Wikipedia defines product engineering as “the process of designing and developing a device, assembly, or system such that it be produced as an item for sale through some production manufacturing process.” It is a branch of engineering that involves activities dealing with issues of cost, producibility, quality, performance, reliability, serviceability and user features so as to provide customers with high-quality goods and services in a timely, cost-effective manner.

Product engineering attains great importance in today’s competitive business environment where enterprises need to develop product features that meet dynamic market demands and deliver value to end users so as to stay ahead of the competition. In such a scenario, partnering with product engineering services expert can help enterprises in introducing innovative product engineering processes. They offer product engineering services for all stages of the software product development lifecycle, from product conceptualization to product extensions. Here is a look at their core focus areas and capabilities in product engineering.

·         Product Conceptualization & Development

Ø  Performing product research and conceptualization

Ø  Identifying and designing key features

Ø  Selecting an architecture design & platform

Ø  Adopting an appropriate development strategy

Ø  Providing UI prototyping and technology POCs

·         Product Localization

Ø  Extracting and localizing strings

Ø  Updating graphic elements (e.g., screenshots, UIs, fonts, etc.)

Ø  Enabling run-time language switching

Ø  Resizing and rearranging dialog controls

Ø  Rebuilding resource files

Ø  Correctly formatting dates and times, currency values, and decimal numbers

Ø  Testing the product's look/feel, keyboard shortcuts, data display and compatibility

·         Product Customization & Implementation

Ø  Integrating and customizing products to meet the end user's requirements

Ø  Installing the product at an end user's site

Ø  Training the end user on essential product skills

Ø  Reinforcing product best practice

Ø  Resolving any technical issues

·         Product Migration & Porting

Ø  Operating System migration (e.g., Solaris, Linux, Windows)

Ø  Pre .NET to .NET migration

Ø  Application server migration

Ø  J2EE to .NET migration and vice versa

Ø  Proprietary architecture to an open, standards-based architecture (e.g., J2EE, .NET)

Ø  Database migration (e.g., SQL Server, Oracle, DB2)

Ø  Programming language migration

Ø  Platform interoperability (mobile)

·         Product Extensions

Ø  Identifying and quickly extending product functionality

Ø  Extending product design and scope for cross-platform integration

Ø  Extending product for web and smart devices

Besides, they help in setting up an offshore product development lab for companies that lack a content engineering  or need to support a single product or entire product line. Thus, enterprises get full lifecycle R&D and support services, as well as proven processes and dedicated engineering teams.


Related Links: software product development , Digital Advertising

 
Simply put, Identity Access Management (IAM) is a process that monitors the kind of data that a person has access to. It can be defined as a cross-functional practice that includes establishing individual identities of people and systems and offering the system association and application-level accounts to these identities. There are several executives who are of the opinion that IAM is purely an IT function, but the process impacts every business unit across the organization. It is therefore essential that business units have a thorough understanding of IAM and ways to handle it. This apart, IT teams should also understand the manner in which IAM can help in various business processes and provide effective solutions that cater to corporate objectives, thereby not making an enterprise vulnerable to any security attacks and risks.

Developing an IAM Strategy
When you are developing an Identity Access Management strategy, there are certain aspects that you must take into account. They are:

  • The organization’s requirements
  • The risks related to IAM strategy and the manner in which they can be addressed
  • The method to approach IAM within an organization and effectiveness of IAM
  • The procedure of authenticating users
  • The process of identifying users and the percentage of users that are present in an organization
  • Monitoring of the users is accessing the IT resources in an inappropriate way
  • Access approvals that are given to the users
  • Tracking and recording user activities

Keeping all these aspects in mind, service providers of information risk management and data protection have introduced identity access management solutions with advanced features such as:

Strategy and Design
Here the service providers a methodical requirement analysis and planning essential for setting up a base for an efficient IAM strategy. The company evaluates the end-user’s requirements through various avenues that comprise field assessments and executive workshops thereby setting up a strategy and IAM route map. It also helps with technology evaluation, business case analysis and solution architecture.

Digital Identity and User Lifecycle Management
This comprises of design and management of data for identifying individuals to approve them digital transactions. It is also important to monitor these identities over a span of time.

Access Management
This offers a comprehensive solution for enterprise access management including single sign on, web access management, information rights management and coverage access control.

Service providers with advanced IAM solutions enable you to sustain and optimize your IAM strategy. The IAM has been always active and hence the systems associated with it too needs to change and update continuously. High-end IAM solutions cater to this through system improvements and upgrades.

Read more on - application security, mobile security

 
Making the world more transparent and interconnected, Social media is tremendously alluring  for B-to-B marketers. Companies now realize that social media is a great place to attract new customers and it is therefore important to run a campaign that gives you a valuable Return On Investment (ROI).  Recent studies A recent study conducted by IBM Corporation found that while almost 50% of the 1,161 companies surveyed put more money into B2B lead generation through social media in 2012, only about 22% said they were prepared to incorporate social media tools into their day-to-day operations. Creating a buzz within social communities is an effective tactic for social media strategy as social discussion boosts engagement, as a result encouraging traffic, word of mouth, and awareness.

Social Media and Lead Generation
Prospects discuss your business, products and services in social media venues. It is important to find out what they are saying, clarify their needs, and reach out to them with specialized campaigns. Social media sites are excellent tools for Lead Nurturing and customers as well as share content and messages about your organization. In B2B marketing,  it is essential to have effective tools for promotional purposes, and make sure that  you are attracting new fans and followers through content and campaigns that will attract the right prospects.

Social media is rated as the top marketing channel for lead generation. You can now track phone calls, web visitors and see which of your marketing streams is most effective and creating ROI. Although it is a great means of increasing a company’s trustworthiness and goodwill, how you behave on social networks will shape how your audience views your organization.

When companies are able to have conversations with their customers, the result is going to be a great amount of credibility.  Social media channels also make it easier and more flexible for companies to engage with its customers, and it certainly gives the organization increased and better branding. Aside from that, when you promote your products through social media channels, this will definitely help you so that you can increase your return over investment or ROI.

Social media campaigns needs to be a growing part of any organization's’ marketing plan. The technologies help us create a conversation between the brand, customers & prospective customers. To firmly establish your company, it is vitally necessary to connect with your audience.  Interesting articles will make people want to read your posts and answering their comments and questions will help you understand what your audience  really wants. Generate many viable prospective leads by running a good social media marketing campaign.

Read more on - Lead Management , Marketing Automation

 
With the advent of iPhone and the new marketing scopes that it offers, there has been a strong interest in iPhone application development and this is also being integrated into the web marketing strategy that will put a business organization in the forefront of recent social trends, enabling you to connect with your consumers in a new and exciting manner.

The most recent iPhone 4 has set up a platform for the marketers to get connected with their consumers. iPhone application development has expanded its possibilities and capacities for web marketing. A portable internet connection and a mini web browser offer iPhone users the access to the internet at their convenient anytime and anywhere. The advantage for the marketers is that they can have more opportunities for their online marketing campaigns. Other than this, mobile application development activities too have gained a progressive momentum in the recent days owing to the consumer demand for interesting applications for social networking, gaming, online browsing, chatting, instant messaging and many more.

The power and capacity of the Smartphone’s and computing tablets today have resulted in establishing virtual office spaces, online movie theaters, libraries and shopping malls that move along with the consumer. In fact, advanced mobile technology leaders such as Android and Apple activate numerous devices every day. To stay functioning in a market without boundaries it is essential to cater to consumer demands in keeping with the business objectives. Therefore, keeping all these concerns in mind today companies specializing in software product development offers a dynamic environment for iPhone application development. The mobile technology offered by these companies span across various mobile devices, platforms and operating systems and they have provided solution from a chip set to mobile applications as well. These companies design, develop, deploy, review and support both enterprise and consumer mobile application for technologies such as:

Mobile Devices

·         iPad

·         iPhone

·         Motorola

·         LG

·         Samsung

·         Motorola

·         Microsoft

·         Nokia

·         BlackBerry

·         Sony Ericsson

Mobile Operating Systems and Platforms

  Android

·         iOS J2ME

·         BREW

·         Windows Mobile

·         Palm

·         Symbian

·         BlackBerry

iPhone allows an individual to seamlessly access data and other required services at their ease and convenience. High –end iPhone application development programs offered by companies today has the potential to offer business houses and other enterprises a competitive edge through improved customer service and a higher access to their target market.

Related Links: ecommerce solutions , Social commerce platforms

 
The technologically developed business world faces  challenge in the form of security issues everyday. Nevertheless enterprise have taken a number of measures to safeguard the security levels of the business environment by implementing security controls such as network penetration testing and  automated security tools. However, in the wake of globalization, companies have been off shoring projects and application development to distant teams as well as outsourcing of project modules to third party service providers, but the security controls deployed till date have not been able to manage the security challenges fully.

Today's global enterprises with their wide corporate networks, large volumes of digital data transfers and the vast number of end-users accessing the networks thus require a holistic application security framework. Wikipedia defines application security as “the measures taken throughout the application's life-cycle to prevent exceptions in the security policy of an application or the underlying system (vulnerabilities) through flaws in the design, development, deployment, upgrade, or maintenance of the application."

With the cyber criminals lurking in the web space, enterprises with the use of appropriate hardware, software and secure application development processes in place,  can ensure a protection from cyber threats and malicious attacks.

However, as technological advancements also pave way for the cyber criminals to work anew, there are new threats and vulnerabilities emerging every day leading to a threat prone business environment. The global enterprises thus collaborate with third party solution partners to provide them with effective information risk management services.  

According to Gartner, Watchfire and Symantec confirm that 75 percent of the attacks target the application layer and 90 percent of the websites are vulnerable to attacks. Leading solution providers deploy comprehensive secure application development framework that seamlessly weaves into the security frameworks to protect enterprises' application and data from cyber criminals. With the implementation of regulatory policies such as the PCI DSS, SOX and Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) being mandatory, it is imperative for organizations to implement apt application security solutions.

The leading service providers of application security solutions help the client organization to identify and protect application data by building a security framework, security design patterns and development of respective secure controls within the application. The innovative application security programs thus designed by these service providers operates by assessing the risks to the critical business data and designing a security framework that will help improve usability, performance and robustness of the applications. It also allows deploying the application security controls and technologies such as encryption, authentication, code access security, authorization and device authenticity.

Moreover, by providing ongoing assistance and secure remediation to alleviate any new and unknown security attacks the solution partner can help the client enterprise to optimize their technology execution thus minimizing the probability of application security attacks.

Read more on - data protection , identity access management

 
The modern day consumer has the access to a wide selection of products online owing to advancements in internet technology. From books, gadgets, clothes, groceries, accessories and other products the internet has made it possible for the consumers to select products of their choice and it gets couriered to their place. This means consumers no longer need to visit the marketplace, but rather can place their orders through the internet with just a click of the mouse. This lead to the eCommerce boom eventually. The majority of business houses have undertaken this approach with an objective to garner more business to their company. It apparently seems to be a cost efficient and beneficial way for business expansion in international avenues.

Keeping this in mind, the ultimate objective of eCommerce solutions offered by service providers today is to make the online customers purchase the products and services from the website. Therefore, while setting up an eCommerce solution it is essential that companies are required to integrate a host of online selling strategies.

Keeping in mind the modern day technological era, eCommerce websites are aptest way for improving marketing programs. With the help of an effective program, the website owners can endorse a diverse range of products through the World Wide Web. This further enables the consumers with multiple payment modes, through debit card, credit card, cash on delivery payments and much more. Keeping In mind that there is zero interaction between the seller and the consumer, the expense of selling is way lesser than the conventional mode of selling. In this way the process of selling is way more efficient and quicker. Identified as an easy and pocket friendly way of business promotion, the development of eCommerce websites are increasing at a fast speed.

Along with this the speed of eCommerce solutions too are increasing with service providers specializing in product engineering foraying into the market. These companies makes use of business intelligence tools and come up high-end eCommerce solutions focusing on areas such as:

·         Online, social and mobile commerce

·         Web portals for specialized services

·         Interactive advertising

However, the primary aspect of attaining a competitive advantage in the expanding eCommerce market is by ensuring a great consumer experience. In order to attain this advanced eCommerce solutions have inbuilt features that make use of a sharp user interface, safe data management, quick performance, a Solid POS and the capacity to manage huge amount of web traffic.


Related Links: iphone application development, application lifecycle management

 
Today, prospects can easily find information they want from online sources, thanks to the ardent efforts of content marketing teams of B2B companies. The single purpose of content marketing is to convert a casual website visitor or a prospective buyer into a customer, by sharing relevant content. And, marketing automation tools makes this process of conversion effortless for B2B companies.

Marketing automation tools when used in tandem with content marketing techniques can create the desired effect in B2B lead generation and sales. Here are some of the benefits listed below.

1. Generating Lead Traffic
Content such as articles, press releases and advertisements are usually used to drive traffic to the company website. Content posted in other sites helps to spread word about the company’s products and get attention (through keyword links) to the corporate website. Marketing automation can be leveraged to track prospects arriving from such sources.

2. Lead Tracking
Form-fill has always been the traditional way of tracking leads. But today, with marketing automation tools marketers can capture website activity of website visitors. Apart from this, lead capture can be done for webinar views, downloading demo videos, viewing slides, click-throughs registered from URLs shared in email, registration of an offline event and subscription of newsletters.

3. Lead Scoring
Lead scoring is the greatest benefit offered by marketing automation solutions. By scoring website actions performed by prospects marketers can assess their purchase readiness and, a suitable sales team or manager can be assigned to them as well.  Mostly prospects are scored based on the lead profiles set by the marketer. For example: If an electronic B2B equipment maker wants to target only those website visitors who have clicked through the URL shared in the email sent and specifically those visiting from North America, then the lead scoring model is setup in such a way that these leads are only filtered. Also, prospects will be automatically allotted to designated lead nurturing teams.

4. Lead Nurturing
In B2B marketing, it is very important to nurture leads as they move from one stage to another. It is during this stage that marketers need to build trust and gain credibility so that prospects are able to trust and believe what the marketer says. During this stage, content marketing involves emails, blogs, articles, eBooks, whitepapers, customer success stories, case studies, etc. Marketing automation, at this stage, is used to map the content required for nurturing leads so that marketers can choose the right content to share.

With a robust marketing automation system supporting content based B2B lead nurturing and lead generation activities, marketers can expect faster lead conversion.

Read more on - Lead Management software , Lead Management

 
The B2B marketer is judged by one the number of qualified leads generated.  Today with intense competition around marketing teams need to come up with innovative and effective lead generation strategies to ensure that there is an incessant flow of qualified leads through the sales funnel.

When it comes to lead generation, marketers are always talking about planning and strategy. Most lead generation methods are largely built on trial and error, and businesses may fail a few times before actually succeeding. The most effective tools available for lead generation requires a changing of perspective and strategy. Developing a demand generation plan is the first step to demand generation success. The key to developing a truly effective plan is to understand the best practices and tactics from competition to build  a successful strategy  designed to win.

Producing quality, actionable leads for a robust sales pipeline on a daily basis is an all encompassing function. The discipline of prospecting requires a unique set of attributes and skills. The key to lead generation is using a variety of strategies at the one time. Just as a regular print advertisement  won’t generate a large number of leads, it is important to understand that a business needs to be using  marketing tools simultaneously to really reach your target market and draw them to your business.

Settle on the best lead generation techniques, so that those best practices going forward to keep failure to a minimum. The first step is to realize that not all potential clients are at the same stage of the buying process. Understanding the target audience and their needs is a key essential in creating a successful inbound marketing plan. Once the  buyers and their needs are understood, businesses can ensure that they are better equipped  to provide and offer content or services that will benefit target audience.  This content could consist of eBooks, webinars, articles, or videos that are attractive to the potential buyer.

Simple and cost effective lead nurturing strategies combined with your other marketing activities will ensure there is a constant stream of new leads that can be converted into customers. Networking groups, Alliances, Trade shows/expos, Testimonial/word of mouth are cost-effective ways to generate leads and it is recommended  that all businesses engage in at least some of them.


Whether your business outsources the lead generation function or strengthen the  internal demand generation process—the strategies, metrics and performance requirements need to be able to produce quality leads. Establish the best processes and strategies in order to produce an ongoing, successful sales pipeline of quality, actionable leads that meets and exceeds your forecast.

Read more on - social media campaigns, Lead Management

 
In today’s age of cloud computing, where everything is stored and shared on a common server, incidents of data breach and data exploitation are quite common. Hence, there is the need to address the issue of security profoundly during the software development life cycle. Security vulnerabilities need to come down at any cost. However, in spite of security controls with the automated security tools and penetration testing there is not much reduction in security vulnerabilities.

In most organizations, the biggest challenge is to avoid repeated mistakes among the developer community. Classroom trainings alone cannot address this problem adequately. Hence, what is required is a holistic application security framework that helps clients to develop effective security for their application portfolio.

Wikipedia defines application security as “the measures taken throughout the application's life-cycle to prevent exceptions in the security policy of an application or the underlying system (vulnerabilities) through flaws in the design, development, deployment, upgrade, or maintenance of the application.”

Simply put, application security is the use of software, hardware and procedural methods to reduce security vulnerabilities and thereby protect applications from hackers. As part of it, organizations need to identify and protect application data by building a security framework, security design patterns and development of respective secure controls within the application. This can be done by carrying out proper requirement gathering, as it would translate into effective design strategies and development of secure software for the organization.

Enterprises can partner with Information Risk Management services expert who can help with deploying a comprehensive secure application development framework across their application weaved in with security frameworks protecting their application and data from the hands of malicious hackers and end users. The following are some of the services that they offer.

Strategy and Design
During this phase, requirements are assessed and effective security requirement, strategy and policy are developed. The critical data that will be handled by the application is analyzed to know who will own it, who and how it’s created, how it’s used, to whom it is shared etc. Based on an assessment of risks, the application security framework is designed. The design includes the best security design patterns to simplify the solution and improve performance, usability and robustness.

Control Implementation
During this phase, the appropriate security controls and technologies such as advanced authentication, encryption, authorization, code access security, device authenticity, FIPS 140 etc are developed and deployed. The project management and technical implementation skills are provided to effectively implement as per the design criteria without violating any compliance requirement that the software should adhere to.

Sustenance and Optimization
The technology implementation is fine-tuned and optimized to ensure reduction in security threats with ongoing support and secure remediation to fix any unknown or new emerging threats.

Thus with application security, enterprises can ensure security, performance and robustness, and prevent significant impact to business and reputation that is possible because of data loss.

Read more on - data protection, identity access management

 
The advent of the Internet and its paraphernalia has definitely changed the way shopping is done today. Gone are the days of wading through traffic, scouring store after store, rummaging through shopping items to buy products. Today shopping is done within the comforts of one’s home. Thanks to technologies such as electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems today eCommerce is carried out with ease.

If it is the Internet that transformed the mode of shopping by bringing in the concept of eCommerce, then it is social networking that breathed a new life into eCommerce through the concept of customer engagement. Previously eCommerce was all about attracting customers to web portals and making them buy products or pay for services as quickly as possible. However, today, thanks to social networking, eCommerce is expanding beyond simple B2C and B2B shopping portals. The widespread adoption of social networking has shifted the traditional online shopping model to incorporate consumers' active participation in the marketing and selling of products. As customers have the last word and buy products if and only if the products appeal to their preferences, enterprises today attach great importance to customer preferences, their likes and dislikes. Hence, enterprises first identify customer demands and then create products and services.

In a nutshell, the success of eCommerce depends a lot on providing a great customer experience. Unless and until the customers are satisfied, no amount of effort can help enterprises gain a competitive edge in these growing ecommerce solutions  . This includes a sharp user interface, secure data management, a solid POS, rapid performance and the ability to handle large amounts of traffic.

Collaborating with product engineering   provider who has the right mix of experience and expertise can help enterprises to develop cutting edge eCommerce solutions. Here is a look at the capabilities of a leading software R & D services expert with experience of working with multiple BPM workflow modeling tools (e.g., Appian, JBPM, OS Workflow) and reporting tools (e.g., Jasper, BIRT, Appian, Kettle, Microstrategy).

·         Online storefronts, catalogs and shopping carts

·         Web-based administration products for managing inventory, coupon codes and gift certificates

·         Point of sales (POS) and payment processing solutions

·         Web portals for travel, ticketing and event management

·         Online auction engines based on open source libraries

·         Websites optimized for the user content generation

·         Location-based shopping services for mobile phones

·         Robust, scalable platforms for digital content delivery

·         Next-generation ad servers

With eCommerce changing with evolving times, there is the need of innovative eCommerce solutions to keep up with changing customer preferences as it helps to ensure customer satisfaction.

Related Links: business intelligence tools , iphone application development