Johannesburg, 21 Nov 2014
Bytes Managed Solutions has expanded its professional services offering, achieving certification in a number of technologies, and increasing its staff complement. This has boosted the company's capacity to deliver quality professional services, including business consulting, systems design and analysis, software development and customisation, software testing, and configuration and installation to clients.
With software solutions becoming increasingly differentiated by their ability to customise and reduce implementation costs and time, Bytes Managed Solutions' investment in professional services will provide clients with access to a cost-effective and proven delivery model.
"Our people are experts, with business and technology skills relevant to the many market sectors in which we operate," says Alan Anderson, business development director, Bytes Managed Solutions. "We consistently look for ways to improve our agility and speed to market. The expansion of our professional services offering allows us to be of greater value to our customers. We have extensive retail, financial and payment domain expertise, having provided solutions in these areas for more than 24 years. "
New skills which have been incorporated into the company's professional services division include:
* business consulting, software design and development, and configuration and installation for self-service kiosk and digital signage applications
* software design and development for NCR software
The Bytes Managed Solutions Professional Services team works with several leading software development methodologies (including Waterfall [traditional], Agile, and Scrum). In the event that a customer requires the team to work with a specific software development methodology, the team has the skills and experience to adopt the particular software and meet the customer's requirements. The software development team has experience in most of the development languages and toolsets, including .NET, Java, and C++.
"The key partner in the development of the Bytes Managed Services professional services offering is consumer transaction technologies company NCR, for which we are the exclusive distributor in South Africa and selected neighbouring countries," says Anderson. "We are the certified Centre of Expertise for the products and solutions offered by NCR."
Anderson adds that every NCR product and solution is evaluated by Bytes Managed Solutions for market feasibility. If required, Bytes Managed Solutions works with NCR on the localisation and customisation required to make the product ready for the South African market. A number of successful projects have been concluded over the past six months for major retail and banking clients.
Within the next 12 to 24 months, Bytes Managed Solutions aims to become the Centre of Expertise for several additional key NCR applications including:
* A point-of-sale (POS) software solution for departmental and specialty stores
* A multi-vendor self-service ATM management system
* Banking software solution for teller applications
* ATM security suites
"Two major trends are influencing our professional services business," Anderson adds. "Companies are increasingly seeking to offset the high cost of software by 'renting' solutions through software-as-a-service (SAAS) mechanisms. With SAAS, a company can have the latest software to satisfy its business needs without the huge overheads of licence payments and software maintenance. Our professional services model for software solutions now includes a SAAS offering for our customers."
Another major trend is multi-channel or omni-channel transacting which enables the customer to transact and have a seamless experience over any channel - from kiosks and ATMs, to mobile devices and everything in between.
"Delivering an omni-channel experience has become imperative for banks and retailers in a highly competitive marketplace," says Anderson. "By leveraging channel usage insight, banks and retailers can develop an even more detailed customer profile. This provides an understanding not only of what the customer looks like, but also how they conduct their transactions and can allow for improved product offers using their preferred channel. Developing strategies to integrate disparate digital and physical channels into a single, seamless experience has to be a priority. Bytes Managed Solutions has the in-house capability to enable our customers to achieve this."
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