Analysis Of Software Components For Developing Customer-Centric Business Software

Market-oriented versus Customer-centric approach

Human civilization is at an interesting age-the age of digitization. In 1946,Presper Eckert and John Mauchlyinvented the first computer, setting pace for what would be one of the most important human inventions. Almost one hundred years later, the computer has augmented the digital world, “invading” almost every aspect of human activity. From: healthcare, security, accounting, and even space exploration amongst numerous other areas that enable thriving if not survival of humanity.

However, the functionality of a computer is dependent on instructions, instructionsare oftenembedded in software. Curley (2018) defines software as “a set of electronic program instructions or data a computer processor reads in order to perform a task or operation.” Hence proving software is important in enabling the digital age to grow. Therefore, software being a product and as it is with every product; there are producers, distributors (sellers)and consumers. It has a number of business organizations that specialize in software production. Our report will focus on the conceptual view of coming up with a suitable software to suit either the client or the market.

Ladd et al (2010) argues, “Mobility and its implications for user interfaces in information systems (IS) is currently one of the most visible trends for research in human-computer interaction (HCI) to address.”

The enterprise world being competitive, calls for even more competence from the players in order to ensure survival in the software production enterprise. In the need to remain relevant, productive and ensure profitability, businesses define their scope of operation, divided as:

1. Market oriented

The design of the business product is specifically to suit the market gap identified

1. Customer oriented

The product is customer-centric, i.e. its design follows the specific needs of the customer and not necessarily the market.

In order to determine the scope of a business, analysis of the suitability and productivity is necessary. Developers, as in our case face the dilemma of choosing between developing a market or customer product, we will determine most suitable approach between market oriented and customer Centricity.

The purpose of this report is to analyze the decision and requirements underlying the identification of software components for developing business software that ensures satisfaction of the customer.

The report will cover the expectations of customers on the software they purchase; it will explore a Kano analysis to,according to Mustasfa (2015), “classify software requirements to optimize customer satisfaction.” It will also include a requirements design using Quality Function Deployment. Additionally, the report will explore the design risk analysis using failure-mode-and-effect-analysis and then present the results of the analyses. Moreover, we will undertake statistical process control to enable us analyze the quality of the selected processes in making decisions.However, the report will not include details of software development, i.e. software programming. It will nevertheless focus on the design of software as a business product for an established company.

Stakeholders in Business

The aim of this plan is to:

1. Make Orion company a quality developer of User-interactive software
2. “Transform our information technology division from a poorly respected internal service provider to a highly sought after innovator in building the company’s competitive advantage.” Chambers (2018).

• To improve the effectiveness of our software while making it affordable to our customers

1. To be the leading role-model developer of User-Interactive software

In an article on management and decision-making, Eden and Ackermann argue that, stakeholders are “People or small groups with the power to respond to, negotiate with, and change the strategic future of the organization.” (1998). Therefore, for any business organization to thrive, there should be a culture of harmony among its stakeholders, adequately ensuring the meeting of respective requirements for each stakeholder. A recent study by stakeholdermap (2017), categorizes stakeholders as:

1. Beneficiaries
2. Governance

• Influencers   

1. Providers

Mathur et al (2007) notes that, “In order to have an effective stakeholder engagement, it is crucial that all the relevant stakeholders are identified early in theprocess…” of decision-making and involvement in business activities. Hence, stakeholders to a business enterprise include:

• The government
• Business Customers
• Shareholders
• Trade unions
• Workers
• The community
• Business partners
• Suppliers
• Media
• Governing body

In most cases, each stakeholder has a role in the business and an expectation from the business as well. For instance the needs of the stakeholders of Orion Inc. are:

Consumers expect quality software in return for the value of their money as well as the reliability of the company to deliver on their promises

The government requires compliance of the company with environmental regulations and promotion of sustainability in line with international policies. Additionally, it expects payment of tax by the company.

The media expect accountability of the company to its actions, i.e. disclosure of information relating to industrial actions and provision of reliable information on company performance

Trade unions expect fair wages and payment to the company workers as well as provision of humane working conditions for the workers

Employees expect a fair working environment that offers opportunities to grow, through promotions etcetera as well as reasonable payment in relation to their input

Shareholders require accountability from the company for the financial processes involved with the company. They expect utilization of investing resources to ensure profitability and growth of the company

The community expects the company to give back through charity support and donations. It also expects it to offer employment opportunities to the locals

Business partners such as suppliers, expect fair bargain as well as honesty, elsewhere competitors, expect fair and ethical competition from the company to promote healthy growth of both companies

The governing body expects disclosure of all business operations by the executive to monitor growth and ensure the company operations are in line with the business philosophy. The governance body also oversees the company meets all its obligations to the other stakeholders

In business, there are five fundamental components making up the entire “picture,” among them is the buyer (customer), the customer, often points the direction of the business organization hence need to identify their needs accurately to enable relevant and better product provision.

Collecting Data for Analysis

Sorger (2010) proposes one method ofidentification of customer needs as involving five steps:

1. Collection of data from customers
2. Data interpretation according to customer needs

• Hierarchical organization of the needs

1. Determining the urgency and importance of the needs relative to each other
2. Outcome reflections and the process

Elsewhere, Rees(2014) proposes four steps to the identification of a customer need, these include:

1. Identifying the target customer(s)
2. Collecting relevant data from the customers in regard to the supposed need(s)

• Analysis of the data

1. Translation of the data

Sorger method

Strengths

• Includes a comprehensive data collection procedure ensuring all relevant information related to the customer and the business need is captured
• The data is interpretation is specific to be in regard to the need
• The method involves a unique inference of the analysis outcome dictating the process of identifying the need

Weakness

• The method is cumbersome to Carry in regard to the processes involved, i.e. it takes relatively long time to come up with a conclusion and therefore delaying the business operation  

Opportunities

• The data obtained offers great insight to a wide range of customer needs therefore the chances for encompassing complete customer needs in the final product development are promising

Threats

• The long process of data collection in order to determine the right customer need could be injurious to the company since other competitors using swifter methods may identify the business gap before our company does therefore leaving us at a disadvantage.

Strengths

• The method involves identification of target customers and therefore narrows down the focus, hence reducing uncertainties in the data collection
• Involves few steps, therefore the process of identifying customer needs is quicker
• The method is relatively cheap and therefore economic friendly to the company

Weakness

• The method is somewhat brief and may fail to capture all the customer data for interpretation. As such, it may lead to wrong interpretation and consequently wrong view of customer needs

Opportunities

• The method offers fast results and therefore reliable for making prompt decisions regarding product upgrade or development

Threats

• Due to its brevity, the method is prone to leave out crucial information about a customer need and therefore leading to irrelevant product development or upgrade.

Given that, our company wants to develop entirelynew software for User-Interactive interface, it is important to adopt a more comprehensive approach in collection of data that is required for analysis and decision-making. Therefore, we will adopt the Sorger method.

The aim of a business is often to make a positive impression on their buyers while also generating returns. Therefore, for there to be a positive impression the customer ought to be satisfied by the product, a Kano model thrives on:

1. How much the product features satisfies the customer depending on the product functionality
2. Classification of the features can be into four categories

• Determining the opinion of customers by way of questionnaire

It involves two dimensions:

• Achievement (X- axis)
• Satisfaction (Y-axis)

The goal of our company is to ensure customer satisfaction with our new software. According to an argument by America society of quality (2018), there are three expectation levels influencing customer satisfaction, including expected needs, normal needs and exciting.

1. Expected needs (Musts)

They are also known as musts, included in basic entrance level, where satisfying this needs introduces the company to the market. The needs involve the basic properties of a product, i.e. properties. Hence the customer needs are:

• Whether the software product works at first start
• The software has basic functionalities with which it is attributed to do
• The software offers user interactive in real-time. I.e. it is reliable
• The software can be adopted to multiple platforms including Linux, Ios, and Windows
• Basic security features
• Ensures user privacy
• Runs without any debugging issues
• Consumes moderate processor memory
• Software has manual for demonstration of its basic workability
• The software is relatively affordable without unnecessary license purchase requirement

1. Normal needs (Wants)

Normal needs are the product qualities that enable the company to stay relevant and running in the market. They are also customer wants. Customer wants for software they include. They are to suite customer requirements such as:

• The software works relatively fast in comparison to other similar software
• The software has a warrant for use or a return policy
• Our company offers after-sale services such as corporate training for integration and smooth adoption by the client
• The mode of payment is suitable and easy to Carry out
• Customer support in case of queries
• The software is available for new buyers
• Operation manuals for each release
• Notification method for each new development is possible for new and old buyers
• Subsequent purchases are discounted
• The software version is stable

1. Exciting needs ( Desirables)

Desirables are the features and qualities that make a product stand out and the company to be a supply leader. They are the cream that attract the customers, cultivate loyalty, ensuring they become return customers. The customers’ desirables may include:

• Attractive warranty
• Free corporate training
• Good discounts for referrals
• Membership status upon purchase of the software
• Free upgrades for subsequent versions after purchase of original software version

	Kano Analysis for Customer Prioritization	Adore	I would Adore it; enjoy it; it would be helpful to me.
		Normal	ought to be that way; it is a basic need.
	Indifferent	Indifferent;

Supplier Selection and Evaluation

According to Lee et al (2011), “To specify the MSS software components, we distinguish between a generic solution level, which covers abstract domains of MSS design, and a solution instance level.” In most cases, a fully functional software development comprises the integration of several components.

Software can be categorized as;

1. Application software
2. System software

• Utility software

In ourcase, user interactive Interface software is under system software, the components include:

1. Data
2. Software architecture

• Software design

1. Software runtime technology
2. Invocation protocol
3. Physical server devices

• Software technology architecture
• Development test

1. Deployed technology instances
2. Deployed application instances

There are a myriad of considerations when choosing which supplier to provide the given component. The choice of a supplier is dependent on the specific component. In choosing a supplier for server services, we will consider:

1. Speed of the server for each given server provider
2. Data security, i.e. security protocols employed by the provider to ensure security against cybercrimes such as hacks

• Storage space available for the software’s data and whether it can hold multiple requests from client end simultaneously

1. Operation prices quoted by the providers
2. Simplicity of use, i.e. how easy is it to integrate the software and the server
3. Peripherals offered by the provider, such as routers for the mainframe server

• Length of operation before requiring maintenance
• Terms of business, are they favorable or somewhat harmful

1. Ease of access by our user-end clients when requesting data
2. Additional competitive benefits from the providers, including business longevity benefits

In a study by Khaireddin (2016) on the development and application of supplier’s selection, he proposes the use of “Multi-criteria approach: the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)” to identify the most suitable supplier. The approach involves:

1. Identification of the key purpose of the model development
2. Selecting a core-procedure for comparing relative priorities amongst the suppliers, the priorities are:

• Cost
• Quality
• Delivery
• Flexibility

1. Collection of relevant data through filling forms in comparison for the priorities
2. Coming up with comparison matrices for individual hierarchical level
3. Investigating priorities synthesis
4. Evaluating consistencies in the pair comparison
5. Establishing supplier priority

Kano Analysis for Customer Prioritization

There are several processes involved in development of software. Ranging from idea-baking to the design process and eventually deployment or what is commonly known as the beta stage. In development of system software, the following processes are employed as a standard measure:

1. Conception of software idea in the innovative section
2. Determining the viability of the idea by the quality control team

• If viable the basic functionality is determined, accessed and sketched

1. Software architecture design
2. Software framework and scope development
3. Internal tests

• Provision of beta version of the software pending complete version 

From the graphs, we find that:

1. The better version stables over time following repeat stabilization after reporting of errors and hanging by the beta users
2. The moving range indicate the average stability of the software is uniform

• One and two sigma curves are parallel to the x-axis, hence indicating relative uniformity in the sample size

1. The sample size for the beta test was 141

Software development for commercial usage is often a carefully planned and documented exercise. Therefore, the whole process is tested and the general bugs that occur fixed before the software is released for beta testing. In our case, the user interface software was tested using 141 beta users before it was deployed and declared fit for marketing

Perfection, especially in digital products is near impossible and therefore, software designs, software functionality and many other components of software are prone to failure or occasionally breakdowns. Therefore, need to define the malfunctions as problems

Majorly, the problems that occur during software usage are:

1. Abnormal runtime required to start the software
2. Excessive memory CPU usage

• User security Privacy infringement, such as collecting unauthorized information

1. Requirement of third party resources such software network framework
2. Licensing issues with the clients

Problem solving rationale

According to Kazi and Shaikh (2015), six-sigma method also denoted by the acronym DMAIC during application, is conceived “as a problem solving method, and use it to analyze it from that perspective…”

The six-sigma method employs DMAIC, as:

• Define- definition of issue to be examined and addressed
• Measure- analysis of business performance given current methods
• Analysis- Identification of causal issues and variation
• Improve- resolve problem and help improve functionality of product/ business
• Control- monitoring upcoming problems through constant improvement of current software

Conclusion

From our report, we can conclude that, quality planning and analysis is necessary in almost every business field. From service delivery, product development, and business operations, it proves to be effective in:

1. Aiding in designing of products
2. Exploration of market needs, in particular customer needs and expectations

• Exploring of requirements for a business product or process

1. Determining the relevance of the product to target market
2. Identifying the problems occurring in the business and designing means to solve and mitigate them

In general, quality is the new currency for business operations and therefore ought to be emphasized by every firm or individual embarking on enterprise operations in order to ensure that they remain relevant and up in business. The major measures of quality planning and analysis as identified from our report are:

1. SWOT analysis
2. KANO analysis

• Stakeholder analysis

1. Quality function deployment
2. Design risk analysis
3. Statistical process control

• Problem control

With this tools a business owner or the executive can be able to deploy new products or venture into new business fields confident that they will in the end be favored by statistics and business conduct ethics.

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