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What do you need from me to create a proposal?
You don't need to prepare anything before asking for a proposal - just
contact us and we will ask questions to determine what is needed from you to
create a proposal. Usually it will be whatever technical documentation,
specifications, and design documents you have. Access to your project team
members for answering questions may be required during this process.
How can I be assured of high quality, reliable software?
Our offshore software development methodology is aimed at quality and
only quality. You will have preliminary versions of the software installed
at your location for internal testing, verification and acceptance. Within
3-month warranty period after the software was installed in production
release, any bug(s) in the code will be corrected free of charge.
Can I get an overview about the cost of my software system?
Of course you can. Just contact us or fill up the Request for Quote
form, and our sales team will approach you as soon as possible. After
analyzing your particular requirements, they will present you our free
preliminary review.
I have concerns about Intellectual Property Ownership. Who owns the final
product?
Most often our customers hold the copyrights and own the final product.
This is fixed in the contract.
How can I start using Agnicient services?
Contact us with your business requirements, ideas or simply questions.
You can contact us via email at
sales@Agnicient.com
or by filling up the Request for Info form
What kinds of software outsourcing development resources are available on
the market today?
When you need to go beyond your own organization to get software
development done, there are several types of resources you can rely on:
"Independent Consultant" - Go for it If your needs are small, and
coordination with a lot of people is not a key factor for you. There are a
number of individuals working on their own who have excellent skills and can
be reasonably priced since they usually work out of their own homes, which
is less expensive as far as additional costs. Make sure that the independent
consultant is a really good match of the skills you need because he/she most
likely will not have the ability to tap other people into his/her
organization.
"Body Shop"- Often referred to as "consulting firms," many of these
companies are little more than temporary agencies for software development
people. They generally provide personnel who work on your site and join your
project team. In case you have already got a solid team making satisfactory
progress, this may be a way to add a few needed people on a short-term
basis. Some body shops provide varying degrees of methodology and project
management to add value to the work their consultants do.
"Spec Converters"- These are firms that specialize in highly
efficient coding and testing - - provided you have a very clear and
unambiguous specification. However, this is often not the case and there
will be a need to find a software development partner who can achieve a
thorough understanding of your business need and jointly develop
requirements and specifications with you.
A Full-Service, Multi-Tasking and Resourceful Professional Services
Company, what Agnicient is, will be able to provide a broad spectrum of
services - from helping guide your analysis of what software to build all
the way through to delivery of a completed, high quality product.
Professional Services Firms are often able to take on larger,
mission-critical development projects and provide both the expertise and
manpower to achieve project goals. Consider this type of firm when you are
concerned about professional management of schedules and budgets, or need
other services that go beyond just coding and testing.
How critical is it to have a contract with your software vendor?
It depends - If you have a good working relationship with your vendor,
you won't necessarily need a contract. If the relationship disintegrates,
the best contract in the world won't save your project. Nevertheless,
contracts are both required and prudent in most cases.
What are the typical kinds of financial contracts for software
development projects?
Financial arrangements for software development payment usually fall
into one of three
Categories: fixed-bid, time and materials
What is a fixed-bid contract?
With that type of contract, the client agrees to pay a fixed amount of
money for delivery of fixed software functionality. The positive thing about
a fixed-bid contract is that you know in advance what it is going to cost
you and it puts pressure on the vendor to be efficient.
The negative side of a fixed-bid is that the vendor needs to build in
additional costs to cover the expense of items that might come up. You also
may not be as motivated as you should to cooperate with the vendor when he
needs questions answered or any kind of assistance because you will think it
won't affect the cost since it is a fixed bid.
What is a time and materials contract?
With that type of contract, the client agrees to pay by the hour for the
effort put into their project. With this kind of project, you will not have
to worry about the issues of what is included and what is not, like you do
with a fixed bid. You and your vendor can make decisions and press ahead
with the project. It will also be easier for you to have a say in how things
are done since you will have to pay the price if the least expensive route
is not chosen. A time and materials contract also puts pressure on you to do
everything possible to assist the vendor do a good job. This usually makes
for better projects. The negative side of this type of contract, however, is
that you will not know your exact cost ahead of time - so, if you do not
pick a good vendor, your costs can get away from you quite easily. If you
opt for that kind of contract, it is crucial that you keep track of what you
are asking for and insist on good faith estimates so you can control your
budget.
Our Experience
What types of projects have you done, what is your specialization?
Our firm has already successfully completed over 200 projects including
J2EE based applications, .NET based applications, Open source applications,
product development, e-business, e-government, education, finance,
manufacturing and technology consulting.
Can you start a project from any phase?
We can start a project from any phase, such as design, coding, testing
As a matter of fact, we have done such a project of continued development
and performance tuning.
Project Management
How do you control time spent in the project?
Our service can start from any phase of a project, such as design,
coding, testing. Firstly, we'll make the project schedule and preliminary
review according to your module specifications. Then we submit the workload
(in man hour) for your reference. After careful consideration and sufficient
negotiation, we both side work out a rationale schedule, which ensures
quality as well as efficiency. At this point, it's our duty to carry out the
schedule strictly.
How do clients control the project progress?
You do have full control over the development; We have proven, effective
software development processes in place. We usually submit our weekly report
to our customers by e-mail, including the work completed that week and the
work plan for the next week. Most of our clients also will also be able to
look at the work, which is deployed on staging servers. Clients can manage
projects by our online CRM.
Will you provide timesheets?
Yes. We provide weekly time-sheets of all resources deployed on your
project.
Do I get to choose what resources I want on my assignment?
Yes. We will provide you resumes of our available resource pool for you
to choose from. We can schedule interviews of these resources and
subsequently you can select which ones you would want to be working on your
assignment.
Do you include project management at your end?
We do have dedicated or shared project manages for each of our projects
based on nature and size of the project.
How do you manage testing?
We usually perform testing at three different stages. They are plan
testing at system analyzing phase, unit testing at coding phase and
integration testing after the project has been completed. So each project
experiences 3-phase testing: Alpha version, Beta version and final version.
What makes a typical software package provided by Agnicient?
A typical software package usually contains:
* Software itself.
* Quality Assurance documentation.
* Requirements documentation and design documentation.
* User's Guide.
* On-line context-sensitive help.
* Installation program and instructions.
* Completely documented source code.
* Maintenance instructions.
How do you manage the delivery on the contracted work?
For medium projects, we make the delivery through two stages: Beta
version delivery and final delivery. As for big project, the delivery will
be realized in more phases based on specific agreements we enter into with
our clients prior to starting the project.
About Pricing
How do you charge for your services?
Please contact our sales personnel at sales@Agnicient.com or Fill up the
Request for Quote form for pricing details.
How do I pay?
The simplest and the most secure way is to use pay via a check to our US
office or wire transfers. |
