ITP Development Services
Published on November 7, 2022
Did you know that ITP also builds custom software? Custom software is software that is made especially and exclusively for one client and serves all this client’s needs. Clients that typically require custom software are banks, Insurance companies, large corporations, government entities, etc… The most common reason for a company to require custom software is that they must comply with local legal requirements which for every country will be different, Aruba is no exception.
Development Services is responsible for the development of custom software.
Development of custom software can become a huge investment, which will be hard to recover if not scaled correctly. Our first responsibility is to ensure that we, as Development Services, provide the solutions that fit the clients’ capabilities to exploit it successfully. It may sound strange, but for some clients we may end up delivering an “off-the-shelf” solution, simply because the applicable economies of scale for a client may not (yet) support the investment required for custom software development.
To make sure the clients that do require custom development are served in the most cost-effective way, we employ the following strategies:
- We use proven and widely used technologies to develop our systems. This will ensure that our clients can fallback on a wealth of knowledge that is available, also in Aruba. It also guarantees continuity since knowledge is not only present within the ITP team.
- We use standard components, that we continuously keep on developing to support the new trends in application development. An example of this is web portal and mobile development. Standards components are developed and initially deployed at ITP internally. After a trial period it becomes available for our clients through maintenance upgrades or at specific request. The standard components eliminate the need to develop common functionality for each client separately, thus bringing down the time to market.
- We use development tools that, by means of simple and quick configuration steps, will generate program code in minutes, instead of days or maybe even weeks, if it was done manually. The result is a standard look and feel, which means no, or a small, learning curve for the users of the software (clients) and, again, a shorter time to market.
In short, we aim to make an expensive undertaking, as cost effective as possible for the client.
Software development is labor intensive and therefore costly.
It must be considered a long-term investment. Before we will recommend choosing a customized solution, we will, together with our colleagues of the Consultancy Department, make an analysis of all the possible solutions available to you as a client. In that analysis we will not only include your technical infrastructure and requirements, but your organization and all its processes.
What won’t we do? You may have already guessed. We will not build software that already exists, the so-called off-the-shelf software. For many applications there are quality products on the market, which will serve most of our clients well. At ITP we pride ourselves to deliver the best solution for your business and because of the very nature of off-the-shelf software, it will likely be the most cost-effective solution in many cases.
We will not build a web shop, nor will we build a promotional website for your company. The reason is that web shops and promotional websites can be built by others that are specialized in creating designs that attract customers and stimulates sales.
We do build portals and mobile apps that interact in real-time with your backend systems as mentioned above. Examples of this are the MiSVb and MiPensioen portal of the Sociale Verzekeringsbank (SVb) Aruba. Recently they also launched the MiPensioen Mobile app, which the pensioners can use to get official documents and information without physically having to go to the SVb.
We are working on the so-called API integration.
An API, Application Programming Interface, is a mechanism that enables two software components to communicate with each other. For example, the weather bureau’s software system contains daily weather data. The weather app on your phone “talks” to this system via APIs and shows you daily weather updates on your phone. We will use APIs to communicate with your back-end systems using a web portal or a mobile app.
DECOS, a company that ITP Consultancy represents, has developed JOIN, which is a workflow and document management software, widely used by the government in the Netherlands. As part of their offering, they also provide a RestAPI with all their software products. RestAPI is short for “Representational State Transfer Application Programming Interface” and is an API standard that has been accepted globally.
The Aruban Government, which is a large user of JOIN, has started several projects to connect the different governmental entities with each other. Here is where Development comes into play. Using the RestAPI provided by DECOS we build the connections required for the integration of the different governmental entities and enables us to present information from different entities in one place, for instance a web portal. E.g., an application for a business license, requiring involvement of several entities, can now be done from the comfort of your office or home. During the process the applicant can follow the progress as it advances and there is no need to have multiple copies of the required documentation, because once uploaded it is visible for all entities involved.
We can go on and on about the nearly limitless possibilities and opportunities that exists, but the developments in technology do not stop and ITP’s promise is that we will make this technology available as soon as it has matured enough to be considered stable. After all, no business would want to be used as a proofing ground for new, unproven technology.
ITP Caribbean’s clear and cost-effective approach has proven successful and made customized software a feasible alternative for a group of clients in specialized sectors of our community.
Our vision is to support a limited number of custom software customers and provide support on this software in a high-quality manner. Our products are guaranteed to be a good fit for our customers and are based proven technology.
Part of delivering high-quality software is ensuring that we continue to pay attention to the proprietary standards we set in the development, design, documentation, and deployment of the software. Development Services in Aruba will remain a niche market, but ITP will be there for the clients that cannot do without custom systems and are looking for a dependable, no-nonsense support partner.
Our slogan, Bleep Bleep without the Bla Bla, says it all. We deliver what we promise, and we promise only what we can deliver.
