Cooperation Challenge IIP-SaaS met IIP-Productsoftware
Below is a summary of the research proposal that has been submitted for the ICTregie Cooperation Challenge. Organisations interested to be involved in the project and/or the results can contact martijn.kriens@iipsaas.nl. After 29th of June 2010 a decision will be made by ICTregie if this proposal will be funded.
Executive Summary
Service companies have traditionally used Information and Communications Technology (ICT) as an internal enabler of their processes. This is changing rapidly. More and more service companies from divers sectors like finance, transport, telcos and others are delivering a substantial part of their services through software channels based on SaaS. On the other hand we see the product software companies moving towards mixing services through their software with the help of SaaS principles. Both service providers and product software vendors move towards SaaS. They need to complement their competences in quality of service delivery with capabilities which traditionally belong to the other branch of industry. The result are more and more hybrid organisations that have aspects of services and software organisations. Software is an important Dutch export product and in the western world services are the major share of the economy. The successful combination of both leads to important opportunities for the Dutch economy.
This move leads to a different perspective for service companies and product software companies. Enhancing the capabilities to customize software and/or services on a client basis while maintaining efficient operation, maintenance and quality of service is crucial from a technical as well as a business perspective.
The project consists of two work-packages interwoven through seven phases: observation of pilots, review of existing knowledge, observation of simple market introductions, observation of complex market introductions with dynamics and customizations, consolidation of insights on dynamics and customizations, validation of best practices in the National Software Engineering Laboratory testbed, completion of dissertations. Across these phases, one work-package focuses on the business side of the dynamics of multi-tenant SaaS, whereas the other workpackge focuses on the technical side of customizations of multi-tenant SaaS.
From a business point of view it is clear that managing a service company is quite different from managing a product software company in relation to focus, key performance indicators, customer intimacy, innovation horizon and other business issues. Research is undertaken into the current processes of software and service companies moving into this hybrid world. Based on these processes and a literature study of best practices based in product software and service organizations a model is devised and tested in two service chains: government services and in financial services. The results will help service and software companies to better prepare for the business and organizational challenges that arise out of this hybrid situation.
From the technical viewpoint the focus is on the feasibility of customization realization techniques (CRT) in the context of large scale multi-tenant SaaS. CRTs are often based on the model-view-controller architectural patterns; in other cases they are based on the changes of connectors and components. From a software architectural perspective CRTs have been applied in various contexts. However, the behaviour of a CRT in a large scale and dynamic operational multi-tenant environment is unknown. In collaboration with industrial partners various dedicated testbeds will be arranged for a series of experiments to provide in-depth insights in CRT behaviour. This knowledge enables situational utilization of CRTs based on the extent of the customization. Furthermore, scenarios for dynamic optimization of performance balancing and tenant management can be empirically identified. The collective knowledge on CRT behaviour will support the Netherlands software industry to architect, develop and maintain customer specific Saas solutions on a large scale.
The relation between the technical issues and the business issues is identified and explored. The technical as well as the business aspects will be tested in the SaaS testbed where several default services are brought together in a test environment. The software vendors Exact and AFAS have committed their collaboration to the project with their infrastructure capable of serving thousands of customer organisations.
