ConsortiumWeb Dedicated Developer Program
Since its founding, ConsortiumWeb has been working with
its development partners around the world to complete a host of exciting projects.
Whilst per-project engagements with Offshore Development Centers (ODCs) offer great
cost benefits over in-house development, they also have their pitfalls. Having become
familiar with some of these pitfalls we decided that it was time to do something
about rising costs and falling efficiency.
As a result, the Dedicated Developer Program (DDP) was developed
in consultation with some of industry's most experienced and successful offshore
resource managers. The time is now right, we feel, to introduce ConsortiumWeb DDP
to our Australian clients in an effort to marry cost-effective web development with
reliable and always-available technical expertise.
Features
When you participate in the DDP, we will find and engage developers to work for
you in a dedicated, full-time capacity, to plan, develop and maintain your IT project.
- Low-risk, with trial periods and well-defined exit clauses
- Fixed costs, paid at a fixed frequencies
- Skills-matched developers chosen to suit your requirements
- Always "ready-to-go" with changes in your plans
- Single point of contact
- Relative savings of thousands
Benefits to your company
Low-risk
Relative to project-based development, dedicated development alleviates your
financial risk significantly. To simplify, it's no riskier than employing
a local staff member. We achieve this by keeping everything transparent and in writing,
with terms agreed to by all parties before any work has commenced. We also have
people on the ground in countries where we do our dedicated outsourcing to ensure
that our expected standards are met.
Fixed costs
We not only offer, but encourage fixed-fee engagements over the period of the
contract. This gives you the ability to forecast expenditure and avoid
the cost blowouts that afflict 8 out of 10 project-based developments.
Skills access
Our developers are highly-skilled and experienced, chosen to match your project
rather than the other way round. They are inherently hard workers who work to exacting
standards.
Flexibility
Your IT projects benefit from flexiblity and are able to adapt to changing circumstances
during the course of development. We recognise that well-planned IT
projects should be executed in equal parts of planning, coding and testing, but
these plans also need to be flexible to accommodate the unexpected. A traditional
per-project contract will almost certainly blow out under these circumstances.
Stability
As your project is planned and begins to take place, you don't need to worry
about staff leaving and taking everything with them - your developers
are as bound to you as you are to them. In any event, all work is documented to
cater for unforseen circumstances.
Contact
We act as your representative when managing your developers so that problems
with language and technical understanding need never bother you. No
phone calls from a distant timezone at 10pm, no struggling to understand what they're
talking about. You issue the instructions and we take care of them for you.
Cost effective
Finally, the savings - in most cases we are able to operate at half of what
it would cost to set up a fully-staffed development centre in Australia.
The internet is ubiquitous and we use this fact to ensure that your costs are minimised.
Email, VoIP, Skype, online workspaces - these are some of the tools we use to streamline
our work ethic into an efficient, cost-effective and reliable machine.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do we get a dedicated developer on board?
First, we meet with you to talk about your technical requirements, budget and the
timeframe for a full-time appointment.
Back at our offices, we negotiate with reputable companies in a number of countries
(including Australia) to obtain a list of developers who are able to work in a full-time
capacity on your company's projects. Their credentials are assessed along with their
experience and reliability, and all being well, we finalise documentation to prepare
for their appointment. We convey the good news to you, and upon commencement of
the agreement proper, a 90-day trial period begins.
When this trial period ends, you have comfort of knowing you have a no-penalty exit
clause to wield, but we're confident that we will give you no reason to do so.
What costs are involved?
There are two cost components to consider, both of which are fixed and payable per
month:
- the monthly salary of each developer
- expenses incurred by the company in supporting your developers
Where additional expenses are involved, we always run them by you for prior approval.
If we fail to do this, we wear the cost.
Is ConsortiumWeb sending Australian IT jobs overseas?
ConsortiumWeb is not in the business of moving Australian jobs overseas and forcing
Australian developers onto unemployment benefits - in fact, we also negotiate with
Australian firms when looking for dedicated developers. However Australian IT professionals
are currently working at capacity, and the overwhelming demand is causing IT costs
to rise disproportionately to the complexity of projects commissioned. The cost
forces many firms to slow down or halt their IT ambitions, when there has never
a better time to fully engage them. We strive to give Australian businesses a competitive
IT advantage by giving them the ability to react quickly to changing environments
without risking an arm and a leg, and especially without accelerating the growth
of the IT expense bubble.
Are we likely to encounter language barriers?
No - you will be dealing at all times with a ConsortiumWeb contact, who is fluent
in English and based in Australia. We act as the project managers and communicators,
leaving you to be the boss, while we handle the technical jargon.
Is my project suited to having a dedicated developer on board?
In most cases, it does a project a world of good to have dedicated developers
on board, in both senses of the word. To get a better idea of whether this is the
case, contact us to discuss
the suitability of your project. When you contact ConsortiumWeb we will ask you
about your requirements - typical questions will include those about your time and
budget, and about your current arranagements in order to establish the suitability
of dedicated manpower in the context of your web development. Having a dedicated
developer on board is specifically beneficial where:
- Budgeting is uniform and spread evenly over a time frame.
- Your scope is evolving, and the risk of project blowout based on change requests
is prohibitive
- There is no fixed launch date for a project, or if there is, it includes a long-term,
maintenance and evolution strategy
Do you work according to a certified project management schema?
ConsortiumWeb does not require any of our development partners to be certified for
any accreditation, as we believe this can be a double-edged sword. CMM Level 5 certification,
for example, can give you a complete paper trail for every aspect of a project,
but it takes over twenty hours of assessment (not coding) to decide whether
a button can be moved from the left to the right-hand sided of a screen. There is
a fine balance between accountability and efficiency, and while we strive to maintain
the balance, we keep the goal of the project in mind; that said, if a project requires
an understanding of any accreditation scheme, we can certainly find developers who
will cater to your request.
What do I do next?
Contact us to
arrange a phone or on-site meeting. The Dedicated Developer Program is currently
being overseen by Yean Lee, would would only be too happy to take your phone call:
+61 (7) 3252 3037.