Most outsourcing firms try to give the appearance of being an all knowing, all capable resource for their customers. In reality, business and technology are moving too fast for anyone to have their finger on everything, except in cases of a very large client bases and extreme depth in every area. But with that comes costs and the legacies of size – difficulty in adaption to disruptive technology, many layers of control and management that make dealing with smaller projects and clients a higher risk, and slowness to change that forces Internet-based application projects into rigorous scope control and limited opportunity to manage the approach.

Size and Focus

Scio is a relatively small firm with an intentionally narrow technical focus. We started like most consulting firms – opportunistically. We took on projects in many different technologies as they presented themselves. But as time went on, we realized that we couldn’t maintain our opportunistic stance and grow in an orderly fashion. When we spent the time to hire and train a team in a new technology for a project, we were on the boat – we had to find them more work or lose our investment. But to rise above a commodity level of expertise, we had to find a lot more work and invest a lot more in that team.  After a while the cycle began to cut into project management and oversight. The reality? As a service company grows, too wide a focus raises costs, lowers billable expertise, and raises risk.

Our Experience is Key

Considering the depth of expertise we wanted to be able to offer our clients while maintaining a manageable growth pattern, we realized we had to narrow our focus to a technology set in demand but that would allow us find qualified resources at reasonable costs. We settled on Microsoft technologies and software development for Internet-based applications. We leveraged our greatest asset, our position in the Americas to serve the market with our nearshore location.  Along the way, we built an expertise in SaaS and Cloud technologies that have put us in the forefront of the industry, an understanding of Rich Internet Applications that helps our customers speed adoption and raise user productivity, and a methodology stack that provides a world-class client experience.

We’re still improving and growing, but we will to stick to our principles. Our expertise is what differentiates us from our competitors and provides value to our clients. It is the core of what makes our clients and us successful.

If you would like to explore more about our expertise please review our:

• Technical Focus
  
• SaaS Application Development
  
• Methodology
  
• References