The Dao of Outsourcing

Traditionally outsourcing vendors place coordinators on the customer site to facilitate communication with the offshore team.   This article discusses a different approach to coordinating offshore outsourcing projects where the client places a coordinator on the outsourcing vendor site to manage the offshore project.

I recently read a good blog post on Pragmatic Outsourcing titled The Myth of the Onsite Coordinator. Often offshore software outsourcing vendors place employees on the client site as part of the offshore engagement.  As Nick Krym mentions in his blog post, there are disadvantages to having an onsite offshore coordinator, the main being cost to the client.  An alternative approach that can be more effective is for the client to place an employee on the outsourcing supplier site.

Although an offshore coordinator could be employed by the outsourcing vendor or client, for the purpose of this post when I refer to “offshore onsite coordinator”, I mean a client employee or contractor managing the outsourcing initiative offshore.  This offshore onsite coordinator is responsible for managing the communication and coordination between the client and the vendor and may also be responsible for managing the vendor.

Read the rest of this entry »

So, you go and talk to Gartner and they say that after India, China or Mexico are the next best options for software outsourcing. Great, now what? Well before you start contacting vendors, here are 5 things to think about before investing any more of your time, or money in considering China. If you decided to go with China as an offshore software development destination you will come to terms with these 5 eventually, so why not start now.

1. This is China - China is not India, Mexico, Ukraine ….
This statement may seem so obvious that you can’t believe you wasted your time in reading it. However, the number of people who have said, “but it worked when we did it this way in <insert second world country name here>, why didn’t it work in China” would amaze you. Plan time to adjust approaches and strategies (often substantially) for China.

2. Communication will be a problem
No matter what the vendor tells you, how many English teachers are on staff, or if you have native Chinese speakers you have at your company, communication will be a challenge.  Plan for increased ramp up time of the offshore team.  If a key success factor is speed to setup the offshore engagement then China may not be your best option.

Read the rest of this entry »