A Gold Coast headquartered company has slashed its development budget and is achieving greater product innovation because it decided to outsource the programming for its award-winning software for the aged care sector.

The decision to outsource programming to Bali company Mitrais was aimed at better managing the risk associated with the ongoing development of ThoughtWare Australia Pty Ltd’s, i.on my Care.

The software was recently named the first cloud-ready application to be available under an exclusive partnership between NEC Australia and the aged care industry’s peak bodies. i.on my Care also helped ThoughtWare to win the Technology in Aged Care implementation of the year award for an aged care facility with less than 150 residents.

ThoughtWare CEO, Ms. Sonja Bernhardt, said “We were becoming highly reliant on some key resources in our on-shore team and that was a risk that had to be minimised. We needed flexibility and resources, skills and knowledge beyond the minds of just a few people, especially as the product and technology needs are progressing,” she said.

“Seat outsourcing to engage Mitrais’ services made logical sense in terms of money and access to skills which we can tap into on an as needed-basis.”

She acknowledges that for ThoughtWare clients there is always some risk in ensuring continual and accurate systems operation, so reliability was an initial concern.

“When it became obvious that Mitrais engineers knew what they were doing and therefore the solution was going to be in good hands, we experienced an also immediate reduction in the stress that accompanies a software development project. “We initially cut our development budget in half and it has since dropped to one third of what we were paying,” Ms. Bernhardt said.

ThoughtWare also noted a greater transparency in the development process as Mitrais gained more knowledge of the product and processes.

“Consequently, we are now seeing greater innovation in how the application works,” Ms. Bernhardt explains.

“In achieving these benefits we also dispelled a common perception and it is just that, a perception, that by outsourcing you lose control,” Ms. Bernhardt said.

The .NET based i.on my Care for governance, risk management and compliance has been designed and built on latest leading edge technology and to international standards.