Business IT Outsourcing

Tools are supposed to make tasks easier.  A hammer makes it easier to drive nails, application development tools make it easier to deliver complex applications efficiently.  Too often though, applications, tools for users, do not make the users' lives easier.  Consider an on-line banking application provided by a major home improvement company (you might think they would get the concept of tools).  I want such an application to make it easy to manage my 12 month same-as-cash transaction so that I can have say $50.00 automatically transferred from my checking account and applied to the purchase on the first day of each month until it is paid off.  And to make it totally convenient it should recommend a payment amount and payment date so that I have the lowest possible payment while still paying off the purchase on time.  I can dream can't I?

That isn't even close to reality.  Instead, if I had regular purchases, or more than one 12 month same-as-cash purchase, I would have to go on-line, and make a payment.  Then after the payment posted, I would have to remember to go on-line again and, through their special messaging system, send customer service a message telling them how to apportion the payment that just posted.  No thanks, it is easier just to mail a check, and make sure I don't have more than one large purchase from them in any given 12 month period.

The result of application development is tools that must support the business and the user.  These tools must allow the business and the user to work more efficiently without extra steps artificially inserted into the process.  Too often application development teams have a corporate mindset.  That is, if you have a way to complete your task, that is good enough.  There is no competition, and the user doesn't have a choice.  When that attitude becomes a way of life, they forget that consumer's do have a choice, and will happily look elsewhere if the tools make their lives easier.