Rubal Offshore

Why cheap developers are bad?

Alexander Poliakov — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 07:45:29 +0000

I’ve came across really interesting article by Niyaz. He is an Indian IT guy an he promotes same ideas Rubal Offshore sales person try to communicate to our Swedish clients.

The thing is that many people outsource their work to IT hubs like Bangalore to save a lot of money. But the problem is that you get a low quality product at last. The reason? You tried to cut cost too much.

You cannot get a high quality work done for a low cost. Never. Quality always comes with a price.

When outsourcing to foreign countries, always try to do it to people who promise quality product, not to people who promise lower cost. Also, never ever outsource your core development work.

Find his point by point explanation of Indian bad outsourcing practices in his blog post.

B.Svante Eriksson’s keynote

Alexander Poliakov — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:13:34 +0000

B.Svante — Rubal Offshore consultant, recently gave a speach in Stockholm, Sweden during event dedicated to offshore outsourcing. Among other things he tried to outline all major pros for Nordic companies — big and small — to start outsourcing their software development.

He told about globalization, which is the key driver for network investment now.

“Expanding globally is now the biggest driver for business investment in their networks.”

Source: US survey 2007.

This survey also stated that the best companies are the best collaborators. More and more business will be done through collaborations and partnerships. The next layer of value creation becoming so complex that no single firm or department is going to be able to them alone.

B. Svante also reported about common outsourcing pitfalls which I will outline in the next post.

Outsource successfully!

Alexander Poliakov — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:10:02 +0000

One of my most interesting observation here in Rubal Offshore is that most people expect offshore outsourcing model to work without just any effort. Of course it’s still valid for really small projects, like 50-100 man hours. But when it comes to larger ones — extensive customer involvement is a key to success!
We proved that weekly iterations are the most efficient way. First, you don’t spend too much time on daily virtual meetings and conversations. Second, one week just not enough to get project into wrong direction.
To be productive with offshore software outsourcing ensure that your supplier:

Provides transparent access to code and project management data
Carries out weekly meetings, long enough to confirm weekly plan and report past week progress
Ensures transparent access to team members (this proved to build atmosphere of trust and openness)

This 3 basic principles helped us become comfortable and trusted parter for many Swedish companies.