Many in the software industry are reluctant to outsource the design of their applications, and by design I mean the overall usability (look-and-feel, navigation, user experience, etc.).

I do not have a definite answer, but I have learned one thing: BEWARE! While it makes total sense to have the back-end of the application developed offshore (whether outsourced or not), it is critical to carefully double check, when not triple check what the real design capabilities of your potential offshore provider are, if you do not want to end up with applications that are just unusable !

SMBs usually call existing references before selecting an outsourcing provider. Make sure design capability is one of your “must ask” questions. The reference certainly knows whether your provider has decent design capabilities or not.

You do not necessarily have to write off a potential provider that does not have such experience, but if you choose to keep the design inshore and develop the back-end offshore, do not take for granted that the communication between the teams will go smoothly. In fact, it is unlikely to be the case, unless you spend a fair amount of time making sure communication flows.

According to the Korean Institute of Design Promotion, China has globally better design capabilities than other popular offshore destinations, like India or Brazil. That is another hint for picking a Chinese offshore partner.

The study is not specifically about software design, but I see no reason why their findings would not apply to software too.

Their latest report is available for download here.

Remi
www.vsisoft.com

Business, China | No Comments »

SMBs do not necessarily have trivial software needs; some have even very sophisticated and/or diverse ones. It is not uncommon for SMBs to have needs that encompass JAVA and .NET developments, together with technical support for enterprise applications like SAP or NAV, and requests on advanced technologies like Flex or Ruby on Rails.

In fact, chances are the talents are available somewhere someplace. It might be in Bangalore, Shanghai, Sao Paulo or Cape Town.

The difficulty is to get them together. While industry leaders like IBM, TCS or Infosys have access to a wide pool of talents, they are just not interested in SMBs, leaving most of them with little alternative other than looking for the partners themselves, a time-consuming task that generally yields to mixed results at best.

The truth is that the vast majority of SMBs are not equipped to spend time and energy selecting their offshore outsourcing vendors. In addition offshore companies have different business practices, which in most cases are not really up to par with our business standards here in the USA.

My observation is that SMBs should not be the ones looking around for the various outsourcing providers. It should be the task of US outsourcing companies to establish a network of qualified and reliable offshore partners.

A few (not enough!) US outsourcing companies have already engaged into this avenue. SMBs should absolutely work with them; a US-based outsourcing company that provides with:

• Services agreements, ruled by US laws, which cover their various needs

• A local presence, at both business and technical levels, which enables to deal locally, removing cultural differences, language barriers and significant time difference.

And last, all the relations between the US outsourcing vendor and its offshore partners should be totally transparent to the customer.

Remi
www.outsourcing-vsc.com

Business | 4 Comments »