Peter Artz, Inge van de Weerd, Sjaak Brinkkemper & Joost Fieggen22-06-2010

ProductizationTransforming from developing customer-specific software to product software

Supply Chain SystemsSupply Chain Systems

Agenda

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- Research trigger- Related literature- Research question- Productization process

Stages - Productization approach- Validation- Conclusion- Discussion & future research- Questions

Research trigger 1/2

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Software companies- Usually start with developing customer-specific software - Eventually they recognize a need to start creating a product for a market

Transform- Such transformation is difficult to carry out- Involves the change of a great number of internal processes- Requires an other approach for marketing and sales- The organization needs change from customer-driven to market-driven approach

Available literature- Barely any literature available on how to perform such a shift - Improving product management processes (Software Process Improvement)- Differences between customized and standardized software development

Research trigger 2/2

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Software Product Management (SPM)- Is getting more and more attention - Companies recognize the importance and benefits- Widely and extensively studied topic

Inspiring example organizations:- Microsoft - SAP

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- Reference framework for SPM (Weerd et al. 2006)

Related literature

Research background

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MP Objects- Software vendor for supply chain systems- Located in Rotterdam and New York- Small sized company- 60 customers and around 1250 users

Software- One big customer- Now they want to enter a market

Research question

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Main research question:- How can organizations transform from developing customer-specific software to product software?

Focus:On software product management domain

Productization Process

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Definition:The transformation process from customer-specific software development to a standard software product

Trigger for transformation:- Internal trigger to change to a software product.

Customized software

Standardized software

1: Independent

projects

1: Independent

projects

2: Reuse across

projects

2: Reuse across

projects

3: Product

recognition

3: Product

recognition

4: Product

basis

4: Product

basis

6a: Customizable

product

6a: Customizable

product

6b: Standard product

6b: Standard product

5: Product platform

5: Product platform

Stage 1: Independent projects

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• Projects are executed independently• Projects differ in budget, technology, and functionality

Stage 2: Reuse across projects

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• Focus on feature reuse across projects• More custom than standard features

Stage 3: Product recognition

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• Shared features between projects• More standard than custom features• Customer specific maintenance

Stage 4: Product basis

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• Generic product basis• Customer specific maintenance• Customer requests are handled as market requirements

Stage 5: Product platform

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• Focus on generic product platform• Requirements gathering based on market trends• Event-based customized releases per customer

Two end stages:For some software there is a need for customization in order to integrate software in a customer-specific situation

“Degree of productization” (Hietala et al., 2004)- Product market- Concepts- Benefits- Positioning- Selling- Marketing

Productization Process 6a and 6b

adopted from Hoch et al., 1999

Degree of standardization

Stage 6a: Customizable product

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• One standard product with customized layered part• Structured releases• Customizable software product• Software business aiming at selling services

Stage 6b: Standard product

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• One generic product for all customers and build for a specific market• Structured releases• Configurable software product• Software business aiming at selling licenses

Case study – Productization approach 1/3

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In which stage should we start?

Should we focus on stage 6a or 6b?

Customized software

Standardized software

1: Independent

projects

1: Independent

projects

2: Reuse across

projects

2: Reuse across

projects

3: Product

recognition

3: Product

recognition

4: Product

basis

4: Product

basis

6a: Customizable

product

6a: Customizable

product

6b: Standard product

6b: Standard product

5: Product platform

5: Product platform

Case study – Productization approach 2/3

Determining initial position

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Case study – Productization approach 3/3

Gap analysis & identification of recommendations

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Validation approach

Expert interviews- Interviewed five experts from Dutch organizations- Evaluation of acceptance and recognition

Survey- Filled in by eight participants of a course on SPM- Wide variety of Dutch organizations - Examine the structure for static qualities (complexity and readability)

Case study- Business case at MP Objects- Evaluation of applicability and usability of the productization process in a business environment

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Conclusion

Main research question: How can organizations transform from developing customer-specific software to product software?

Productization process- Describes the from developing customer-specific software to product software - It can assist organizations in becoming a product software business - The adoption of the reference framework for SPM

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Discussion & future research

More validation for the productization process- More (long term) case studies need to be carried out - Future validation is required to determine the validity and applicability of the stages

Other areas which change during such transformation- The change in marketing & sales

Open Source software- Study how open source software influences the productization process

Supply Chain SystemsSupply Chain Systemsadopted from Xu & Brinkkemper, 2005

Questions

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Thank you for your attention!

ProductizationTransforming from developing customer-specific software to product software

Supply Chain SystemsSupply Chain Systems

References

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Hevner, A. R., March, S. T., Park, J., & Ram, S. (2004). Design science in information systems research. MIS Quarterly: Management Information Systems, 28(1), pp. 75-105.

Bekkers, W., Weerd, I. v., Brinkkemper, S., & Mahieu, A. (2008). The Influence of Situational Factors in Software Product Management: An Empirical Study, Proceedings of the 2008 Second International Workshop on Software Product Management, pp. 41-48.

Weerd, I. v., Brinkkemper, S., Nieuwenhuis, R., Versendaal, J., & Bijlsma, L. (2006a). On the Creation of a Reference Framework for Software Product Management: Validation and Tool Support. Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Product Management, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, pp. 312-315.

Weerd, I. van de, Brinkkemper, S. (2007). Meta-modeling for situational analysis and design methods. To appear in the Handbook of Research on Modern Systems Analysis and Design Technologies and Applications, Idea Group Publishing, USA: Hershey.

Weerd, I. v., Bekkers, W., & Brinkkemper, S. (2009). “Developing a Maturity Matrix for Software Product Management”, Technical report: UU-CS-2009-15. The Netherlands: University Utrecht.

Xu, L., & Brinkkemper, S. (2005). Concepts of product software: Paving the road for urgently needed research, Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Philosophical Foundations of Information Systems Engineering (LNCS), Springer: Berlin, pp. 523-528.

Vaishnavi, V., & Kuechler, B. (2007). Design Research in Information Systems. Retrieved May 7, 2009, from: AISWorld Net, http://home.aisnet.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=279