The news is bleak as the US economy continues to struggle. Companies are cutting IT spend but outsourcing may continue to grow so that companies can save more money, blah, blah.
Ok, so we know all that already and a recent Forrester report validates this. The same report states that the firms that are not outsourcing (and there are many who haven’t even thought about outsourcing) are most concerned about quality, or lack there of. The report also states that a second reason is that the savings weren’t as high as expected.
So lets analyze the quality issue a bit today. I’ve found from experience that lower quality from offshored suppliers is caused by three major areas: misunderstood or not adequately understood requirements, lower skilled resources, and a lack of “depth” of experience.
The underlying problem regarding misunderstood or under-understood (is that even a word?) requirements is cultural to a great extent.
It’s the attitude of “ho jayega” or “it’ll be done” that is inherent to most Indians and is very admirable for the requestor until things just don’t get done. In India, “it’ll be done” is a common assurance so be sure to ask “that’s great, but when will it be?”
Another reason for the misunderstood or under-understood requirement is that in an effort to win the project, many suppliers are willing to provide a price and a timeline without fully comprehending the complexity of the project. Or in the case of a project scope change, many times the customer may say it’s a small change and the supplier will agree so as to appear cooperative.
They find out later on that what they agreed to wasn’t quite that simple to do and would require more time or more skills or more resources.
Don’t get me wrong, scope misunderstandings happen in the US too. But having worked with suppliers from India for over nine years, I have found that scope misunderstandings are even more prevalent with them and are very difficult to get a handle. Unless I was able and willing to review the entire project to the nth level of detail at the onset (and even then) we found it impossible to ensure that the final project we tested was fully functional, wasn’t missing a major component, or was thoroughly tested before being handed off to us for user acceptance testing.
I could go on and on and on but it’s getting late (3:00 am EST) and I should be in bed, more on this and the other two challenges tomorrow…..
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Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Nipa,
Seems you have been a part of very small projects and someone whose focus is not of processes but only on getting things done.
Outsourcing only works if you put efforts in streamlining the processes - refer your CMM and CMMI.
We have achieved great benefits with outsourcing - but if you are someone who expects things to be done with incomplete requirements - outsourcing is not for you. We do have miscommunications - but we work on making our requirements clearer.
Sunday, September 14th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Nipa - seems your processes are weak. Indians work in US too and I find them as productive and understanding as our US guys. But if you expect implicit understandings - which normally people from non IT background do - you are headed for a sure surprise.
Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Funny how here’s another comment about my experience with only smaller projects or lack of process. And you said it, there are miscommunications -my blog was only highlighting that point. Read the story about Boeing and I challenge you to tell me that their delays and receipt of planes with missing parts had nothing to do with some miscommunication or incomplete requirement.
And this is not about Indians, it is about outsourcing and, my focus is on outsourcing to India because that’s where my 9 years of experience has been. By the way, I’m Indian and I pride myself on being very productive…..