Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Software Solution

In the modern organizational context, the ability to innovate – to enhance performance and outcomes through improvements in processes, efficiency and productivity – is inextricably linked to IT infrastructure. Legacy systems do not easily enable support key drivers of innovation including:

• the adoption of new technologies and methodologies to improve work practices
• the repositioning of existing resources to undertake new functions
• the effective use of new or existing technology, resources, and caseworkers to adapt to changes in society, as needed

The COTS Approach

Commercial off-the-Shelf (COTS) solutions specifically designed for social enterprises provide a new technology roadmap that allows organizations to align policy objectives to technology initiatives. In Government and IT Modernization (Claps & Dale, 2008) the authors consider that now, software for government human services agencies “with more capability than ever before” is being developed.

These COTS solutions support all of the benefits of more ‘traditional’ COTS solutions in industries like financial management, human resources, and supply chain management, but also provide support for the unique business processes commonly required by social enterprises. As John Kost notes in his 2007 report Government Human Services at the Precipice of Radical Change:

‘Governments can now take advantage of a wide range of products from simple point solutions for administration of relatively small programs (like services to the aging or the homeless) to products that enable governments to replace most or all of their human services legacy systems with highly integrated, high-functionality products.’

The author concludes that these new products require “significantly less” customization than the solutions of the past.

The Value of COTS

• Low risk solution deployment – by delivering common, best-practice functionality out-of-the-box and leveraging proven and successful COTS implementation methodologies
• Low Cost – by significantly reducing development efforts, enabling customers to focus on tailored extensions to meet their unique business requirements
• Inherent Best Practices – by incorporating the leveraging knowledge obtained by working on dozens of social enterprise solution implementations into the Cúram COTS solutions.

Why Cúram COTS solutions?

Cúram’s COTS-based enterprise solutions incorporate an extensive set of best practices, business processes, and service delivery models from social enterprises worldwide. These solutions are delivered through the Cúram Business Application Suite (CBAS).

The CBAS is comprised of domain-specific business and technology components built on a modular enterprise architecture that provides agencies with deep functionality and fast, flexible deployment capabilities without tying the enterprise to a specific systems integration partner or technology platform.  Cúram has designed and developed COTS solution specific and enterprise focused modules within CBAS to ensure common core capabilities are delivered ensuring successful business transformations for its’ customers.

Cúram has proven to deliver the broadest range of vertical solutions of any COTS vendor globally

• Acknowledged market leader by analysts, customers, partners and competitors
• Created COTS market for SEM and have the largest SEM R&D investment of any industry player
• Dominant COTS vendor in major market segments
• Leading SEM market share in the US, Canada and key geographies of APAC and EMEA
• 50+ implementations globally