A Case Study of Offshore Software Development
In the case study of offshore software development we are going to analyze the success and failures of projects. This case study will help us to achieve our goals towards successful software development. Let us start with the case study considering four important variables which coordinate the offshore development process. They are standards, planning, mutual adjustment and team selection.
Good planning, clear deadlines, usage of collaboration and instant messaging tools, hard working and flexible team members only can ensure success. Uncertainties, poor management, improper communication and internal conflicts surely will lead to loss and failure.
Normally the offshore product development cycle involves requirement analysis, designing, coding, integration testing and maintenance. Those who are well exposed to cultural differences, communication, relationship building, coordination and control, documentation, staff attrition, quality management issues, estimations, test environment, types of contract and release management can achieve the goals easily.
Reasons for failures.
1. Lack of transparency
2. Communication difficulties
3. Misunderstanding
4. constant change in project scope
5. Lack of business knowledge
Effort, Size, Elapsed Time, Rework, Complexity, Number of Incremental Releases, Number of Project Status Meetings, Number of Liaisons, Contract, Rework Stage, Requirements Volatility, Prior Experience and CMM KPAs are the determining factors of successful software development.
Requirements managements, software product engineering, software configuration management, software product planning, training program, peer reviews and defect prevention are the key process areas to accomplish the technical and quality process in the offshore development.
Off all these facts and factors, communication and coordination between the customers and the vendors is the foremost factor that should prevail through out the life cycle of offshore software development life-cycle leading to successful development.
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In the case study of offshore software development we are going to analyze the success and failures of projects. This case study will help us to achieve our goals towards successful software development.
Hiring is one of the most profitable and booming market today with the emergence of globalization. With this fact in mind, stakeholders start to hire people who are globally competitive and skilled. But the hiring process is bit complicated. Let’s look at the classy ways to hire the very best personnel.
Most of the Indian programmers and developers are paid for the full-time development. Part-time Indian developers are mostly working as freelancers. The salary of Indians is steadily increasing because of their demand in global software development. Let’s discuss about their average salary in IT industry.
You may have a project plan, know your budget and time-to-market and looking for web developers and software programmers. In this scenario, where shall you find them, how much the personnel will charge you, how come you trust them whether they can perform well or not. Let’s find the ultimate solution to overcome these challenges in the hiring process.
There are four significant stages in the offshore software development life cycle. They are inception phase, elaborate phase, construction phase and transition phase. Let us study them in detail.
Foreign clients hire Indian programmers and developers for web development in PHP, .NET, Ruby on rails, WordPress, Joomla and open source programming. There are some interesting reasons for why Indian web developers and programmers are hired by outsourcing companies. Let us see in detail.
Though there are many risks and challenges involved in global software development, the steep rise in globalization in the minds of young generation finally paves the way for software development offshore. Let us discuss how the projects are managed in offshore software development consulting.
In offshore outsourcing, an external organization is hired from a foreign country to accomplish a project just because the offshore software development companies charges lesser cost when compared to in-house consulting without any compromise in the quality or time management. Let us go through the case study of this topic.
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Significant Stages in the Offshore Software Development
There are four significant stages in the offshore software development life cycle. They are inception phase, elaborate phase, construction phase and transition phase. Let us study them in detail.
In the inception phase, the feasibility of the project is checked before it enters into elaboration phase. The requirements are modeled and tasks are assigned with a executable architectural plan. IT staff solution, labor rates and time-to-market are determined in this phase in order to ease pressure and managerial complexity.
In the elaboration phase, the requirements are prioritized and the projects are channelized. Proper communication and co-ordination defines the success of this phase. The project manager analyses the risk factors, project strategies and proposed development plan to determine the schedule and effort to implement the project successfully.
In the construction phase, the projects are defined, designed, developed and deployed. The predefined architectural plan is worked out. The products are tested with beta version.
In the transition phase, the software project is released for end-users. This phase normally gets lot of attention as the product comes into market completely.
The backgrounds, development processes, business domain knowledge, experience levels, work cultures and organizational practices are different for the offshore and onshore team. These differences have to be solved to ensure smooth flow of the overall offshore development process.
In the offshore project development life cycle, the progress of offshore development process is monitored to ensure that the deadlines are met and quality is guaranteed.
India, China, Brazil and Eastern European nations perform well in offshore development process as they are successfully implementing all the above mentioned significant steps in offshore product development life cycle.
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Project Management in Global Software Development
Though there are many risks and challenges involved in global software development, the steep rise in globalization in the minds of young generation finally paves the way for software development offshore. Let us discuss how the projects are managed in offshore software development consulting.
Most of the software projects are unique and innovative which involves a lot of risks on the way products are conceptualized, conceived, designed, developed and delivered to clients. These risks are very well managed through documentation.
Documentation is nothing but a study and analysis of our success and failures while developing software in the format of papers. This documentation will eventually help us to handle the complex nature of the project efficiently. Unfortunately many offshore countries do not document them resulting in poor risk management.
To ensure the transparency of the software development in terms of security, the offshore consulting should produce an empirical security policy. This security policy will answer all the questions of the client’s review.
The linking or connectivity between the ODC and the client’s network should involve modern techniques to experience a better communication. The configuration management must be implemented properly in order to make the client to feel virtually that the offshore developers are their on-site developers and not remote developers. Better configuration management will avoid unauthorized intrusion, hackers and virus threat.
The offshore companies should protect their legal and intellectual properties. Trade secrets, customer data and financial information must be managed safely as many third world countries do not have an established law against cyber crime to investigate and prosecute the injustice happening through cyberspace.
Therefore regular security reviews, proper documentation and policy procedures, transparent offshore model, clear configuration between the offshore data center and the client must be handled properly while undertaking offshore projects to ensure better risk and project management in offshore outsourcing consulting.
read more: Project Management in Global Software Development
Offshore Software Development and Project Management in India
Most of the software projects that Indians develop are for foreign clients. Particularly stakeholders from United States and United Kingdom show large interest to outsource their projects to India.
The predominant aspect that attracts foreign clients to handover software development to India is their dedication and cost reduction.
Though Indians are lacking in their communication and work experience, they show their commitment, behave smoothly with customers, dedicated and obedient.
Today most of the Indians who work in the US, UK, Australia and some European countries are either software professionals or physicians.
As India was a British colonized country for years and Indians work for and work in America in huge numbers, there are many features that connect India with the western countries. This helps India in a big way to understand their culture, civilization and society.
Some of the major cities in India where offshore software development is undertaken for years are Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, etc.
Finding the best offshore company that suits an outsourcing company is really a hectic task for the onshore investors. This going to be the crucial factor in deciding the time to market, percentage of marginal gain, project coordination and cooperation, quality, security, culture and business understanding.
Companies who outsource long-term projects, who are experienced with many offshore companies, who can better understand the offshore countries and their work culture, good in remote monitoring can handle the above mentioned challenges effectively.
Thus India shines well in offshore software development and project management due to its commitment, dedication and business strategy.
Read more.. Offshore Software Development and Project Management in India
Positive Perspectives in Offshore Software Development
As our world is globalized and interconnected, IT services are dispersed around the world. English language has become one communication medium of the world and there is a rapid growth in worldwide telecommunication. Today offshore software development has been considered as a good business.
Entrepreneurs who have overcome the challenges such as cross-cultural issues, cultural and geographical distances, communication and coordination challenges, and knowledge transfer complexities are always sharing their profitable experience in offshore software development. Understanding the complex nature of software development and applying intensive coordination and control throughout the development stages will lead to successful software development.
Transparency and openness among the team members in dealing with problems associated with project, excellent communication skills particularly for on-site coordinators and project managers who lead the OSD projects, competency in terms of business knowledge, technical skills and cultural understanding are found to be the critical issues that contribute to success of offshore outsourcing.
Genuine sign-off for complete requirements and business specifications, documentation, empirical engagement model, standard process and guidelines, proper interpretations between the client and vendor during the course of the project, clear objectives and goals will result in progress of the offshore business.
Indian vendors have been handling the offshore projects well in recent years. They are beyond comparison in offshore outsourcing. Though there are few failures and attempts in product development, they have shown a good record of delivering many successful projects.
Communication issues, competency issues, formal project management process issues, formal project management output issues are some of the common issues that the offshore outsourcing management and staff, outsourcing companies and stakeholders have been facing these days. But all these issues and challenges in OSD have been solved and found solutions.
Read more.. Positive Perspectives in Offshore Software Development .
An Overview of Offshore Software Development
Today, in the world of globalization, offshoring and outsourcing has become a powerful business for software companies. Lot of development projects are outsourced every year. The growing shortage of programmers and developers especially in the most developed countries, is the most important reason for the progression of offshore companies apart from cost reduction and internationalization.
Substantial reduction in project costs, compression of software development and implementation time, easy access to skilled programmers and developers, world-class quality of developments have been attracting potential customers to outsource their projects.
India, the destination of IT services has gained lots of popularity because of its talents and especially for lower labor cost for oversees software development services. Therefore a number of oversees giants have already established their presence in India for IT outsourcing.
Recent reports and survey states that India stands top and next comes China, Mexico, Ireland, Canada, Malaysia, Philippines, Russia and Singapore in the popularity of offshore industry.
A project under offshore software development is not deemed complete until the proper documentation is made clear. A request for the layout of the working process should be made, quality assurance team must be implemented and the complete hardware and software specifications should be studied to furnish the flow of information and to improve the performance of the proposed projects.
At every level during the progress of the product development, proper response and positive feedback will ensure the success of the offshore process. It is our duty to satisfy or impress the customer by our dedicated work and quality assurance.
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Why Indian Offshore Software Development Companies Have Been Successful Today
Trends are gone, India is no-longer uneducated, unhealthy and a poor country. Now India has slightly recovered from these drawbacks. It has now been recognized as a source of human resource in the field of software, IT and ITES industry.
The growth of Indian economy, rapid increase in literacy rate, empowerment given to women, abundance of Engineering colleges and Universities have led India at this level. The foundation of software management and human resource management is so strong in India.
Though the government of India has not been taking steps to improvise the standard of road, water supply and the infrastructure, the private organizations initiate the steps and improvise the essential elements to run the management at their own risk.
Today, there are so many software companies in India. Particularly south India stands as a hub of Indian software production. Indian IT people are good in English that unleash the communication barrier with the foreign companies. The current generation pupil in India are working a lot to develop their English language skills overall.
As the number of working Indians in western countries are higher, the work flow among the countries of India, United States and United Kingdom have been good for many years.
Thus the management strategy in delivering the quality products at a cheap cost, human resource and development, supply chain management, good communication, understanding the cultural differences have led India to witness its success in the field of offshore software development.
That’s the reason, in recent years, Indian offshore software development companies have been successful.
read more… Why Indian Offshore Software Development Companies Have Been Successful Today
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The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) announced that Internet advertising revenues for 2007 are estimated to grow to $21.1 billion, a 25% increase over the previous revenue record of nearly $16.9 billion for full year 2006. Q4 2007 revenues totaled approximately $5.9 billion, making it the highest quarter ever reported and representing a 13 percent rise over the third quarter of 2007 and a 24 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2006. All four quarters reported in 2007 include record level revenues.
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U.S. e-commerce sales grew 19% in 2007, the Commerce Department says
U.S. e-commerce sales grew 19% in 2007 to $136.4 billion, while overall retail sales grew by only 4%, the U.S. Commerce Department reports. In the fourth quarter, e-commerce sales totaled $36.2 billion, 18% more than the same quarter in 2006, while total retail sales increased 4.7%.
E-commerce accounted for 3.4% of all U.S. retail sales in 2007, up from 2.9% in 2006, the Commerce Department estimates. However, the Commerce Department retail sales figure includes many sales that are not likely to occur online—such as restaurant, convenience store, gasoline and heating fuel receipts. Excluding such sales, Internet Retailer estimates about 6% of U.S. retail sales occur online.
The Commerce Department figures are adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes.