Product Development Outsourcing (PDO) is traditionally understood to be the outsourcing of the technical design, development, QA, delivery, support, maintenance and even the client implementation of a software product from a product vendor to a software development vendor, or the outsourcing of different elements of this process.

It is important to understand the relationship between Product Development and Application Development. Whilst there are many differences which we will discuss over the coming weeks, the main, fundamental difference is the mindset.

• Product Development is the building of the product that a company sells to its clients. The roadmap of features and functions of the product, its user experience and its competitive edge are all of high importance. Product Development is focussed on building products that customers want to buy and will keep on buying.
• Application Development is the building of software solutions to solve business and information process issues for companies or to provide their clients with a shopping experience that facilitates and drives sales of their products and services. Application Development does not produce a product that will be for sale,

As we continue to work with different ISV’s and Salesforce, it has become clear that there are many consultancies and developers who list PDO as one of their services but are not organised and focussed around PDO. A genuine PDO will understand the difference between Product Development and Application Development and will have both an experienced product-focussed technical team and the cutting-edge processes a product company would expect. Beyond that a genuine PDO should support the entire go to market strategy of its PDO clients, even where offshore development isn’t the client’s current focus or requirement.

There are many “Pot Holes in the road” that can affect the PDO experience and over the coming weeks we will aim to identify these and explain how to avoid them.

In the meantime, have a read of our first article around this subject and if you recognise some of the issues and want to find out how we can help email Steven.Fouracre@metacube.com , our Lead PDO Consultant or contact us .