Ascendus Home

Hold your internally developed software to a higher standard.

Your organization needs a new internal platform for your sales team and you’re in charge of deciding whether to build or buy, and what features are essential in the software. With potentially tens of millions of dollars at stake, you need to be sure you’re making the right calls.

At Ascendus, we help IT decision-makers and the C-Suite determine the right path forward for any given business challenge. We are experts in product development, tackling every step from defining the problem to delivering the solution for global organizations.

The Problem

On the “buy” side of the “build-or-buy” question, many startups are disrupting the market by creating new offerings that leapfrog the old way of doing things. Companies risk falling behind if they don’t either purchase these solutions outright or build technology that competes with the stellar user experience offered by these new platforms.

Large companies tend to believe that an IT department who encounters a challenge everyday will create a better solution to it than an outside vendor selling a standardized product. Add to that the high cost of external software, as well as concerns around securing valuable data, and it becomes clear why many companies turn in-house to solve their biggest business headaches.

However, when enterprises develop internal software, they often miss the mark by losing focus of primary objectives and not seeing their employees as consumers. Companies don’t create solutions that would hold up against competition. Poorly executed software projects are more than just a pain for the employees who have to use them. They affect the bottom line. Avon Products once lost $125 million on a failed software project because its frustrated trial users kept quitting the company.

In the end, enterprises should want to build better software for their employees. Consumerized internal software is a boon for an organization, increasing business agility, user productivity and user satisfaction, according to research by IDG Enterprise.

The Solution

For organizations that want to ensure efficiency and reliability in their internally developed software, Ascendus offers world-class product development management and consulting services. Our analysts bring deep experience in the technology space to provide insight, direction, and strategies to clients. We enable clients to assess the quality of a software project by guiding the creation of key performance metrics that allow for comparison against external market leaders and organizational needs. We believe that internal software should be built as a consumer product, based on our understanding that experience-driven technology better serves an organization by empowering employees and not treating them as a captive audience.

Our Process

Ascendus provides product development management for global organizations seeking to address business challenges with internally built software solutions. Our proprietary Define, Design, Deliver package offers end-to-end oversight of the software development process and the potential for ongoing support services. The end result is elegant products that are simple and repeatable, allowing your solutions to adapt and grow with your company.

Define

We work alongside your team to identify your top business goals and challenges using business process analysis, stakeholder interviews and problem analysis. We document existing products and processes, including the underlying business rationale, and establish requirements for a new product. Our reviews provide clear actionable insights based on gap analysis, competitive analysis and vendor solution analysis to help you decide whether to build or buy.

Design

We conceptualize a solution that fully addresses the needs and expectations of your users and your business. Through customer development, we create a product strategy, identify and prioritize features, and define requirements and user stories. We summarize our recommendations in a document establishing the priorities and phases of delivery, which can then be used to guide your development process.

Deliver

We execute an agile product development cycle, taking initial product design through development and product validation in an iterative process. We dig deeper into user stories to ensure business requirements are met, and we provide clear direction to your development team to ensure deliverables are on time, within scope and on budget. We validate product designs according to client-specific metrics and KPIs, applying industry-style product management to internal software development.

We Can Help

Whether you’re in the early stages of building a product or wondering if a vendor solution better fits your business needs, Ascendus has the expertise to help you determine what’s right for your organization. In addition to our end-to-end product development management package, we offer separate business analysis, technology strategy and product management services.