Outsourcing

Outsourcing Effectiveness
Why do Web Projects Fail, and what can we do about it?
Failure - according to Wikipedia refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective.
Thirty percent of web development projects will fail, will be delivered late and/or over budget. Failure is costly, not just in terms of dollars spent, but in lost opportunity and reputation. Twenty one percent (21%) of projects will fail to meet the stakeholder requirements. The Aberdeen Group takes these statistics even further, reporting 50% failure rates with offshore developers. Why will nearly 1 in 3 web projects fail and what can be done to increase your odds of success?
To understand how to succeed, it is important to dive-deeper and explore why projects fail. The New Bamboostudy referenced three factors of project failure: 1. Changing requirements 2. Inconsistent stakeholder demands 3. Insufficient time or budget
The Aberdeen Group reported: * 76% of companies said that vendor management effort and costs were much higher than expected * 30% reported ongoing issues with outsourcer management processes (e.g., inadequate governance and conflict resolution procedures) * 51% reported that outsourcer was not performing to expectations
Gloomy outcome for most projects, or so it would seem. However, you can tilt the outcome to success at a much higher rate by starting your project with a strong foundation, a clear plan and strategy and concise and detailed requirements. Entrepreneurs, we have found, are ideas people. They think great thoughts and yet have trouble detailing their vision to their development partners. They talk past each other, with an assumption that they both understand each other. The best development firms will probe and ask questions until they fully understand the project - alas most do not. This is an issue with both on and offshore development companies, we have found.
Before you solicit a development partner, make sure your vision, budget and timeline are in realistic. And once you have a partner selected, be sure there is complete understanding of the project details, goals, budget and timeline. We have experienced with business owners that had grand visions and low unrealistic budgets. And we have met business owners with their project idea written on a napkin, not fully thought through. We have met many business owners that told us of their bad experiences with project development - and we often see the root cause was well before the first line of code was written.

At Cross Sea Strategy Advisors, we work closely with the business owner; coaching and mentoring, asking questions and building up requirements that meet their budget, timeline and strategic vision. This all before a development partner is identified and engaged.
Taking the time upfront will help improve the odds that your web or mobile development project will meet your expectations, be delivered on budget and on-time. And with our effective RFP management process, we can then help ensure that the developers are fully in-sync with the business owner.
Success, the achievement of an objective or goal... the opposite of failure, according to Wikipedia.
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India Outsourcing: Managing Cross-Culture Relationships
As anyone who has traveled for business to offshore locations; there are cross-cultural norms that should be learned and adopted. A friend shared her corporate guidelines for Americans traveling to India, in preparation for her travel to their Indian offices. A few of the guidelines resonated from my experience promoting and delivering Indian development projects. The following is just one of the Indian business practices that, if left un-mentored could cause project failures and loss of the partner relationship. In future blog entries; we will discuss some of the other interesting nuances of Indian business culture.
Indian Employees have a difficult time saying "no". That to do so might be be deemed offensive and harm the business relationship. This was one area we mentored our teams to be forthcoming with their ideas and suggestions. The challenge is that in terms of clients; the client is not always right. It was critical to break through this cultural norm; so that the Indian teams felt "empowered" to offer their feedback. Not only from the Team Leader; but from the programmers themselves.
During conference calls between our development team and the client, as a routine, we would also be on a private Skype chat with the developers. When the team was new to the American marketplace, we spent a singificant time reminding the developers to ask more questions, slow down their speech, to be brief in their explanations. And for goodness sake; stop say "yes" when a gentle no - followed by a clear suggestion was in order. Clients need to feel as if they were speaking to a true partner; not an order taker. We won more deals because clients felt that our development team not only "got-it", but contributed to the conversation with their solid recommendations and suggestions.
If your development team acts like an order taker; it is time to change teams. Mentoring your offshore team to feel empowered to ask questions; to offer alternatives and politely disagree when appropriate will create a stronger bond with the client. And most importantly, will help deliver projects that truly meet (or exceed) the requirements and client expectations.
Contact us today to learn how our teams can deliver high quality results for your projects.
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Business Service Outsourcing: Defining the Best Shore Model
Terms can have more than one meaning, and perception is not always reality. Such is the case with Outsourcing.
We beat this drum over and over. Recently I was asked if my company (Cross Sea Strategy Advisors) helps companies to relocate services offshore. The answer is absolutely not. Our model is to help companies to locate services that they do no have internally; usually project based. For instance, a small business that has an idea for a mobile application may not have the resources to create their vision. And their need is short term - develop the application and move on to the next business strategy.
Peter Drucker once said, "Do what you do best – and outsource the rest!", which just makes good business sense. At ADP (Payroll services), we used to say "You Make Pizza, We Do Payroll". Focus on your core business and outsource the rest. The resources could be offshore, near shore or right here in America. We use the term "Best Shoring"; where we select the right partner for the project based on skills, experience and budget. Each geographic location offers certain advantages and disadvantages that are weighed in the outsource resource selection decision for the client. In other words, we employ the best shore resource for the given assignment.
Outsourcing does not mean offshore and it doesn't mean a loss of jobs. Managed correctly, Best Shoring it is a sound business strategy with competitive and strategic benefits. Posted in Best Shore Model, Outsourcing Effectiveness | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBack (0)
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Innovation: Is your offshore #outsourcing partner delivering on the promise?
Innovation; "...a new way of doing something. It may refer to incremental, radical, and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations." (Wikipedia definition)
We are very passionate about Innovation and Innovative thinking. We like to think that all entrepreneurs are innovative by nature - or are they? From our direct experience, we have found that entrepreneurs establish new concepts and ideas, yet they often need others to help fill in the gaps or to see around corners. Does your outsource / offshore partner help or hinder critical innovation support?
When it comes to offshore service providers, we have seen some of the very best - and worst when it comes to providing innovative thinking. In order to help an entrepreneur (or business owner) innovate, the partner needs to feel empowered to do so. They must be made to feel they are an important element to the team. Some service providers never seek this -- and therefore fail. Others make it a strong part of their process - to always probe and ask questions and offer alternative suggestions and ideas. When you find this partner - you are more likely to succeed.
Tip: When vetting partners for your project, see how they react to your business objectives in the initial conversations. Do they nod their collective heads and agree with everything you are saying or do they interject their ideas at key points - asking and probing? And do they offer ideas.... even before a contract is in place. If so - this is a strong indication of a successful innovative partnership.
A partner that helps you innovate is passionate about your success...
If you are seeking a innovative development partner - contact Cross Sea Strategy. We help manage the outsource relationship - at no cost to you.
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#Offshore #Outsourcing Success: Starts with Understanding the Need
We have all seen this humorous depiction of client/developer communications. Perhaps not very funny when you consider this to be true - especially when communicating with offshore developers.

This happens often, enough so to give offshore a bad name. And yet, whose fault is it when what is delivered is not what was requested? Perhaps without stating blame, we suggest that that offshore outsourcing partner always make it part of their process to ensure complete understanding of the clients request. In other words, the developer should stand up and take charge - using their tried-and-tested methodology (we hope they have one). The client may be a business person without project management or developer skills - another reason for the development partner to take charge.
What happens however in most cases can best be summarized by a recent entry in the Goyello Blog - (Successful Outsourcing Needs Clients Attention):
"They (Indian Development Forms) all agreed that the specifications they receive for most of the projects (from Western companies) are not clear enough. What is more, they confirmed that in many instances their developers start working on these projects without properly understanding the request. ... makes such a project doomed to failure."
Advice for the client; if your offshore vendor is not asking you in-depth questions, or is simply agreeing with everything you request... find another vendor. In reality, you want and need a true outsourcing "partner" - that has your success at their core!
Contact me today to learn how we can help you connect with a true development partner.
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Outsourcing IT Development: Keys to Success
In a past life, we represented an offshore IT Product Development company - and our differentiation was in our processes and methodology. We lost deals due to cost - because for many, cost IS the differentiator. We say this is wrong; as they say, you get what you pay for. We recall attending a trade show where a competing vendor proudly displayed their cost ($12/hour) right on their booth banner.Would you trust them with your investment capital?
Copying is said to be a form of flattery, ok maybe it's plagiarism. Therefore, please take a look at the Six Ninja's blog article entitled: "Outsourcing software development, managing the risk" for an excellent list of suggestions when considering an outsourcing partner. A few of their points:
"If the price seems ridiculously cheap then somewhere in the chain, compromises will have been made, either in the quality, the testing or the support."
Ensure that your contract provides for schedule payments, and that you have tested and verifying your application to that point before payments are made. In addition, make sure your contract covers each point in this chain - the more detail in writing the better. Lastly, sometimes it is better to pay a premium price for a credible vendor than to save money with an unknown offshore company.

Points 5-7 are all very similar regarding release management, version control, and bug tracking.
It is critical that the offshore partner has the right logistical tools and procedures to manage the development cycle in coordination with your team. This means formal and scheduled code releases (often aligned to a payment schedule), online bug tracking and other non-email means of communication (of specs, changes, material...). A credible partner has the communications and process methodology ready to go - and well documented.

"Find out whether your outsource provider provides local project management, this is especially important if the team is located offshore. If it is not provided as standard, ensure you have the necessary skills in-house."
The very best offshore partners can offer a local presence that can be available within the same or near timezone. We coined the phrase "Best Shoring", which provides the client with optional local services. However, even without local representation, a partner that has strong communication skills and technologies can help alleviate this offshore concern. And do note their suggestion on having the right skills in-house or the willingness to pay for a maintenance contract (their 4th point).

Cross Sea Strategy Advisors represents offshore company's that have a highly motivated and disciplined team, strong methodology and process and excellent skills - at a fair and reasonable price. For Cross Sea, presenting a partner as highly credible makes the best business sense for all parties involved.
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Communications Tips with Your Offshore Team
We read an article today entitled: "7 best tips for communicating with your offshore team in india", and was distressed at some of the suggestions presented. The point of view was from the India side of the equation, yet we felt that the tips gave doubt that cross-cultural communications can be effective. Maybe we misread, what do you think?
The writer makes the following assumption, and thus his seven suggestions are rooted:
Mostly you are born & brought up in western country, having some cultural inclination and English language knowledge. Receiver is mostly the person in India, who knows English, but finds it hard to understand American English accent as well as having different cultural & geographical understanding.

The fallacy, from our personal experience, is that professional Indian's communicate quite well with their western counterparts. Naturally, at some levels the command of English is more colloquial (ya ya instead of yes for instance). However, to make the assumption that there are breakdowns in communication and cultural differences, we believe, brings great disservice to the Indian/North American offshore relationship.
In fact, we believe it is a critical step in the initial evaluation period for the US based client to speak with the offshore team. To guage not only technical know-how and innovative motivation, but also the ability to clearly understand and speak with each other. We have seen this communication go very well - enough to ensure a deal will be at hand.
We do agree with the comments in this article that for more technical discussions, the use of Skype chat and other digital means makes sense to ensure that there is clear documentation. This ensures there is a digital paper trail for technical points and agreements/understandings.
Just don't sell the verbal communication short - or perhaps find a more professional service provider.

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Improving Outsourced Sales Force Effectiveness; A Webinar
A brief webinar from a India based outsource call center company - VCare Call Center, with tips and suggestions for establishing an effective outsourced relationship. The information is relevant to other offshore outsource services - not just the call center trade. Some of the key points presented:
Cost Focused Outsourcing - this is a major pitfall. Cost is only one reason for considering an outsourced solution. However, if this is the primary reason, there could be major pitfalls to the programs success.
Garner Group continues to show growth in outsourcing - with Indian BPO revenues doubling by 2010
Companies that focus on their core-competency, and leverage outsourcing for competitiveness will prevail.
Success with your offshore partner through effective communications, setting clear goals, monitoring and reporting on these goals - keeping in mind that the outsource partner is an extension of your team. The better the relationship - the better the outsource outcome for your business.
http://www.outsourcing-today.com/outsourcing-effectiveness/