kieon 10 (2)

<10 tips to make offshoring successful>kieon.com

Introduction

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The internet makes it easy to business

with companies no matter where they are.

The downside is that without some degree of due diligence

it’s very difficult to know exactly who you are dealing with as

anyone with a phone line and a well crafted website can present

themselves as the world’s greatest partner.

Some key questions to ask are:

• Do they have their own directly employed staff or do they act

as agents/work with sub-contractors?

• Where are they actually located?

• What do their most recent accounts look like?

Taking time to carry out some initial checks will quickly establish

whether they are an appropriate partner for you to even begin to

consider working with.

Know who you are working with

Enforcing contracts across countries

should things go wrong can be difficult at

the best of times and impossible at worst

When entering into service agreements it is important to be very

clear about how your contracts with your partners can be relied

upon in the unfortunate event should things go wrong.


• Are you dealing with a local company or directly with an

offshore one?

• If they are acting as agents/using sub-contractors are you

protected if they fail to deliver?

• Do items such as their Professional Indemnity insurance

provide you with sufficient cover when working offshore?

Most of the time none of this is going to matter to you as contracts

are only really important when things go wrong but it is important

to ensure that if the worst does happen you are actually covered.

Make sure contracts are enforceable

There are many immensely talented

offshore companies that produce work of

the highest quality day in day out.

The problem is that once something’s online it can be very difficult

to be completely certain which company built what. As such it’s

worth asking for more than a portfolio of a partners work.


• Can you send me samples of code across different

disciplines rather than pointing me to work that you have

done?

• Do you have defined internal coding standards and may I

see them?

• Another question?

Most of the time none of this is going to matter to you as contracts

are only really important when things go wrong but it is important

to ensure that if the worst does happen you are actually covered.

Ask for samples of work

References are always one of the

best ways to see if a company is an

appropriate for you to partner with.

Take the time to pick up the phone and speak to some of their

existing clients and see what they have to say about them.


• What type of projects have you done with them; both scale

and complexity?

• How do they respond when things go wrong?

What one thing could they do to improve their service to you?

The most important thing to ensure when speaking to their

existing clients is that they have worked with them on similar

work to that which you are considering or their reference could

be meaningless. to ensure that if the worst does happen you are

actually covered.

Speak to other clients

Clearly defined processes are one of the

foundations of a successful offshoring

relationship

The problem is that once something’s online it can be very difficult

All companies will have their own way of working and differing

degrees of flexibility when it comes to adapting them to the way

you work. It’s important to understand these from the outset so

that you can be sure they’ll work for your circumstances.


• Can we see how your processes are documented and

implemented?

• Do we have access to your version control and issue

tracking software or will you work with ours?

• How flexible can you be in fitting in with the way we

do things?

Clarifying how things will work from the outset will ensure that

things run much more smoothly as the amount of work undertaken

between you increases.

Understand their processes

Culture is one of the biggest stumbling

blocks in any offshoring venture.

When entering into service agreements it is iPeople’s ways of

working both as companies and culturally can differ greatly and

if this is not addressed and understood from the beginning it can

cause massive problems further down the line. It’s important to

take time to be sure that you are comfortable with the firm you are

intending to deal with.


• What are your working practices and employee

conditions like?

• Am I currently dealing with the people that will be my day

to day contacts?

• How well are we communicating both in terms of

language and understanding?

There will always be cultural differences when working with any

company. The key is to be aware of them from the start and

address them accordingly right from the outset.

Make sure there’s a cultural fit

Emerging economies often have emerging

infrastructure.

It is a hard reality that even in the most developed places power

and internet connections can fail and cause problems and this

can be a much more regular occurrence offshore. It is important

to ensure that potential partners have well thought out business

continuity plans in place.


• What do you do in the event of a power failure?

• How many internet providers and connections do

you have?

• How is your data backed up and how quickly can

it be recovered?

With proper planning less reliable infrastructure need present no

problems at all and in fact can often mean that offshore partners

have far more resilient systems then their clients.

What happens when the lights go out?

Firsthand experience and personal contact

is extremely valuable.

There’s nothing that can replace the long lasting benefit of actually

visiting potential partners both in terms of the depth of relationship

it can build and the ensure that all that you have been told and

shown of the partner is actually the case.


• Can I meet the project managers and teams that I’ll be

working with?

• Can you show me around your facilities and back-up

infrastructure?

• What else?

There is nothing that can replace the peace of mind that comes

from having visited a potential partner’s offices and met the people

you’ll be working with face to face.

Go and visit them

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

OK so this is a cliché but it holds true more often than not. Once

you are happy that you have found a company that you can work

with arrange an initial trial job to see how things work between you

in a way that’s risk free.

Typical ways to run a trial include:

• Creating a small test project specifically for the

purpose of a trial

• Redoing a small project that has already been completed

• Working in parallel on a small live project as a trial

Whichever way you choose to run a trail the most important thing

to remember is that its purpose should be to start to understand

how each of you work and learn from it and not that it is an effort

to ‘catch out’ your potential offshore partner.

Do a trial job

All successful relationships are based on

trust and time.

It is really important to look to the long term when selecting an

offshore partner to work with. The most successful partnerships

generally require a desire to work together as equals, to learn

from mistakes and to continually work on improving how the

partners work together.

Some key points to consider include:

• Ensuring that your offshore partner has the scale to be

able to work with you as you grow

• Having frequent project and overall working relationship

reviews and building from the learning’s from them

• Genuinely working as partners to extract the maximum

benefit that such a relationship can bring

When planned and approached properly offshoring brings

significant benefits that will enable your company to grow and

succeed in an extremely cost effective way.

Plan for the long-term

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