Network Solutions

SCI Group has provided application development, integration and support, web design and development IT service for Network Solutions since 2002.

Business Challenge

Over a period of time Network Solutions has made several acquisitions in the field of domain registrations, ecommerce and web hosting, expanding their services both horizontally and vertically.

From an operational integration perspective, based on the acquisition parameters such as customer base, type of service offerings, operational flexibility, typically Network Solutions employs one of the following integration approaches:

• Full integration of the application assets of the acquired company into its applications infrastructure.
• Enhance the applications and implement coherent interfaces to leverage services/products provided by the acquired company.
• Integration of business operations while leaving the application platforms to be operated independently.

While Network Solutions prefers to employ either the first or the second model, it is constrained to use the third model quite frequently because of the following challenges:

Technology Challenges – varied application environments that included open source, proprietary platforms and third party products

Knowledge Transition Challenges - many of the applications not having adequate documentation, attrition of key resources and not too enthusiastic knowledge sharing

Resource challenges – Network Solutions would like to deploy their limited internal resources with deep knowledge of their business in strategic integration initiatives. With varied technology platforms the availability of deployable resources to acquired companies is further restricted.

Cost Challenges – With the costs of maintenance increasing rapidly many of the service lines from the acquisitions were becoming non-profitable

Solution

SCI has supported Network Solutions through several of these integration exercises and proved to be a reliable partner in helping to effectively address these challenges. SCI achieved this by:

• Clearly understanding Network Solutions’ business, pain points and business drivers
• Being flexible in formulating innovative solutions
• Ramping up skilled resources in multiple technology platforms quickly
• Utilizing our global delivery model to optimize costs
• Consulting and advising on implementation models
• Demonstrating process orientation and systems approach

Network Solutions found in SCI, a trusted and reliable partner who has exceeded their expectations in developing and implementing a sustainable and value added outsourcing solution to specifically address the integration challenges as follows.

• SCI top/project/ program management closely working with Network Solutions management in understanding the business drivers
• Assuming responsibility for complete maintenance of specific application suites with implied responsibility to maintain service levels to Network Solutions customers
• Building a dedicated team of about 20 people who for all practical purposes are treated as extension of Network Solutions full time employees
• Ensuring that the technology skill mix is maintained as per needs of existing and in pipeline applications.
• Understanding, analyzing, reverse engineering and documenting applications to help further maintenance and preserve the business rules for strategic integration initiative
• Optimal mix of on-site and off-shore to bring down the costs significantly by aggressively working to reach a steady state quickly and retain only co-ordination /Business analyst resources on-site. Typically a ratio of 1-5 (on-site to off-shore) is achieved
• Implement flexible and appropriate billing/engagement models depending on the nature of work requirement.
• A set of 18–20 dedicated resources are split across projects including a minimum number of resources exclusively working on specified projects and a set of resources cross trained on multiple applications deployed dynamically
• A set of 5–8 floating resources with knowledge of Network Solutions applications, drawn from organization resource pool to address peak demand for specific durations
• Each project following an appropriate billing strategy. For example fixed bid with complete delivery responsibility resting with SCI, Fixed monthly pay out with minimum resources committed by SCI, Time & Materials with a cap and/or Time & Materials
• Ability to address small requirements in the order of few person weeks to larger engagements of the order of few person years at an optimal cost
• Commitment to walk the extra mile to share the Network Solutions service level requirements to their customers.

Currently SCI provides Application Development and maintenance support for almost all areas of Domain registration management and Hosting support tools for:

http://www.srsplus.com
http://www.namesecure.com
http://www.certifiedofferservice.com
http://ecommerce.networksolutions.com
http://resellers.networksolutions.com

The technology platforms utilized in this effort include; Java (J2EE), Perl (CGI), .NET, Oracle (MySQL), JSP(ASP, HTML, Java Script, PHP, JHTML), Unix (Solaris, Windows), Apache (Tomcat, Dynamo).

Business Benefits

As a consequence of the committed effort from SCI, today Network Solutions can easily and routinely deploy our resources as replacements for their own, even for Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 support for their customers. They can entrust SCI to manage the applications with minimal oversight and redeploying their internal resources on more business critical needs, and rely on SCI to provide key contribution and advice in their long term planning and initiatives.

• Key and strategic business areas which seemed unprofitable were turned around and have become profitable operations primarily with cost savings provided by SCI’s outsourcing approach.
• An extended resource pool which added tremendous flexibility to aggressively respond to market demands.
• Enabling utilization of internal resources against strategic business needs.

About Network Solutions

Network Solutions is the original domain name registrar and the leading provider of Internet services. Network Solutions’ products provide a range of solutions for retail and business customers - from Web hosting, Web site design, e-commerce, search engine marketing, SSL Certificates to e-mail and domain name registration services, including enhanced WHOIS services.

Want to learn more?

Please contact us at info@scigrp.com