{"id":930,"date":"2015-03-26T09:06:43","date_gmt":"2015-03-26T09:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ceo-worldwide.com\/blog\/?p=930"},"modified":"2025-03-25T05:41:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T05:41:17","slug":"outsourcing-and-offshoring-projects-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ceo-worldwide.com\/blog\/outsourcing-and-offshoring-projects-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Outsourcing and offshoring projects to India: “Different Worlds, Different Ways”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Outsourcing and offshoring projects: It is autumn; we are in the Indian city of Pune. Twenty Indian project managers, business analysts and software engineers have gathered in a training room. They want to learn how they can successfully bring the cooperation with a customer whose team is distributed across Germany and the United States back on track. At the moment, however, every single one of them is frustrated. The global programme, in which they work, is destined for disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncertainty adds to frustration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Collaboration with that client began last spring with such vigour and enthusiasm. But now everything is just sluggish. The programme manager has already been replaced, and the projects associated with the programme are being rescheduled. Uncertainty adds to frustration. The overall mood is strained, emails are responded to in monosyllables and conference calls are cancelled at short notice. The Indian team members ask: how can the transfer of know-how take place under such conditions? How are we to work cooperatively with the customer at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For their company, a world-renowned Indian IT service provider, a lot is at stake. The programme has a volume worth of almost twenty million dollars. An early stop would not only mean a financial loss. It would also damage the reputation of the company, which, of course, would be expensive to repair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After lengthy evaluations, considerations and due diligence, the client, a multinational pharmaceutical company, has decided to finally outsource its core applications to the Indian company. Up to now, the pharma company has been buying software development services from another vendor in India. These included a few non-critical applications and databases in a pure offshoring model. But this new, comprehensive programme involves the heart of the company\u2019s IT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many of the pharma company\u2019s IT staff the core applications are \u201ctheir babies\u201d. The company\u2019s executive board, above all the CIO<\/a> and the CFO<\/a>, have decided that it is time to entrust this now grown-up child into foreign hands. Their objective is to save costs and, at the same time, take a technological leap forward. This can be achieved by not only transferring know-how to the new Indian partner, but also by systematically organising a reverse transfer of technology, processes, best practices and skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the training in Pune, I ask the Indian team to form small working groups and ask them to write down, in an unadorned fashion, where the shoe pinches. Here are the results:<\/p>\n\n\n\n