“Money is not the most important thing in the world. Love is. Fortunately, I love money.”
Jackie Mason.
Whether you’re with an integrator or are a CSP’s employee, there’s one* basic question to ask yourself when starting on a new OSS:
Is your OSS assisting the CSP with their top line (revenues) or bottom line (profit, but extensibly cutting costs)?
In my experience, most people who build the OSS see it as a cost centre and only look at the bottom line when building up their business case justifications. Ironically though, I believe that most people who approve investment in an OSS project are seeking the top line.
Our business case builder gives ideas for either approach.
The way I see it, selling on features alone doesn’t cut it anymore. You have to quantify and communicate the benefit.
* I guess your investment could also be for brand insurance (eg minimising the fall-out of outages).