Off-Site Development Services - Details

ACS has recently launched “Off-Site Development Services” for Customer Outside India. 

The objective of the Service is - "To provide high quality, reasonably priced software development services over Internet to customers all over the world." 

Off-Site Development is a cost effective alternative to developing software in-house. It provides you with immediate access to a broad range of specialized technical skills and allows your team to focus on core competencies. This can help you get to market faster while maintaining your technological advantage. 

Off-Site Development of Software allows you to cut production costs without the need to compromise on either speed or quality. Your operation becomes adaptable to increasingly complex and rapidly changing business environment. The Off-Site Development Services is provided in following ways -

1. Fixed Price Services
2. Time & Material (T&M) Basis

Fixed Price Services – 

This option works well where the Specifications of the Software to be developed are, detailed, well defined and frozen. 

1. Project Time Line – We take detailed specifications, and then give you a fixed price quotation, with a Project Time Line and Interim Deliverables. 
   

   • Tasks / Interim Deliverables in the Project Time line are given with well defined Deliverables
   • We ensure that estimated maximum durations between any two deliverable don't exceed a reasonable limit, (eg. 10-15 working days), so as to assure early warning of slippage.

    

2. Communication / Project Status Reporting – Since it's almost always possible to say something positive about the status of a project. We, however, feel, “Free Form” status reports are the enemy of project control. We define Communication / Status reporting System, and its periodicity (normally weekly) at the beginning of the project. 
   
   This ensures that you are aware of the exact progress of the Project at all times. We ensure that - 
   

   • Status of each incomplete task is expressed in terms of target date, never in percentages or vague terms.
   • Whenever a task is reported "complete", the corresponding deliverables are on file and accessible.
   • Aggregate target date (critical path) are developed rationally through bottom-up analysis of the detailed project plan.
   
   Besides this, we add the virtual element to our services by making the entire software development process absolutely transparent to the customer. This is made possible by our unique web centric Global Delivery Model, where the development status of the Project is available online, in the Customer Area of our Web Site.

    

3. General Terms for Fixed Price Development – For Fixed Price Development Services, 25% of the payment will be required normally before we start work. Incase of longer duration projects (over 30 days), we also define interim deliverables / milestones, and some payment may be due when they are achieved. This is decided mutually.
   
   Any additions / changes or modifications not included in the original specifications, are considered additional work, for which, we either give a separate estimate / quote, or can be done on a Time and Material basis, at our standard Development rates.

Time & Material (T&M) Basis – 

This option is normally recommended when the requirements are not fully known, or are expected to change. It is useful where the Development Process has to be of “Incremental Development”. This generally works better in Smaller projects. 

The option can also be used, where you would like our developers to augment your development team, by off-loading some parts of your application. Some other cases may be - 

• Multi-User - Converting an existing Single User System to a Multi-User one
• Upsizing - migrating / upsizing from an Access / Visual FoxPro Database to SQL Server or Oracle Database. 
• Conversion - Conversion from one version of Access to another, from Excel to Access or from an entirely different database system.
• Enhancement - Of an Existing Application, by adding Queries / Reports 

General Terms for T & M (Time & Material) Development 

In Time and Material Basis, all work is done on a Cost Basis, using our standard hourly rates. The hourly rates are finalized with you, depending on the skill-set and infrastructure required for the job. 

For starting the work, normally, a nominal advance is required. Billing is done on a monthly basis, with payment due in 15 days.