by Stephanie Overby

Ten Secrets to Offshore Outsourcing Success

Feature
Jun 01, 20031 min
Outsourcing

Top ten tips from United Technologies' IT leaders John Doucette and David Wood.

1. Determine whether your IT organization is ripe for outsourcing to India. A centralized application development and maintenance organization is much easier to relocate than a dispersed one.

2. Decide what is strategic to your IT department, and hold on to it.

3. Sign on multiple vendors as a way to keep costs in check and to provide access to a variety of technical skills.

4. Keep a certain percentage of skilled developers in-house to monitor offshore service and rates.

5. If outsourcing to India is a long-term plan, develop a long-term relationship. Don’t manage projects one at a time.

6. Be selective about the vendor’s proposed project leader, and host him stateside. Make sure he is empowered to make key decisions minus the red tape.

7. Spend a month creating a comprehensive transition plan, documenting the knowledge transfer process.

8. Establish rock-solid application development and maintenance processes.

9. Create a robust in-house QA department.

10. Insist that the vendor’s account owner conduct monthly and quarterly reviews, and do the same in-house.