Historical outline
 

1992 September	Signed the contract and got an access to informational flows
1992 December	Prepared the draft of project description by means of contacts with customers and studying documents (instruction had been provided), and real informational flows
1993 February	Installed first trial version of the program: Inventory Accounting and Fixed Assets Accounting
1993 July	Released second trial version of the program Inventory Accounting and Fixed Assets Accounting
1993 June	First trial version of the module: General Ledger and Financial Statements
1993 October	Installed trial version of Cash Accounting
1993 December	Installed working version of Inventory Accounting, Fixed Assets Accounting
1994 January	Installed working version of Cash Accounting
1994 January	Installed first version of Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable
1994 April	First sales of the program to other customers
1994 June	Last corrections of the program after implementation at the sites of other customer
1994 August	Preparation of the User’s Guide; Advertising
1994 October	Presentation of the Product at the exhibition

Development cycle

• Collected information using our experience to develop programs for other industries;
• Developed the model based on instructions and information had been collected;
• Developed the program based on the model;
• Installed trial version for the single customer;
• Implemented trial version for finding bugs and getting corrections and additions;
• Made corrections to the model;
• Made corrections to the program;
• Implemented improved version to get corrections and additions

        In the future, people who worked with us on the project were moved to other positions -- and we got new customers. Later, realizing other project, we developed and installed software to 10-12 customers simultaneously. Government created an opportunity to develop new product, issuing new accounting regulation.

Distinct features of the second project

At this stage we worked within the same frame, but:

• The model was built based mainly on OUR experience and know-how;
• There was demand on the software we developed and we knew about it (although we didn’t make any marketing research);
• Development project was financed by the firm as an interdivisional credit;
• We started promotion from the key customers in the city (city government);
• We had small market of our former customers;

• Developed initial model and database structure;
• Developed basic modules for database support and interface;
• Supervised development of the trial version;
• Communicated with customers to adjust the model;
• Redesigned model and database structure to include adjustments from trial implementations;
• Supervised programmers to make adjustments;
• Promoted product to key customers, i.e. signed contracts, negotiated discounts, terms of payments, free installations;
• Trained users of the product at large strategic customers;
• Educated and trained of salespeople featuring issues of non-for-profit accounting;
• Trained dealers on their sites as well as through workshops in training center.

Facts and information relevant:

Monthly earnings of a programmer: $400-450
Monthly salary (solid and guarantied) of a programmer $100

Principles:

• Programmer was hired to work with special project only;
• Each person was responsible to work with both new products and old ones;
• New product was financed through financial plan, estimating cost of assignments;
• Earnings from the old product are determined using certain percent of each sale;
• Programmers were encouraged to contact with customers to train them and learn at the same time;
• Programmers were encouraged to make sales through high commission percent (up to 15%);
• Programmers were paid bonus of total income of the firm (certain percent);
• Programmers were getting benefits from the total profit of the firm;
• Programmers were getting other benefits, such as borrowing money without interest and reimbursements of educational expenditures;
• Programmers were getting preferred shares of the firm’s stock (plus dividends);

The major way to attract customer, especially in the sphere of non-profit and government organizations - to sell whole set of service, accompanying software licensing:

• Installation of the program;
• Implementation of the program;
• Training of the customer;
• Consulting within the program (how to realize certain accounting transactions using the program).

• Focused on creation the sales force and consultants, because of the high deficit of people.
• Training of salespeople using monetary resources of government, sponsoring retraining of unemployed people;
• Principle: to provide high quality service is be close to customer as much as you can;
• Investing to subsidiaries in the Urals region (now there are three of them in all regional centers);
• Establishing partnership with best and principal customers with an intention to create dealers;
• Training of dealers.

• Organized interaction and contacts of engineers with dealers or even finite customers;
• Put special attention to principal customers, such as government, visiting customers' sites time to time;
• Made business trips to finite customers in far regions.