Business models

GS Lab’s market is generally referred to as the outsourced product development (OPD) services market. There are many fine shades of business models pursued by various companies. GS Lab’s approach is to offer the full range of possible services needed for a product vendor who signs up to use our services. Clearly, this range of services needs a range of business models. They are:

Setting up a team extension – Our most common engagement is with customers who want to scale their engineering team to meet their customers’ demands. GS Lab forms purpose-built teams for development and testing either components or entire systems. Almost all of these engagements are long-term.

Setting up a whole team – Some of our customers have set up their entire engineering team with GS Lab. In this form of engagement, typically the market requirements are gathered and communicated by the customer and GS Lab responds with a fully packaged, ready-to-be-sold solution. These are long term engagements.

Developing a prototype – Many customers need a way to prove an interesting concept around which they would like to build a business. GS Lab builds prototypes for such customers to enable them to validate their concepts for investors or their customers. GS Lab’s ability to adjust to constantly changing requirements has been proven many times.

Short-term investigations – Several customers have engaged us in short term engagements where they need a specific technical task undertaken, for example, technology evaluation of an acquisition target. GS Lab engages in such projects selectively. Many such projects have led to long term engagements.

OEM/licensing – GS Lab is a strong believer and investor in technology. We have created a vibrant product innovation environment through selective and aggressive investment in building our own technology assets. Our customers receive a head-start by licensing or OEMing these assets.

Revenue share – Often we are able to bring our expertise in a market to our customers where we can utilize our mutual assets in a beneficial way to both. In such circumstances, we selectively participate in a revenue sharing arrangement where the risk and the upside are shared.

On-site presence – There are times when our customers desire GS Lab personnel on site on a long term basis. GS Lab provides this service through specialists working at the customer site for long durations. This helps us communicate with the customer in his time zone alleviating the burden on the customer’s personnel.

Professional services – There are scenarios where our customers need their product integrated at their customer site to provide a complete solution. This often involves development and testing of the solution on-site. GS Lab provides this service through well-trained engineers with field experience.

SLA-driven engagements – On occasion, there are projects which provide very clear metrics for measuring and controlling success. For example, customer support can be measured through the number of requests processed and how quickly. GS Lab sets up a team to undertake these engagements with appropriate Service Level Agreements (SLA).

E-o-L services – Mature products are eventually transitioned to newer generation products. However, many customers of our customers may not see the need to switch over to new versions and therefore our customers need to continue to support them. GS Lab offers to take full ownership of such products by supporting and even making minor enhancements to such mature products.