Agile outsourcing project 6: Quotation Management (productization)

This is the sixth article in the agile outsourcing project series. (Column directory) analysis of various quote strategies (I) the previous article analyzed the development bottlenecks of outsourcing enterprises caused by various bad quote methods. Let's take a look at the countermeasures below. There are actually many ways to get more revenue: The following is a good way to increase product prices through sales, which is what most outsourcing companies are doing, if you can sell one dollar for 10 yuan, you can make more money. The advantage is that it is intuitive, so it is easy to operate (the result is good or bad). The disadvantage is that the customer's loyalty is based on the relationship and can be easily replaced by competitors. Compared with general products or existing Internet companies, outsourcing companies have the following characteristics: 1. sales personnel are the core of the company 2. always do business 3. the bottleneck of the relationship over the technical reality is: 1. if someone can sell one dollar to ten yuan, they will face competition from 9 yuan by others. Therefore, after a price war, it is good to sell one dollar. 2. The low status of technical personnel makes the advanced technology useless and has little technical accumulation. 3. The relationship users are changing frequently and there is no continuous odds. Productization: Using reuse to reduce costs is something many companies are trying to do. If you can sell one thing multiple times, you may make more money. In fact, software is called "soft", which means it is easy to modify and there is no replication cost. productization is the ultimate form of reuse. However, in fact, few software can do this. These companies should have the following practices and performances: 1. business analysts and architects are the core of the companyThis is hard to achieve, because at the beginning of the company's establishment, "reuse" does not exist, and sales must be the core. 2. Relatively Concentrated business, not all active connectionsThis is also difficult to achieve. However, a smart boss should realize that: The cost is in my own hands, and the price is in the customer's hands. Therefore, the cost is reduced by reuse, which is more controllable than sales at a higher price. Sales and Marketing DirectorThe objective is to balance the conflicts between different projects and ultimately confirm which projects are relatively concentrated, which is the future direction of the company's development. When I was doing technology, I had been mixing sales and marketing, but I didn't quite understand the difference in their specific work. After a while, finally, we can find out that sales are for the current revenue, and the market is for the future revenue. But if I do it now, I will choose to merge the two: it can be said that a small company should set up only one Sales and Marketing Director; a large company should set up a sales and marketing director, then, set up several deputy directors or managers to favor the other party. The General Director-level figures must consider both comprehensive and long-term development.. "Comprehensive" means to balance the income and expenditure of various projects of different sizes and fields, rather than fighting for each other like sales; "long term" means to analyze and predict the trend of various projects and find the future development focus. 3. The company is in the product-Project StatusWe once divided the company into project type (Contract-only), product type (without any contract), product-project type (derived from a product ). The last is the edge state of outsourcing companies, which are likely to evolve into product companies. If you find that a company has been established for a long time but has no products, you cannot take it for granted that you have no products because you are an "outsourcing company", or that some departments have no products, therefore, we need to reflect on the cause. Otherwise, you may be addicted to short-term performance. Projects are connected one by one and never broken down. However, after many years, the company has not improved. Product-the quotation strategy addition policy (modular strategy) of the project company divides the product into several modules, and the business of some modules is relatively fixed, or the product can be changed through simple configuration; then, the external components work with functions that need to be developed from scratch to form a project. The quotation of addition strategy is relatively simple. It is a new function that requires no re-production but can sell money + quotation by person-day. The source of value lies in the former. A multiplication Policy (platform-based strategy) forms an overall underlying reusable library or a configurable platform, which is derived from applications. For example, UFIDA's ERP adopts this strategy, and constantly disconnects the underlying layer and the upper layer to form software reuse. Some gaming companies, such as perfection and Kingsoft, have similar strategies, that is, some teams are responsible for producing the bottom layer, while others are generating their own actual games based on the bottom layer. Of course, these companies are not outsourcing companies, but their methods are worth learning. The quotation of the multiplication strategy is complicated. The core is to change the existing "man-day" quotation method. Otherwise, the labor hours saved by the user will become the opposite tool for lowering the price of the user. This is explained in the next article. Appendix: The Role of developers in the productization process previously mentioned that any outsourcing company will use sales personnel as the main force of the company at the beginning. Developers of these companies cannot indulge in this. We should be aware that if we can make some technical reserves, we can say that we can work less overtime from a small point of view, and from a large point of view, we can continue to reduce costs. In the long run, enterprises will gradually discover the value of technology, especially the overall success rate of their own projects will be higher than that of other enterprises. With the improvement of technology in the company, enterprises may gradually become productized. It is worth noting that product strategies and software reuse often complement each other. Many technical staff in outsourcing enterprises are willing to sink themselves because they feel that the company's sales are too strong and the products are too weak, moreover, the company "has no intention of productization ". However, when the company's revenue and expenditure are barely balanced, it is difficult for the company's leaders to make up their minds to allow some people to do products without a project for the moment. In this context, technicians can focus on the most basic software reuse. If only 30% of the code for a common project is directly related to the business of the project, and other code can be completely re-applied, the first step towards productization is taken. Through several projects or several projects, the company has the basis for productization. Therefore, productization strategies and software reuse are a relationship between chickens and eggs. It is hard to say that one of them must have another one. In general, reuse seems easier to get started. Analysis of various quote strategies (I) the previous article analyzed the development bottleneck of outsourcing enterprises caused by various bad quote methods. Let's take a look at the countermeasures below. There are actually many ways to get more revenue: The following is a good way to increase product prices through sales, which is what most outsourcing companies are doing, if you can sell one dollar for 10 yuan, you can make more money. The advantage is that it is intuitive, so it is easy to operate (the result is good or bad). The disadvantage is that the customer's loyalty is based on the relationship and can be easily replaced by competitors. Compared with general products or existing Internet companies, outsourcing companies have the following characteristics: 1. sales personnel are the core of the company 2. always do business 3. the bottleneck of the relationship over the technical reality is: 1. if someone can sell one dollar to ten yuan, they will face competition from 9 yuan by others. Therefore, after a price war, it is good to sell one dollar. 2. The low status of technical personnel makes the advanced technology useless and has little technical accumulation. 3. The relationship users are changing frequently and there is no continuous odds. Productization: Using reuse to reduce costs is something many companies are trying to do. If you can sell one thing multiple times, you may make more money. In fact, software is called "soft", which means it is easy to modify and there is no replication cost. productization is the ultimate form of reuse. However, in fact, few software can do this. These companies should have the following practices and performances: 1. business analysts and architects are the core of the companyThis is hard to achieve, because at the beginning of the company's establishment, "reuse" does not exist, and sales must be the core. 2. Relatively Concentrated business, not all active connectionsThis is also difficult to achieve. However, a smart boss should realize that: The cost is in my own hands, and the price is in the customer's hands. Therefore, the cost is reduced by reuse, which is more controllable than sales at a higher price. Sales and Marketing DirectorThe objective is to balance the conflicts between different projects and ultimately confirm which projects are relatively concentrated, which is the future direction of the company's development. When I was doing technology, I had been mixing sales and marketing, but I didn't quite understand the difference in their specific work. After a while, finally, we can find out that sales are for the current revenue, and the market is for the future revenue. But if I do it now, I will choose to merge the two: it can be said that a small company should set up only one Sales and Marketing Director; a large company should set up a sales and marketing director, then, set up several deputy directors or managers to favor the other party. The General Director-level figures must consider both comprehensive and long-term development.. "Comprehensive" means to balance the income and expenditure of various projects of different sizes and fields, rather than fighting for each other like sales; "long term" means to analyze and predict the trend of various projects and find the future development focus. 3. The company is in the product-Project StatusWe once divided the company into project type (Contract-only), product type (without any contract), product-project type (derived from a product ). The last is the edge state of outsourcing companies, which are likely to evolve into product companies. If you find that a company has been established for a long time but has no products, you cannot take it for granted that you have no products because you are an "outsourcing company", or that some departments have no products, therefore, we need to reflect on the cause. Otherwise, you may be addicted to short-term performance. Projects are connected one by one and never broken down. However, after many years, the company has not improved. Product-the quotation strategy addition policy (modular strategy) of the project company divides the product into several modules, and the business of some modules is relatively fixed, or the product can be changed through simple configuration; then, the external components work with functions that need to be developed from scratch to form a project. The quotation of addition strategy is relatively simple. It is a new function that requires no re-production but can sell money + quotation by person-day. The source of value lies in the former. A multiplication Policy (platform-based strategy) forms an overall underlying reusable library or a configurable platform, which is derived from applications. For example, UFIDA's ERP adopts this strategy, and constantly disconnects the underlying layer and the upper layer to form software reuse. Some gaming companies, such as perfection and Kingsoft, have similar strategies, that is, some teams are responsible for producing the bottom layer, while others are generating their own actual games based on the bottom layer. Of course, these companies are not outsourcing companies, but their methods are worth learning. The quotation of the multiplication strategy is complicated. The core is to change the existing "man-day" quotation method. Otherwise, the labor hours saved by the user will become the opposite tool for lowering the price of the user. This is explained in the next article. Appendix: The Role of developers in the productization process previously mentioned that any outsourcing company will use sales personnel as the main force of the company at the beginning. Developers of these companies cannot indulge in this. We should be aware that if we can make some technical reserves, we can say that we can work less overtime from a small point of view, and from a large point of view, we can continue to reduce costs. In the long run, enterprises will gradually discover the value of technology, especially the overall success rate of their own projects will be higher than that of other enterprises. With the improvement of technology in the company, enterprises may gradually become productized. It is worth noting that product strategies and software reuse often complement each other. Many technical staff in outsourcing enterprises are willing to sink themselves because they feel that the company's sales are too strong and the products are too weak, moreover, the company "has no intention of productization ". However, when the company's revenue and expenditure are barely balanced, it is difficult for the company's leaders to make up their minds to allow some people to do products without a project for the moment. In this context, technicians can focus on the most basic software reuse. If only 30% of the code for a common project is directly related to the business of the project, and other code can be completely re-applied, the first step towards productization is taken. Through several projects or several projects, the company has the basis for productization. Therefore, productization strategies and software reuse are a relationship between chickens and eggs. It is hard to say that one of them must have another one. In general, reuse seems easier to get started.