Requirement Management- Handling Changes With Ease

The goal of any business, whether, industrial or corporate, is defined by its requirements. Requirements form the foundation of a project plan. It defines the purpose of a project and determines the product or service. Success and failure of a project in terms of achieving the goals is dependent on its correct and complete understanding of the requirements.

Requirements management is an integral part of any product lifecycle, irrespective of the level of business whether it’s a small and medium sized enterprise or large conglomerate or even individual software developers. Being the foundation of all project management activities, it is necessary for all stakeholders to be committed to follow effective requirement processes that involve eliciting, analyzing, specifying, and validating requirements and managing the same.

With a number of techniques and software tools, it is possible to handle this difficult task of requirement management. Preventing requirement changes helps the process in a long way. But dealing with requirement changes is the core concern of the requirement management process. Every time a change is proposed. It needs to be reviewed, and its likely impact on the entire process evaluated before the changes are approved and implemented. A shared vision, goals and expectations along with collaborative partnerships between the developers and the customers reduces requirement changes.

Technological innovations have led to the development of software tools that can replace the traditional document based approach of listing out the functional and non-functional requirements in a project life cycle. These tools help to manage the requirements and define releases. A single system can accommodate the functional and non-functional requirements, constraints, use cases, user stories and high level processes besides facilitating an automatic access to traceability and compliance information.

Managing requirements through these tools facilitates to:

1. Track requirements and customize the management workflow as per the organizational processes while still being able to reuse the same in new projects.

2. Organize the requirements and actions in hierarchies for a better understanding of the problem and linking the two.

3. Use baselines to record changed versions of requirement specification and evolution

4.Provide for end-to-end traceability and access control with high level of security based on user accounts, roles and groups

5. Ability to work both online and offline and is web based, scalable across to partners, vendors and customers and extendable to be customized and integrated with other third party tools, applications or services.

Acquiring a requirements management tool is similar to acquiring any other software and is part of a development effort. This need to be in compliance with the project needs or company strategies and should be performance driven.

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Applying Solutions for Preventing Trademark Misuse

Data security is the foremost concern in today’s age where a company is exposed to blatant business malpractices through the internet. As everybody is aware of the prevalence of rampant security breaches it is a risky situation to continue business without intelligent and enhanced security solutions. Many businesses have been destroyed due to their inability to check these internet frauds on time and suffered significant revenue losses and immense image damages.

Trademark protection is a priority for your business as it holds the key to the success and growth of your company. Thus security solutions should not be limited to only prevention of internet frauds but also anticipation of any threats or incidents. The fraudsters are getting bolder and effective solutions have to be deployed to stop their activities.

One option is to employ stringent anti-counterfeiting solutions with intuitive and intelligent capabilities to locate these impostors and destroy all their operations without any scope for revival. New Momentum is one such anti-counterfeiting solution which poses a formidable challenge for the counterfeit brigade. Many businesses have achieved success in tracing the fraudulent companies and shutting down shops permanently.

New Momentum relentlessly tracks all online movements and identifies the source of all suspicious activities. It provides real-time information through its SaaS based model which means that you are provided with the latest information. It does a thorough analysis and provides complete reports, and helps you take necessary action against the perpetrators. It can automatically send cease and desist letters and conduct test buys. It identifies any price violations and automatically shuts down auctions.

Your proactive action can help prevent internet frauds that may cause severe damages to your company. It is always a good practice to employ compelling and reliable trademark protection solutions for the security and well-being of your company.

Remote Infrastructure Management Services- Remote control the IT environment

The business environment today largely revolves around the challenges faced by the business houses and corporate sectors to be in tune with the technological development while effectively utilizing the IT infrastructure and related operations. The organizations need to brace themselves up to meet the demands and challenges of the business users without compromising on quality and security. Most IT organizations that have entered the arena of Business & IT consultancy provide client organizations with an array of end-to-end services including Data Center Management and Infrastructure Management services.

The Infrastructure Management Services has an ability to visibly impact a large part of enterprise IT infrastructure, spanning over assets and operational expenses, with a proven transformational life-cycle approach. Remote Infrastructure Management takes the infrastructure management services to a step higher by remotely managing the Infrastructure components, taking practical steps and remedial actions across the IT landscape. This system refers to remotely managing workstations servers, network devices, storage devices and IT security devices. Proactive monitoring of server and network devices in a Data Center, workstation Management, Server Management, Storage management, Application support, IT security Management and Help desk are all part functions of this management program.


RIM offers a number of valuable benefits to its clients and hence business houses are ready to outsource these services from experts in this field. One of the major benefits offered by availing this service is the drastic reduction in the overhead costs, which amounts to nearly 60% of the operational costs. Besides outsourcing, this service from the experts in this field provides the client company with technically sound professionals to remotely manage the entire complex IT infrastructure placed in any location. In addition to this, the client company also saves the cost of managing the infrastructure, recruitment and training of skilled staff for all the related activities.

Several companies are now opting for the remote infrastructure management services. A study conducted by NASSCOM and McKinsey & Company reveals a potential growth of the remote infrastructure services as an industry by at least 2013. The rapid evolution in technologies and IT architecture, changes in customer behaviors, as well as the developments in the vendor and offshore supply environment, have all been conducive enough to place RIM service as an industry.

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Virtualization Solutions for Enhancing Business Capabilities

The use of physical desktops is gradually fading out as they are being replaced by virtual desktops. This phase was inevitable as the management of physical desktops was a matter of concern for many. Businesses struggled to keep a control over costs as the need for acquisition of new applications and up gradations of legacy systems were mandatory and recurrent. Compatibility issues were one of the most common issues that affected the optimization processes, efficiency and productivity adversely.

The emergence of virtual desktops has been instrumental in bailing out sinking businesses and breathing new life into them. These virtual desktops totally eliminate the need for any physical desktops without causing any disturbance in the environment. On the contrary the users are provided with extremely fast, reliable and secure services. A large increment has been observed in businesses ready to adopt the virtual work at home call center strategy to reduce their costs. And these virtual desktops have been delivering ecstatic results.

The work at home employees are provided with easy and fast access to their desktop applications, files and data via the cloud process. Any number of users can access these desktops at the same time without any conflicts. Businesses that employ the virtualization solutions to gain extra mileage as the users can access the desktops anytime and from any location, as well as in the offline mode. The solutions possess immense flexibility that permits integration amongst the applications and provides the user an exhilarating experience.

Virtualization has also provided respite to the BPO businesses where the need for additional desktops is constant. As more employees are hired every day the companies have to invest in additional machines, hardware and software and this impacts costs directly. However these costs can be effectually downsized with the virtual desktop thin client process. The thin client helps the user to access applications on a remote client device without the use of any PC. It enables the use of a host workspace and a virtual workspace simultaneously on the same device.

There is a need to incorporate advanced modifications in an extremely fast-paced and fiercely competitive business environment. The virtual workspace syndrome has shown some unbelievable results and is deemed to be a dominant feature in the future. Shifting the traditional process onto the virtual environment is a good opportunity to focus on better management, cost control, a stable and secure environment, uninterrupted delivery of services and enhanced efficiency.

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Growth and Expansion of Innovative Storage Servers Solutions

Today, there is a demand for new age storage server solutions that not only provide high performance and reliability, but also are also cost-efficient. It is an added bonus if they are energy efficient. The solutions are designed to suit the general purpose and storage servers that are apt for organizations of all sizes.

Eminent service providers of storage servers follow high-end methodologies and techniques that help them to configure the user’s Operating System and software to function at optimal layers. In addition to that, they are able to provide any feature that you require from the new personalized servers. These companies adopt a partnering approach and offers complete assistance to their clients and users. Hence, as the servers reach at the user location, company professionals are able to cable, rack and install them.

Eminent service providers of storage servers aim to offer their users with a fast turnaround time at competitive price, and with unmatched reliability and complete personalization. In addition to that, there is a five-year warranty along with high-end services.

Furthermore, the innovative rack –optimized servers highlight the upgraded multi-core high performance technology, and energy efficient architecture that is best suited for Cloud Computing, Clustering and Virtualization processes.

New Age Blade and Storage Server Solutions

Storage server solutions also include the versatile blade server solutions that have numerous combinations of processors. There are various speed combinations as well that are optimized for crucial mission server consolidation and data center applications.

An individual platform comprise of hot-pluggable blades, network switches, management modules that helps in easy replacement and removal. As a result, the blade servers are easy to maintain and helps in reducing down time.

Not only has this, the service providers also offers their clients a comprehensive range of unified storage solutions that assists enterprises of all kinds, small and large scale to set up an proficient information infrastructure that allows them to optimize, protect, leverage, and store their important data from a single e-mail to production databases. The data management is smooth, simple, secure and accessible and is always ready for expansion.

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Factors Contributing to the Rise of Internal Investigations and Litigations

Today the number of internal investigations and litigations conducted by enterprises and organizations has definitely increased. The rise of corporate investigations and lawsuits can be attributed to several factors, the most significant being economic downturn, tighter regulations, whistleblowers and bankruptcies. Let us see how these factors are contributing to the rise of internal investigations and litigations.

Economic Downturn:

The economic downturn of 2008 was like a bolt from the blue for many business owners and entrepreneurs. The great economic freedom and stability suddenly faded away, and in its place they were confronted with financial restraints and insecurity. Even as some business entrepreneurs tried to stand their ground, they found that making it through the tide was even more difficult. Since the survival of their businesses was threatened, they had no other choice but to make some harsh decisions. This exacerbated criminal misconduct on the part of management and employees alike. For instance, in the case of employees, as corporate resorted to downsizing as a means of survival, employees in all businesses felt the threat of being laid off. The decline in wages, mortgage issues and rising gas and food prices all increased fraudulent activities like skimming and check tampering, to name a few.

Business owners and entrepreneurs under financial pressure made some unsympathetic decisions that proved detrimental. One example was cutting costs on risk management issues, which thereby jeopardized companies’ security environments. This unfortunately gave sufficient opportunities for the management to commit fraud or break laws.

Tighter Regulations:

The increase in corporate scandals such as Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom resulted in the enactment of stricter laws and regulations to prevent fraudulent activities. The most prominent among these laws is the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, also known as the 'Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act' and the 'Corporate and Auditing Accountability and Responsibility Act'. This IT regulatory compliance act clearly explained the corporate board’s responsibilities and the criminal penalties if companies failed to comply with the law.

Whistleblowers:

Whistleblowers are people who report the criminal misconduct of others within an organization. Most whistleblowers are internal whistleblowers who complain of misconduct by their fellow employees. In the past they would face retaliation either from the people they complained about or from the organization. This led to the formulation of Whistleblower Protection, an important aspect of the Sarbanes-Oxley act, which states that enterprises and organizations cannot “discharge, demote, suspend, threaten, harass, or in any manner discriminate against” a whistleblower-employee. And if any such action were taken, the employer would have to pay a large fine and could face ten years in prison.

Bankruptcy:

Entrepreneurs often resort to impractical ways to save their struggling businesses, like hiding their true financial situation from their partners and shareholders. The reasons for declaring bankruptcy can be diverse — avoiding staff reductions, protecting company reputation, obtaining credit, raising debt or equity and so on. Although bankruptcy is considered a temporary measure, sometimes there may be fraudulent intentions the decision by companies who fail to regain their financial stability.

The year 2010 had seen an upward trend in internal investigations and subsequent lawsuits, and 2011 will not be different as the factors that fuel investigations and litigations continue to exist. In such a scenario, business owners and entrepreneurs should invest in effective eDiscovery tools that help enhance the effectiveness of corporate investigations while reducing the duration and cost.

Know more on : Electronic data discovery, Electronic disclosure

 

Manufacturing Software Solution –Automating the Manufacturing Industry

The business environment today is so competitive that to survive through this competition, the business houses and corporate sectors need to strike the right chord between the key factors involved. Understanding the technique to handle both, the customer needs and key business operation is a challenge faced by the business conglomerates, as well as the small business enterprises. Besides this, one of the main challenges faced by the industry today is the need for information sharing with reduced marketing time and low productivity cost.

Using a manufacturing software solution will help solve most of the challenges faced by the industrial houses. This can be customized to meet the requirements of the manufacturing units. From the customer’s point of view, a manufacturing software solution provides for increased visibility in the business process, minimizes the manufacturing costs while increasing utilization of the products and by-products.Through a proactive monitoring system and business alerts paves way for a transparent operational control over the manufacturing units. Further, reducing the bottlenecks in the production process facilitates an on-time delivery for the customers.

With various modules fitted into one, the Manufacturing Software Solution can be customized to different manufacturing segments such as the automotive units, chemical manufacturing units as well as the high tech manufacturing divisions. The modules that go into making this a complete manufacturing solution are Financial Management, managing of fixed assets, production management, trade, warehouse management, HRMS and Logistics management.

The manufacturing solution for the automotive industry facilitates the production of a quality product, to meet the overseas market competition. Highly suited for the automotive industry, this software with its modular design provides flexibility to choose modules from functionalities such as manufacturing, distribution and supply chain. Being extremely adaptable this automotive manufacturing software application teaches better vendor relationship management and maintaining profitability in a competitive global arena.

The chemical manufacturing solution on the other hand provides for efficient and effective business operations. Covering all the aspects of manufacturing, from orders, production, inventory to distribution, this solution helps to maximize the manufacturer’s yield, at the same time increasing revenues and improving customer service.

With a number of software corporate entering into the arena of designing, developing and deploying manufacturing software solutions, it needs to be understood that a comprehensive business solution is one which would provide for sales force automation, customer relationship management, and e-Business. A combination of these factors will help the small and medium business enterprises to turn their data into useful information, which would help to meet the unique demands of every industry sector.

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Virtual Workspace - A Workplace Without Boundaries

Globalization has brought about an expanse to the business organizations. The widespread integration of technology in the day-to-day operations of the business has removed the boundaries of the traditional workspace. Information technology now occupies a key role in the business environment. The traditional workspaces made up of physical boundaries are giving way to workplaces that are technologically connected and without geographical boundaries. These virtual workplaces allow employees the freedom to work from any location in a collaborated environment.

Virtual workplace is not necessarily bound by an office cubicle and high-rise buildings but can be incorporated within the existing infrastructure. The most common method is the use of communication technology or the Internet to work from an offsite location, in other words telecommuting. Hot desk environment is method where in the employees are generally working from a client location, which changes very often. The third method is that of a virtual team, with the team members located in different geographical location but working on the same project in collaboration with each other.

In this information age, with a rapid technological development and an ever-increasing consumer demand, a virtual workplace helps international organization offer services to their customers 24/7. This gives them an advantage in a fiercely competitive business environment. The virtual workplace streamlines the systems for easily accessibility by both consumers as well as the workforce. This process not only cuts costs but also increases efficiency, productivity and assists in better communication.

With a mobile workforce concept catching up, the IT organizations face the challenge of providing them with secure virtual workspace. A recent study shows nearly one-third of organizations work force is mobile. The growing population of the mobile workforce confirms its advantages such as:

  • Increased productivity, as work is not location centric

  • A better balance between the professional and personal lives

  • Reduction in infrastructure and overhead costs

However, a comprehensive solution is required to see through the challenges of virtual workplace implementation.

Desktop virtualization is an innovative approach that helps enterprises and organizations to successfully meet the challenge. This virtual desktop solution helps multiple users to access their personalized corporate workspace environment securely from any part of the world. With new devices and media rich applications such as virtual thin clients, Netbooks, iPads and delivery models such as Software as a Service and on-demand delivery, the Dynamic Virtual Desktop platform enables to secure and streamline the lifecycle of virtual workspaces swiftly and efficiently.

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Alleviate Back Pain with Back Pain Relief Products

Back pain is one of the most common ailments for young and old alike today. This can be due to numerous reasons, lifestyle, wrong posture, sitting in one position for a long time or it can also be due to stress and muscle pull.Another cause for back pain is inactivity and lack of a proper diet and exercise regime.  Whatever may be the reason, it really causes a lot of grief to the person suffering.

A back pain that gradually decreases its intensity is experienced as an acute pain; whereas in chronic pain, patients experience back pain again and again or continue to have it, another type of back pain can also be neuropathic pain that arises due to injury to the sensory nerves; this pain travels from the spine down to the arms or legs.Improving your back health and fitness can oftentimes seem complicated.

With advancement in medical science, there has been a significant development in the field of back care, back pain management. There a number of back pain relief products that are available today and can support you pain management program.

For instance, a neck pillow can be of comfort to you when you have a neck pain. These apart, other cures that are available are holistic in nature. However, medication and taking relief sprays could help you halt the pain for a while, butthe pain might reappear in sometime. The best way therefore is to opt in for natural back pain relief remedies; like yoga, meditation, Pilates and exercises. These strengthen the back muscles alleviating the pain. You get long term relief as compared to short term treatment provided by medicines and sprays.

Back pain relief exercises can be supplemented with some back relief products that would add proper alignment to your body and reduce the stress if any. A stretch riser set is a perfect example in this regard. All this with some bed rest and relaxation techniques are advised by experts, apart from moral and emotional support.

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·         back pain exercises

 

Release Management- A Smooth Version Control System

Technology and processes today increasingly drive business.As the world evolves, so do the business requirements. The need to get the right infrastructure and processes and adapt them to the changing requirements is the most crucial part of any business strategy. Service providers usually align the IT infrastructure with the overall business strategy of a company and try to offer a consistent and high quality service through improved and upgraded processes and systems. However, a good service management practice is required to improve the evolution process without affecting quality standards.

Release Management is a process of the transition phase, which assists the service organizations,the evolution of their environment in response to changing business requirements. This process plans and manages the release of new and updated business services to customers, taking into consideration all technical and non-technical elements of a release. The proper management of releases ensures minimal disruption of services, communication, accessibility of all elements involved, without sacrificing on the service quality standards. A request for change in such an environment triggers off a number of related processes, such as assessment, development, testing, deployment, audit and closure.

Release management or version management involves maintaining and tracking different versions of the project deliverables. It keeps note of the requirements of the project, planned and schedule task, bugs detected, actual release and planned release as well as changes during each release. By automating the release notes, reduces the manual effort required. This process is applicable for any project developed and not just software development.

The development of technology has paved way for the development of a number of version control system. Subversion management is an Open source version control system, which is used by most software developers to track the changes and evolution in the source code. Being tightly integrated into the Application lifecycle management (ALM), Subversion can create shared repositories and launch projects in seconds, access configuration at both project and directory level, browse the repositories for file changes, histories, and associate changes with the issues for easy traceability and process enforcement.

Beginning with change requests in the development cycle, release management oversees the development, testing, deployment and support of software versions. With a set of characteristics such as customizable properties, lifecycles driven by workflows, ability to be associated with other components of application lifecycle management the versions are very powerful entities.

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· Distributed version control system