This document discusses common issues that can cause outsourcing projects to fail and provides suggestions to address them. It notes that communication gaps, unqualified resources, and poor planning are often reasons for failure. The document then offers recommendations like keeping onsite coordinators as internal staff, directly communicating with offshore teams to improve understanding, carefully selecting qualified resources, taking time for planning, and managing requirements and changes pragmatically. It stresses the importance of treating offshore team members humanely and maintaining open communication.

1. Venkatesh Balakumar

2. A word of caution
 Each organisation will have different
culture and the suggestions in these
slides change according to them.
 The suggestions here are based on my
personal experiences and are based on
some common symptoms of
outsourcing. your experience may vary
and you may need to handle them
differently.
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3. Some Definitions
 Vendor – A outsourcing vendor who
provides service to an organisation.
 Resources – Includes not limited to
capable people who are assigned to fulfil a
task.
 Unqualified – Not fit for purpose, unfit.
 Organisation – A client to vendor.
 Internal Resource – An employee (full-
time/contract) of client organisation.
 Middlemen – Offshore coordinators and
managers who work for vendor.
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4. Why Outsourcing Fail?
 Communication Gap
 Unqualified Resources
 Poor Planning
 Uncapped Flow of Requirements and
Changes
 More..
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5. Venkatesh Balakumar 5

6. In a Happy Outsourcing World
Customer Manager
„ABC‟
Onsite Coordinator ABC
„ABC‟
Offshore Coordinator
Delivers
ABC ABC ABC
Developer 1 Developer 2 Developer N
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7. In a real Outsourcing World
Customer Manager
„ABC‟
Onsite Coordinator ???
„aBc‟
Understood as „abc‟
Offshore Coordinator
Say only „a - 2‟ Say only „b - 2‟ Say only „c - 2‟
Developer 1 Developer 2 Developer N
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8. What goes Wrong?
(The below are from some of my personal experiences in India)
 Onsite Coordinator
 Did not ask enough questions to understand what the
customer wants.
 Things were done in a hurry, because the vendor has
promised a fake “quick turn around” time.
 Offshore Coordinator
 Asks no questions to understand the requirement.
 Communicate only a part of requirement to the
Development team. Why?
○ Leadership and Gender Ego
○ Win a on-site trip quickly as “I” know everything the
customer wants. (Onsite trips in India are considered to
earn lot of money in a shorter duration and gives a
possibility of settling down in a developed country)
○ Quickly move away from this project as it is too boring.
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9. How to Fix this?
 Keep Onsite Coordinator as a internal resource rather than a resource from the
vendor.
 No promises must be made to the vendor on a tour to onsite or onsite
opportunities. This must be there from the beginning of the project.
 Customer Project Managers must Have periodic meetings with the Vendor
Team members.
 Customer Architects must have periodic discussion with the Vendor Team
members.
 No Project Managers or middlemen must be invited to these meeting and
discussions.
 Know the team members and what they do individually. A once in 2 month
video conference call will provide more visibility.
 Have a monthly communication news letter to all the team members of the
offshore team. The letter must summarise what is happening in the project, how
the project has progressed till now. No appreciation of individuals, always refer
to the vendor as a single harmonious team. This email must be sent directly to
the vendor team members, no forwarding through middlemen.
 The offshore managers and middlemen must be facilitators, the customer team
must run the show.
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10. What will happen after that?
 Customers will understand whether the
vendor team knows what they want.
 Customer Architects will make sure that the
prescribed practice is followed and if any
suggestion is given by the vendor team
that will improve the governance it must be
welcomed.
 The Project Managers and Middlemen
must be fed back with suggestions to
improve the tasks they are assigned to do
for the customers.
 Visible improvement in productivity.
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12. Resource selection
 Resource selection must be done by the Customers and
not by vendors.
 Resource need to have a minimum certification or
relevant experience in the expected technology.
 Each resource must be seen, interviewed afresh, no
references or recommendations from previous know
projects.
 Interview must test their technical and challenge their
communication levels.
 Explain to the selected resource each and every aspect of
the project, each phase, technology, database,
requirements etc.
 Most vendor team members tend to say “yes” for
everything, make sure that they can comfortably say “no”
if they disagree to anything and give them time to explain
why.
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13. Venkatesh Balakumar 13

14. Planning
 Involve fully with the offshore Project Manager to bring out a proper
and complete plan. No outsourcing on this, try to make sure that you
as a customer creates the plan completely and get suggestion from the
offshore manager not the other way around.
 If there are any “If‟s” and “But‟s” remove it from the plan and keep them
for enhancements.
 Get input from the offshore team members on the planning aspects.
They will provide more ideas.
 Don‟t rush, otherwise you will end up gaining more Technical Debts.
Give some extra time for planning phase.
 Keep a list of possible issues that may raise in the project and the
possible contingency plans for them.
 Never deviate from plan, what so ever happens.
 Plan only for 7½ hours a day, Indian offshore companies tend to plan
for 12 to 15 hours a day behind the scene to earn more money, never
let that happen.
 Don‟t be lazy get involved fully, the outsourcing industry is not a
machine to run automatically, they are all people who must be
managed properly.
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16. Requirement Management
 We as a customer must be pragmatic in our
requirement and must be specific in what we want
from the offshore team.
 No more additions or modifications once the
requirement goes for development offshore.
 Discuss with the offshore team (not the middlemen)
on each requirement in brief before it gets
implemented and make sure that they have the full
requirement document with them.
 Don‟t be lazy get involved fully, the outsourcing
industry is not a machine to run automatically, they
are all people who must be managed properly.
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17. More..
 Human factor is the most important factor in
any industry and it is also true for IT
outsourcing.
 The more human interaction we have the more
success we will have in the project.
 Try to manage humans as humans and not
machines or not like herding Sheep.
 Involve in casual chats, may be once in a
month a 1 hour discussion on books that will
improve the offshore team‟s enthusiasm
(business, technology, innovation, team spirit,
self improvement)
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