clients, partners, and community of family and friends for their support. We’re grateful for your confidence in us, and it is one of the things that have fueled us to outperform ourselves. We hope to receive the same support from everyone in the future. From our end, we will continue to stick to the one principle we have followed since the beginning: WE COMMIT WE DELIVER!

Stay tuned for new updates and cheers to new beginnings!