Wang, Wei Yang with Ya-tsai Tseng, "The Dynamics of A Software House’s One-Shot Growth", 2005 July 17-2005 July 21
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The pattern of one-shot growth is most seen in software industry. The purpose of this paper is to understand the growth dynamics of a software house and to facilitate the software house to manage its growth. This paper models a major domestic ERP software house in Taiwan that is experiencing the one-shot growth process. Business type-level packages and high quality service is the companys secrets for its success. With a good reputation for high quality systems and services, the companys growth strategy is to expand the market it serves by developing new kinds of packages for more business types. However, how to balance the human resources requirements of R&D and ERP is rather difficult when long delays exist everywhere in a software house. With the system dynamics model built, this paper identifies the archetype of limits to growth hidden inside the software house and illustrates how the problem is worsened by the companys intuitive reactions.