Habitually Good

Offshore Software Development – is provision of software development services by an external supplier positioned in a country that is geographically remote from the client enterprise (Wikipedia). However, it is not entirely correct as an organization could be off-shoring its work to its own subsidiary in another country. Of course, the primary driver for off-shoring has always been the lower cost of wages for the developers.

I am in the software industry in India and I do Offshore Software Development every day. This post is about what I do as an offshore software developer.

Nagarro (my employer) is a privately held software development company which has been doing Custom Software Development for over 10 years. We have a large client base and most of clients come back to us for more because of the quality of service they have experienced with us.

When I started my career, the general concept in the industry was that we get work from the US because we are cheap. We can do the same work in a fraction of the cost as compared to the cost that would be incurred abroad. I used to believe it for some time, but as I gained experience by talking to customers, seeing the kind of solutions we provide to them, understanding that for a lot of people, it’s not just the cost.

In the early days, the Indian IT industry was competing with the US/Europe based IT companies which were very expensive; and so we could get business simply by charging so much lower. Any offset in skill level could be compensated by adding an additional QA or two and still come out cheaper.

That, I think has changed a lot. We are now competing with very highly qualified providers within India, and also from China and Russia (there are numerous other countries, but they can’t even hold a candle these 3). Gartner Group stated that only India, China and Russia were capable of scaling up enough to meet the demands of large-scale projects

Since all the 3 countries (and numerous others) can compete on the price, what is it that sets you as a differentiator in today’s scenario? Let me list some of the solutions that we offer our clients:

• 24 Hour Development Cycle – A lot of our clients are software companies, creating products for their own clients. By aliasing with us, they can have a round the clock development cycle going.
• Domain Expertise – Because of our experience in working on numerous projects we already know the ins and outs of various domains and we turn around a much better solution.
• Project Management Consulting – A lot of our clients have leveraged our knowledge about processes, management, etc. and implemented in their own teams and organizations.
• Wide Technology Spectrum – We have executed projects in a broad spectrum of technologies and have a skill set to backup any kind of requirement.
• Bright People – since we always have challenging projects and interesting work, we retain a lot of talent. Part of our mission statement is “We are here because we enjoy seeking out, understanding, innovating for, and solving the most difficult problems in each of these markets”

These and many other factors help us distinguish ourselves from the competition.

So, work is outsourced to us (not only because it is cheaper), but because we specialize in it and we can do it better; and our clients can then channelize their energies into their primary activities.

Self Advertisement: Just in case you are looking for some Outsourcing Software Development, pay us a visit to see what we offer.

[tag]Musings[/tag], [tag]India[/tag]

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