5 things about business platform for beginner
Pheerakarn Sirivejabandhu
10.05.2021 —
This is the era where people can easily access and interact with businesses at their fingertips via the Internet without borders and time limits across business platforms either channel or device. It is essential that new businesses have to develop their service systems to respond to the needs of people promptly. Nowadays, the person who can close the deal first is the one who steps closer to the consumer and the best bridge between businesses and consumers is the platform. This article will provide an overview of the basic platform for businesses that want to develop the service and have a more comprehensive service system. It consists of 5 parts, including the development budget, system maintenance, overall time in operation, and the preliminary step.
This article will explain basic information to people who are interested in creating or developing a platform for your business. It’s easy to understand to help you decide and guide you to create a good platform.
1. Idea & Requirement
When you have an idea to expand your business through other platforms, you must consider these things as follows:
- What is the main purpose of developing the platform of your business?
- All those platforms can promote which parts of your business? And how can they resolve the problem of your business?
- Who is the target of the platform?
- Can the platform that we develop will meet the requirement and resolve the problem and the main purpose of developing the platform?
- Advantages in the purpose of platform development compared to market competitors. For example, your business platform has functions that differ from competitors or your business platform can download and it is more convenient and faster to use than competitors.
Once you understand the foundation of your platform development, you will begin the development stage. Your business should have a good development team and also have experience that can help to develop the platform professionally.
2. TEAMWORK DREAM WORK
A good development team is essential to developing a platform because the platform needs to be up-to-date. It can be created and discarded, for example applications in App Store and Play Store will notify when there is an update if the OS version is updated. Even the website also needs to adjust the site structure to keep up with every change in order to maintain the search rankings on Google and prevent website crashes. If the platform is not updated continuously, the platforms from the business that has been invested will eventually be a wasted investment. Because the target audience cannot reach the platform from different devices that can be updated. (Such as mobile and tablet). Therefore, it is important for businesses to have a dedicated developer team to develop and solve problems continuously. The developer team will divide the work system into 4 parts: front-end, back-end, API or Applications Interface, and database. Developers’ team will develop these various segments into a platform which handled by the experts and divided into 5 parts as follows:
- The Designer Team (UX/UI) are responsible for designing the platforms to be the most easy to use and it is beautiful to attract the user.
- The Developer Team (Developer / System Analyst or SA) – Analyst, planning to write the programs and design database.
- The Tester Team (Tester) will respond to test the developed system before activation. They have to test that the system is complete or are there any adjustment. Check the tightness of the system and recheck platform for programmers to fix and add in every blind spot to make the platform perfect before it goes live.
- System Admin – will be an administrator and also create servers, set up the system, cloud, and domain management.
- Other positions such as Project Manager – Supervise the overall performance of the team. Set in the operation and development budget Supervise the overall performance of the team.
3. Technology and Development
When a business has an all quality team, it will step into the technology development process which is divided into two main categories: Web Technology and Mobile Technology. It will be divided into 2 operating systems ‘IOS’ and ‘Android’. It is essential that the platform must support both operating systems.
Even there is a developer wizard that adds convenience to developers like "Google Flutter" which can create a support system for both Android and IOS. It saves manpower and a lot of time for the development team, but the system supports only the basic functions. However, some cases in business need the platform to have more detail. Even more specialized functions still require a good development team to help write Native or original systems and keep helping develop as usual. By developing a system, it is necessary to think of many details in order to make the platform more fully functional. And the development of technology should be considered as well.
- Interface and Application: External platforms today can connect with other systems to facilitate the users. For example, if there is a log in on a platform, it changes from users having to fill out the same information to be logged in via other systems like Google, E-mail, and Facebook. Even payment on the platform through the system Payment Gateway that connects to social media such as Facebook, Messenger Instagram , Twitter ,Google map and so on. When these things are easier to reach by consumers, the greater the opportunity of closing sales on your business.
- Function and Feature: This is like the heart of the application because if all of the points were all perfect but lacking any good feature then it would be wasted. It’s like building without people living. So it is important that developers and business owners should look into all aspects. It should be put more attention to convenience for using the platform, how to make it easier to use and have special new and unique features. And it's best if people can access 24 hours a day.
4. Operation duration
The development period is from two months to one year depending on the details and scale of the project. It will be divided into a phase. Like building a house, it will begin from Phase one to phase two, three and four, respectively and break down in detail as sprints. For example, creating a sprint house it will enumerate that it will start to pile up first or build the structure first. For instance, in the first sprint will start with creating a login system. Each phase and sprint will have a document (contract) stating the job details, features, period of time for development, and the cost. However, when some phases are complete, it means that businesses can launch their initial services without problem. While developing the phase two, three, or four can be a further update as well.
5. Budget method
Finally, it is the most important issue that businesses need to know before deciding to develop a platform. The budget for developing a platform can be roughly average estimated from 500,000 to 10 million baht (both Web technology and Mobile technology), the budget is divided into two main expenses:
Development
- Software expenses – including design works and Cloud Server
- Personnel expenses – having from 2 to 10 people, depending on the size of the developed system. The wages are calculated using the "Man-day" calculation principle by ‘People X the amount of time worked’.
Maintenance
- Cloud expenses – On average, starting from the thousands to the tens of thousands.
- Personnel expenses – Estimated from the number of administrative calculated by ‘personnel salaries X Two people multiplied by their monthly salary’
*The personnel team expenditures are personnel in all 5 segments from above.*
It is hoped that with all of the information above will help the business to have an overview of how to prepare plans, money, time and people, before deciding to develop the platform more clearly. According to the above detail, it will be a big change that your organization needs to prepare carefully as planned and budget forecasts. However it is worth it, the advancement of the social and the consumer behavior has changed completely from the past. The platform will help businesses run well and potentially provide many great opportunities in the future.
