Using the Component Factory Business Model ... -- Jeff Scott

Tue, 13 Aug 2013 00:13:10 GMT

Discuss Jeff Scott's article "Using the Component Factory Business Model to Deliver Technology Re-use".

Tue, 20 Aug 2013 05:18:35 GMT

How would the recommendations that this article makes apply if the organisation has a focus on leveraging software as a service or COTS solutions? E.g. if you want to apply the principle of "Leverage before Buy. Buy before Build"?

Too often we see significant investment in 'strategic' enterprise software solutions, only to find that the next project ignores the functionality provided by such solutions and implements yet another point solution for the sake of meeting time and / or cost constraints. Not too different in that respect from the challenges described in the article.

It is a different situation though in that with a strategic enterprise solution there is also the concern that they provide a Swiss-army knife of solutions but few that are the right fit to a new problem.

My own answer would be to focus on best of breed component-based software solutions that deliver clearly defined and encapsulated application services, with proper SOA-based integration functionality. This can include SaaS.

And yes; having good governance and the right funding model is important to encourage re-use.

Extending the component factory concept

Wed, 21 Aug 2013 14:15:05 GMT

We used a very similar concept to develop reusable APIs for existing systems some of which were developed in house and some that were purchased. After we had built around ten interfaces, the model we put in place was: pay us to build the APIs and current API extensions you need, and we will provide previously built APIs for free. Under this model we built 165 APIs that were reused 726 times. This model helped us open up legacy systems to the internet and distributed computing in general. It also promoted our master data management strategy of data being owned by one and only one application. If you have a great funding model, you really don’t need governance. When you offer a valuable service at the right price – people will want to buy it.