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There is concern in the Western world that the surge of offshore outsourcing to India is threatening jobs in the IT workforce. There is also an interesting train of thought that questions various issues with outsourcing and many of them are rational. The contents of this page are intended to describe how we address these issues and why outsourcing to Icreon - a leading offshore outsourcing consulting company in India - makes perfect business sense.


INTRODUCTION
Many Western companies are sizing up the benefits of software development outsourcing to a company overseas, with the view that it will significantly decrease the cost of IT development. Offshore outsourcing companies have expanded rapidly in countries like India, who are considered to have the Lion’s share of the outsourcing market. The surge of outsourcing solutions to India began in the late 1990’s when the cost of IT development in the Western World soared amidst the hype of the Internet. It is true to say that the market at that point was not sustainable. People were earning too much for knowing very little.


OFFSHORE IT OUTSOURCING ISSUES AND THEIR RESOLUTIONS

Lack of Face To Face Communication

Issue
The most effective form of communication is face to face. People can use speech, facial gestures, gesticulate, draw pictures, and express emotions. We can engage in dialogue and ask questions and respond to each other. It is rich with signals to which we are all exceptionally tuned. The next best form of communication is over the phone. It isn’t great, but it is the next best. We lose all visual clues, ability to gesticulate, and show expression. After the phone the next best is pictures, and after that the written word. In outsourcing face to face communication gets replaced by the written word which can be heavily misinterpreted and is a much slower medium in which to communicate understanding. If you outsource your development work to a foreign country you lose the most effective form of communication which inevitably slows you down.

Resolution
The answer to the above really lies with our clients and their comfort levels. If effectiveness is the main criterion that drives communication and thereby, an IT project, doing so through e-mails can prove very effective indeed. Written communication is also much less arbitrary and certainly less prone to errors. It is also a much more cohesive and tangible form of communication. Visual contact and telephone conferences can be done with relative ease, using all of the latest technologies and tools available. Even in a local environment, we strongly encourage documentation and communication through e-mails. This helps both our clients and Icreon to orient ourselves precisely to the proposed tasks at hand, both immediate and otherwise. However, having said that, outsourcing to Icreon does not imply ‘No Visual Contact’. We utilize technologies and tools such as WebEx, QuickBase, NetMeeting etc which not only makes visual contact possible but also facilitates a whole lot of other rich features. Click HERE for more details on Communication.


Additional documentation overhead

Issue
Because of the poor communication factor requirements need to be detailed clearly in documentation which requires significantly more work than if it was done locally using a lightweight approach. A considerable amount of work needs to be done to ensure the written specifications are water tight and understood. There is a balance between spending time writing instructions for someone else to carry out correctly, or just doing it yourself.

Resolution
A detailed document is not an alternative to good communication. It is complementary. Yes, a considerable amount of work needs to be done to ensure that the written specifications are crisp and clear. But that is something that we recommend to all our clients - both native and overseas. A 'lightweight' approach to a software development task greatly magnifies the possibilities of errors. The philosophy that goes behind any form of outsourcing, especially software development is that offshore IT outsourcing is a more cost-effective option to take. If a client subscribes to that school of thought, getting it done certainly makes more business sense.


Only a small part can be outsourced

Issue
The only part that is cheaper is the actual coding and unit testing part. There is a great deal of work that needs to be done that cannot be done overseas. For example: business analysis, system specification, requirements specification, user acceptance testing, installation, training and project management. The part that can be outsourced is a small part of the project. The companies that provide offshore outsourcing who live in the expensive economies also have to manage the project themselves. The margins are thus very high to cater for the work they need to do at their end and also to cover the risk of problems arising in the project, particularly for fixed price work.

Resolution
Not true. At Icreon, when a customized project development task is undertaken, the only thing that needs to be understood carefully and correctly is the business logic of the proposed software. Icreon provides all the inputs that go into making a successful software application. Subsequent to our understanding of the business logic, we effectively suggest corrective measures, improvements, enhancements, and subtle variations in modifying business processes that prove to be more effective and manageable. Effective process driven methodologies ensure this happens consistently and up to the highest standards. We completely leave the choice of managing a project in the hands of our clients. If our client requires managing the project from a remote location, we make suitable arrangements to facilitate this Click Here. Conversely, if our client requires us to undertake project management at a fulsome level (as is the case, most of the time), Icreon performs this, from our offshore development center in India, with ease and efficiency while ensuring timely deliveries and maintaining crisp communication with our clients.


Questionable support

Issue
Longer term the support of the application is an issue. Can it be supported in a cost effective manner from an overseas location in a different time zone? Do you need to pay for support in this country? What is the cost of handing over the code base to a local team?

Resolution
IT projects do not end with implementation. Support is an integral part of our methodologies and indeed, one of our core values. A good example to cite to counter the time-zone argument is our National Geographic Channel project. We work across six time zones to keep the NGC family of websites up and running. Cost structures for any support are subjective. Support and Warranties can be 'free' for certain durations for certain software development projects, while attached to a price tag in others. Either way, costs for support are arrived at after mutual consensus. Handing over the code base to a local team is a breeze. Exact costs of these are again, arrived at, subsequent to mutual consensus - however, the costs of a customized software application along with the source code could still be substantially lesser than what they would be in a client's native country.

"Having listened to our needs and objectives very carefully Icreon were able to identify the solution in line with our business objectives. I would also like to thank Icreon for taking care of our on-going maintenance constantly being available without feeling like we are in different countries."