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Management of third-party technical services in product development

2022-07-28 17:35:00 【itest_ two thousand and sixteen】

Many products will use a variety of third-party technical services in the research and development process , For example, baidu map 、 Tencent audio and video 、 Cloud instant messaging 、 Baidu AI service 、CA etc. . These technical services are integrated into products in various forms , Some of them are free , Some charge . The charging types of charging technical services are also various , Monthly , There are packages , There are , There are also access terminals . The charging mode has a fixed price , There are steps , There are also packaged packages . With all kinds of SAAS The rise of , To save development costs , At the same time, let the product shorten the production cycle as much as possible , More and more enterprises choose integration in product development SAAS Services to improve development efficiency . While enjoying the benefits of third-party technical services , Many enterprises also notice that these third-party services also need to be effectively managed , Otherwise, although it seems to shorten the product development cycle , In fact, it brings more risks and problems . These problems and risks are mainly reflected in the following aspects ：

（1） Inaccurate selection of technical service , As a result, many requirements found in the product integration process cannot be realized through these technical services . Many enterprises have their own supply chain system , Purchase third-party technical services through the organization responsible for the supply chain . The product R & D department puts forward demand to the supply chain , The supply chain is responsible for finding suppliers in the system for selection and procurement . The selection process of some enterprises is incomplete , The participation of technicians who are familiar with the product and participate in the product realization is relatively low , Third party boasting , The supply chain itself is not familiar with the specific use scenarios of technical services. It can only feel as if it can be satisfied in terms of terms , It leads to inaccurate selection , Easy to choose “ It feels almost ”、“ Cheapness ”、“ partners ” Technical services .

（2） The quality of technical services is not up to standard or there are quality risks , This leads to hidden quality problems after integration and release , It can't even reach the published quality standard directly . This question is easy to understand , For example, a product needs support 10 Ten thousand users are online at the same time , In a product AI Functional support is required 2000 Concurrent . In purchasing third parties AI Service links , Suppliers boast that they can achieve 5000 Concurrent and cheap , After the purchase came in, the production and research department found that it could only achieve 1000, The supplier doesn't shirk , Also admitted their shortcomings and actively cooperate with the rectification , Finally, it reached 5000. To find out at last , It turns out that this supplier has passed the compliance of the enterprise and obtained the supplier qualification , however AI Service is also a new service , It is actually looking for a white mouse enterprise to help it polish its technical service products . Just imagine , If this technical service provider's technical ability is not qualified , If there is no restriction on the contract , What will happen . The visible quality is good , What can't be seen ？ For example, the stability of third-party technical services , Every once in a while, I'll give you a service interruption 、 Delay . The quality evaluation of technical services is very important here .

（3） The security of technical services is not up to standard , As a result, the products fail to meet the requirements of some customers in terms of safety compliance . I once helped a friend's enterprise to do a financial APP Security testing for , The test results found this APP Its own code is very safe , Only a certain message push third-party service integrated with it SDK There are a large number of known security vulnerabilities . The financial industry is interested in APP I like safety very much , If it fails to meet the corresponding requirements, it will be strictly prohibited to go online , Finally, we have to replace it with another push service with better security .

（4） Improper use of technical services , Cause double billing . Some careless technicians use third-party services , Accidentally repeated calls , This has doubled the flow of technical services , Service costs doubled . Besides , Some technical services charge by determining the number of terminals by establishing the number of connections , Technicians have established multiple charging connections when implementing .

（5） Inaccurate dosage evaluation leads to high technical service costs . for instance ： An audio and video service is needed in the development of a product , Technical personnel put forward the requirements and demands of technical services to the supply chain for procurement , Because technicians don't understand the plan of product sales and operation , The evaluation dosage is not given accurately . Many technical services actually have a stepped charging mode , The supply chain can negotiate with suppliers according to the future consumption of services . If the dosage evaluation is not accurate , You may pay a lot more for technical services .

（6） The technical service provider's technical capability is not up to standard , Technical support is not in place . The technical services provided by suppliers are often standard services , Product R & D may need to be customized when it is introduced . Some customization is extra , Some customization is included in the contract cost . Small expenses , If after introduction , It is found that the ability of supplier customization is weak , The scene of product privatization is uncertain , That's a big problem . In the early stage of model selection, if you can fully communicate the application scenarios of technical services with the technical personnel of the supplier , Fully evaluate the technical strength of the other party , That will greatly reduce these risks in the later stage .

（7） The stability of technical service providers is poor , Bring risks to the long-term operation and maintenance of the product . I talked about it before. , I won't go into details here .

（8） The management of technical service account information is not in place , Threaten information security and business continuity . Many third-party technical services need to provide registrant information when registering , For example, some free maps API. Many companies are not well managed , The registration of these technical service accounts is often carried out by employees using personal information . Once an employee leaves , If it cannot be handed over in time , May have an impact on the business . Be careful , It doesn't mean that enterprises must register with public accounts , That's too narrow . Here's just an example .

（9） The cost management of technical services is not in place , Lead to technical service renewal 、 Settlement of expenses 、 There are various problems in internal cost allocation . After the technical service is integrated and released by the product, it will enter the operation and maintenance period with the delivery of the product to the customer site , At this time, the enterprise needs to ensure that during the customer's product operation and maintenance period , Technical services must be stable and non-stop . Therefore, it is necessary to renew in time , At the same time, in order to avoid the occurrence that users have passed the operation and maintenance period , There is still a lot of unused traffic in technical services , Waste of resources . Many times, technical services do not or rarely incur costs in the production and research stage （ Many technical service providers will provide free or trial period for you to integrate ）, Most of them are generated in the process of operation and maintenance after delivery to customers , Therefore, in order to accurately calculate the input and output of each customer delivered project （ Fei Maobi 、 Gross profit margin ）, It is often necessary to split these costs and allocate them to various delivery projects , There will be a lot of financial operations involved . If there are many projects to be delivered , The complexity of this operation will be abnormally high , It's not just about how to disassemble , It also involves the basis for dismantling .

（10） The contract trap of technical services . It seems to have been mentioned before , Don't go into .

（11） Compliance risks of technical services . For example, does the technical service meet the requirements of waiting Insurance , Is it right? A Chinese products .

Each of the above points can be expanded , Limited space , Let's put it later . In order to avoid and solve these problems , We summarized “ Third party technical service life cycle management ” The concept of , Similar to the technology management mentioned by some companies , From the perspective of life cycle, how to introduce and manage technical services safely and reliably .