The ‘Business – IT’ Engagement Models We Offer to Clients

What Is a Customer Engagement Model For IT Services

It’s a model of interaction between an IT service provider (Vendor) and an IT service consumer (Customer) that ensures seamless integration of business processes and alignment of objectives. As a service provider, our company has worked out three ‘customer – vendor’ engagement models for our clients:

• Software Product Development
• Dedicated Team
• Developers on Demand

Each model includes details on:

• the character of interaction
• ideal situations of use
• project based pricing policies
• customer benefits
• stages of the workflow

Why is customer engagement important? Businesses have well-defined criteria on the amount of control, distribution of roles, and the nature of work they want their IT partners to perform. Customer engagement models allow clients to clearly see what partnering with a software development company involves. A perfect fit is a key to success. In this post, read about our customer engagement strategies.

Software Product Development Model

By engaging in this model, we build a complete product from scratch, following the whole cycle from ideation and mapping, through construction and testing, to deployment and maintenance.

Number-one choice when

• You have a clear vision of what you want to get and need a rapid response. You have no time for building up your own remote team and waiting for the ramp-up. Lead time is an important strategic variable. In that case, creating a minimum viable product (MVP) is an effective solution of getting early feedback.
• You want the service provider to take over the process control, either because you have other priorities or software development is not your cup of tea.
• There is a need to adopt a lean policy, in case IT technology and infrastructure is an enabler rather than the core of your business. This model will fit if you aim at the short- or mid-term collaboration to accomplish a single project. However, in the case of continuous partnership and long-term engagement we would recommend a dedicated team model.

Price models to go with

By choosing a Fixed Price model (FPM), you agree to a no-change policy, which means the costs, time, and scope are frozen up front. With a Time and Material (T&M) pricing model, a preliminary estimate is given before each of the iterations or on some milestones (e.g. MVP).

Offers and takeaways

Here’s what you get:

• an expert opinion on the optimal ways to implement your business idea based on your immediate requirements;
• our experienced project managers wholly take on responsibility for the process arrangement and supervision;
• the benefit of professional and 100% transparent calculation of your project’s costs;
• staying in contact during the entire product creation cycle, giving your feedback on every stage – specifications, mockups and wireframes, MVP, fully-functional product;
• prompt and timely product delivery either within the fixed timeframe or as a result of the efficient agile organization;
• an exclusive ownership of intellectual property.

How it works

The specifics of a project and your model of payment predetermine the way we collaborate. You will find a detailed description of the workflow in this post.

Dedicated Team Engagement Model

Simply put, this is a core team of developers who work with only one client, normally over a long time period, clearly understand the client’s business objectives and support their vision.

Number-one choice when

• Your business needs gradual expansion and the workflow asks speeding-up.
• You want to reduce costs or increase cost-efficiency.
• Your talent pool is limited or competition really tough.
• For long-term projects, such as development and maintenance of a unique product, as it requires a strong and focused team of professionals engaging in software development.
• There is a need to outsource an IT function since it is not the core of your business. That is the case when IT service providing is viewed as a continuous function rather than a single project.

Price models to go with

This mode of engagement normally employs a T&M pricing model at the beginning. Later on, you can switch to a Cost+ pricing model.

Offers and takeaways

• you get a tight-knit team of software developers totally aligned with your working strategy;
• the team is focused solely and exclusively on your project;
• you exercise full control over the selection, engagement, management, and scaling of the team;
• you decrease your development costs and time to market, thus considerably improving the ROI.

How it works

The co-working unfolds like this:

1. The customer outlines the agenda and determines the number and the skill-sets of specialists required to do the job.
2. We provide the necessary workforce, either from their own resource pool or by hiring additional employees. They will form a dedicated team to focus on a client’s project.
3. We agree on working conditions and the distribution of authority between the in-house and remote teams. After the workload and payment are agreed on, we sign a contract for a specific period of time.
4. Initially, team leads may need to travel to the onsite location to align with the client’s corporate culture.
5. Next, they run the workflow and regularly account to the in-house management.
6. The customer is fully in charge of managing and scaling the dedicated team, as well as organizing the process in accordance with specific business objectives.

Read also: Dedicated Development Team: Give a Boost to Your Business

Developers on Demand Engagement Model

Following this model, you have a chance to hire individual experts in particular areas to take part in your in-house development process. We provide domain expertise and consultancy in a range of fields, including UX and BA, mobile app development, JavaScript and PHP development, technology advisory, QA service and more.

Number-one choice when

• When you need assistance in a short-term project.
• If you decide to augment your in-house team with additional resources for a certain period of time.
• If you are in search of a particular technology expert for your development team.
• For continuous software development. If you decide to keep an expert who has been hands-on in a product’s evolution, for instance, working as part of a dedicated team. Since an application evolves over time due to regular updates, you may be comfortable with retaining a specialist who has been there from the start. He or she knows all the ins and outs of the coding practices. So he can provide the insights and improve productivity of your team.

Price models to go with

T&M model is used here. This engagement model also allows of a fixed monthly payment and an SLA, usually on product maintenance.

Offers and takeaways

• you strengthen your team with additional specialists to address technical issues;
• we spare your time, cost, and effort of remote hiring and accounting so that you can focus on matters at hand;
• you employ dependable professionals, who can ensure stable workflow as compared to unpredictable freelance market.

How it works

The procedure is as simple as that:

1. You contact us with a view to hiring a specialist of a particular competence to perform a certain task.
2. We do the job and time accounting.
3. At the end of a billing cycle, we send the invoice and timesheet.

This is how we work with our clients here at CodeTiburon. If our customer engagement models meet your business objectives, feel free to find out why us and how we can help.