Francis Dion on Software Process

Heroic Performance

We’ve been exhibiting to quite a few trade shows this year and we’re all pumped-up by the raving reviews we got.

Here are some of the comments we received regarding Xpertdoc Studio Word-based document and report generator:

That's very cool
  - A.M., San Francisco, CA
  - A.G., Vancouver, BC
  - A.A, Ontario

Impressive
  - M.H., Sweden

Wow! Very intersting. I've never seen an approach like that
  - T.G., Fort Worth, TX

Howesome and neet
  - C.C., Irving, TX

Really good product!
  - D.C., Irvine, CA

Surprising product
  - L.R., Lakewood, CO

We have been looking for something like this for years. Out of despair, we were about to start developping this internally!
  - S.B., Dallas, TX

Bringing document automation into the fold of IT solves a problem that is as important for professional services firms as Y2K was for banks
  - L.B., London, UK

Of course, I would remiss not to mention the amazing performance of Louis-Philippe Perras, lead developer on Xpertdoc Studio, who won the Guitar Hero challenge both at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston and at the Professional Developer Conference in Los Angeles, as well as doing a memorable performance of Marakas at the Office Developer Conference in San Jose.

Congratulations, Louis!

Francis Dion

Automate your Business Processes

A downturn economic environment presents its share of challenges but it is not without opportunities. Whether the slowdown is giving you time to work ON the business, or rationalizations and reorganizations are on the agenda, now is as good if not better than any time to launch an initiative to automate business processes. Here are 5 motivations to embark on such a project

1. Do as much with less
Maintain outpout levels while reducing costs
   - Reduction of operational costs
   - Rationalization

2. Do more with as much
Increase output levels without increasing costs
   - Reduced opportunity costs (for example, a strategic can be freed to work on more value-add tasks)
   - Increase capacity

3. Do more with more
Fuel and support growth
   - Enable the replication of the performance of your best practicians by capturing their expertise and embed it into a system; this will allow less experienced resources to achieve comparable performance levels

4. Do it faster
Reduce delays
   - Reduce the time it take to complete a task

5. Avoid errors
Increase quality
   - Avoid costly and/or ambarassing mistakes
   - Standardize outputs
   - Facilitate validation and verification

Automation is not the only nor the always the best way to improve a business process. It does however provide significant opportunities for qualitative and quantitative benefits like:
   - Elimination of repetitive tasks, which can in turn bolster morale and facilite retention
   - Reduce training costs and delays

The production of proposals is a good example of a business process that can benefit from being at least partly automated:
   - Reduction of the effort required to produce a proposal
   - Ability to produces and submit more proposals
   - Allow multiple resources to produce high-quality proposals
   - Reduction of the delays between a discussion with a client and the submission of the proposal
   - Avoid leaving the name of the previous client and arithmetic errors
   - Implement a self-service system (say: a web page) so that clients can receive their quotes in real time

Francis Dion