Services

Mercom has a good track record of building applications to meet business needs of our many clients.

Our approach is to work with the client and provide an end-to-end solution. In a typical scenario, the work would involve gathering of requirements, systems design, development, testing and deployment

During each phase, review sessions are held with the client to ensure that expectations would be met in terms of the functionality and performance when the system is deployed. We also provide maintenance services at client's request to support and enhance the systems functions on a long-term basis. Mercom has considerable experience in developing applications some of which are listed below.

Applications Expertise

Object oriented applications development
Webpage designs, coding and data capture
Legacy system interfaces
Rapid prototyping and technology evaluation for mission critical applications
AMDOCS modules integration

Corporation

Program/Project Management

Mercom has also developed expertise in Program and Project Management areas gained over many years of successfully completing turnkey projects. Our Program Management staff works with the client and helps identify suitable resources, and determine cost of the projects within a given timeline. This helps the client make a value judgment on proceeding with the project based on the cost effectiveness of deploying a system against the business needs.

Typically, Mercom employees work on-site at client's locations, but in some cases off-site work is also undertaken. Our development centers are located in the US and India. Mercom follows state-of-the-art project management techniques. We use both "Waterfall" and "Iterative' processes depending on the nature of the project and the client's preference. A project has many phases.

The key phases that our project management staff pay particular attention to:

Requirements gathering and traceability: This refers to the ability to gather client requirements both software and hardware, describe and follow the life of a requirement from its origin through to its development and subsequent implementation. Throughout the development phase, the process allows refinement of the requirements and also to capture additional ones should an un-predictive change in the marketplace occur.

Risk management: Mercom has implemented a number of risk-mitigation strategies and activities based on the past projects, and apply them to our existing client based work to reduce risk for project failure. Some of the strategies include:

Risk profiling based on polling of team members.
Risk repository that includes risk and contingency plans identified in the past projects for guiding future projects.
Risk identification and tracking tool for prioritizing risks based on probability, impact, risk to exposure for better contingency and mitigation planning.
Risk reporting as a standard agenda item in all planned meetings.

Issues Resolution: One of the key activities in any project management is the rapid resolution of issues that range from technical to organizational. Mercom through its many years of experience has developed techniques to identify and resolve issues without significantly impacting the project delivery dates. These issues are reported using Mercom's standard templates.

Defect Management: This includes defect density and service level compliance monitored monthly and reported to the board on a monthly basis. Reporting also includes defect prevention plan.

This is carried out at the project level as well as at the organizational level. It forms an integral part of all delivery project plans, and reviewed and revised at the end of every phase.

Quality Assurance: Mercom determines software quality by examining key indicators, such as, functionality, defect density, robustness, maintainability, scalability, security, performance and usability.

Release Management: This work starts at the outset of the design phase and continues through to the deployment of the project followed by its closure subject to the satisfaction of the client. It requires interaction with all those involved in the development of a system through to the user acceptance testing.

Vendor Management: Many large projects require a mix of both internal IT resources working in concert with an external vendor. In many cases the external vendor's products need to be integrated within the existing client system. Mercom has helped many clients manage the external vendors, including drawing up of contracts, and has been successful in transferring critical technology from the vendor to the client. Mercom has been particularly successful in coordination development effort between vendors located in the US and overseas.

Progress Monitoring, Reviews & Reporting: This involves multi-peer artifact reviews of deliverables (documents, code), intermediate work products and design documents, test plans, etc. Reporting is conducted at project, program and executive levels including phase-end reviews where issues relating to requirements, design, coding, unit testing, integration testing, system testing, deployment and formal project closure are detailed.

System Integration Management

System integration is probably one of the most important activity that determines success or failure of a project. Special management skills are required to ensure that applications developed at different locations by different teams, including independent vendors, are successfully integrated to deliver a fully functioning system to the client. Some of the key activities in the system integration that Mercom experts pay particular attention include:

Integration rules
Interfaces – external and internals
Database structure
Database read/write procedures
Database expansion rules
Application administration
API integration
Performance measurement

Error identification and debugging procedure
Technologies used and their compatibility
Vendor product upgrade procedures
Licensing agreements
Testing procedures
Common communication process
Change management

Major Benefit

One major benefit of employing Mercom's resources is that it brings expertise and knowhow cost effectively that may not otherwise exist within the client companies. This becomes particularly significant when, due to changes in the marketplace, a need arises to implement systems within tight timelines. Engaging Mercom helps alleviate this and any potential gaps in the technical knowhow. This also helps the client's IT department realize considerable savings in delivering the required system.

Other areas where client benefits include:

In today's world, every corporation has diversity in its employees. Mercom is well prepared to work with a diverse employee base within the client companies where Mercom is staffed by technical and management personnel who are multilingual. This provides considerable benefits to the clients when dealing with off-shore development teams where miscommunications can lead to considerable rework of the development effort causing subsequent delays and increase in the cost of implementing a system.

Our Mission

At Mercom, we believe that our success is directly dependent on the client achieving its goals. We strive to establish mutual trust, and provide the best technical resources to conduct the required work.

Corporation

Creative Problem Solving

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About us

We Provide Consulting

Services

i. Mercom Inc :Mercom was founded in 1989, and has a staff of consultants available to work on or off client sites offering software based solutions and services to meet the business needs of its clients. Our staff is well qualified having accumulated many years of field experience, and is available to work with the clients to provide expertise in project cost estimation and resource requirements.

Project Management

Mercom has a large database of employees that are available to work with our clients on a short-term (few months) or on a long-term (few years) basis. Our hiring practice ensures that we have the most highly qualified and experienced resources to take up any challenging assignments with our clients. Mercom endeavors to provide best in class resources to augment client's staffing needs.

"We provide consulting services to a range of small to large corporations and industry types providing expertise"

Mercom, Inc

Corporation

Creative Problem Solving

Operating Systems

Mercom also is staffed with highly qualified and experienced technical personnel that available to work on or off clients’ premises to augment IT work for timely delivery of the projects. The following table provides a good indication of the areas in which Mercom staff members excel.

Application Servers

Internet Technologies

Project Management