Outsourcing to India

In 1991, the Indian government passed a series of favorable tax laws and built specialized commerce zones to stimulate industry activity. A wave of U.S. high-tech companies began rushing to India to set up sales and R&D operations. Companies such as Google, Computer Associates, Microsoft, Cisco etc have turned to India for high value-add product development including conceptualization. Today the list of software multinationals operating from India reads like a Who's Who of global software giants - IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Computer Associates, Oracle, AT&T, Fujitsu, Motorola, EDS, SAP, Digital, Hewlett Packard...…….

One of the unique methods adopted by Indian software companies for providing competitive advantages to their clients is through Offshore Development Center (ODC). ODCs are a Virtual extension of client's development environment enabling complete linkage with the parent site in terms of infrastructure and organization structure to deliver multi site solutions seamlessly.

The India ODC comprises of a facility and staff dedicated for a client's IT project requirements. The Center ideally consists of a team of trained application specialists and programmers operating out of facilities in India, and another team operating out of the client's office. The ODC team links up to client's offices and machines via dedicated links and thereby works in the same environment as the client's IM team. It involves the use of high speed communication links. This enables the use of computers situated anywhere in the world to be used by programmers in India on a real-time and on-line basis. Even if the client is situated 10,000 miles away from a software company in India, the client is still able to monitor the software development on a minute-by-minute basis, ensure quality checks, communicate with the programmers as if they were just next door and get efficient software developed. The U.S. and India have an average 12-hour time zone difference, but this kind of use of communication infrastructure can provide a virtual 24-hour office to a client in the U.S. Lately, this concept has worked wonders for large projects and also for projects involving remote software maintenance using video conferencing. Offshore projects mean immense time and cost savings.

Infrastructure
Advanced infrastructure is essential to any software development activity, a fact that led Government of India to create numerous ''Software Technology Parks''. The concept of Software Technology Park (STP) initiated by the Department of Electronics, Govt. of India has worked very well.

Technical Manpower Resources
India represents the second largest English-speaking technical resources pool after the US and also in the software sector. More than 350 universities and engineering colleges and 2,300 recognized private training institutes teach computer science courses. The output of trained manpower at degree/diploma level has increased from less than 1,000 in 1983, to about 67,800 in 1998 and is over 120,000 presently.

The ODC's are equipped with a large and diverse pool of technical manpower. The large pool enables quick ramp-up of teams for client projects. The diverse skill in different technologies and industry applications takes care of the skill requirements of the client's projects.

State-of-the art Technologies
Most of the ODC's are equipped with state-of-the art hardware and software resources. This enables replicating the clients working environment abroad (hardware, operating system, GUI, tools, databases etc) in the ODC. High-speed communication lines are available for connecting to the client's machines across the globe. This addresses the "distance problem" and in fact the 12 hour time zone difference is used to an advantage by converting "the yesterday evening's problem to today morning's solution", besides improving productivity and capacity utilization of resources.

Quality Management System
The offshore development facilities have a clear cut Quality Management System for ensuring quality deliverables. Each of the projects executed use specific methodologies for Development projects, maintenance projects & conversion projects etc. Most of the Indian companies used ISO9000 for setting up the basic framework. This ensured compliant process for software development resulting in project monitoring and performance measure.

IP (Intellectual Property) Protection
Articulation of a corporate policy governing IPR issues for confidentiality, with legal and contractual definitions of responsibilities, is an important factor in setting up an ODC. This provides confidentiality and comfort to the client. Many Indian companies understand and practice this.