There are a number of contributing factors, that can collectively result in a project being abandoned or failing to meet its intended goals and objectives such as inaccurate estimates, poor planning, ineffective management, loosely defined requirements or objectives, etc.
But offshore application development projects place an even greater premium on effective planning and management and are vulnerable to additional risks as well. These risks can include:
• Cultural Factors
One of the most commonly overlooked and misunderstood barriers to effective offshore outsourcing is the intrinsic cultural differences. The challenges of language differences and work
schedules, cultural factors can be very subtle and insidious. There can be very different
attitudes and approaches to work and work relationships in different countries and
regions around the world. For instance, in some Latin cultures, work is not the defining entity in one’s life to the extent that you can find in the United States. This can lead to a more casual
approach to schedules that can exasperate U.S. business people, causing them to think
that these people are not as industrious or do not care about their business
relationships.
• Barriers to Communication
You could be saying 'X' to your offshore partners but they could be hearing it as 'Axe'! Communication is much more than just language especially while dealing with a globally dispersed team. In such scenarios, communication becomes rapidly more complex with special challenges of time zones, cultures, additional locations, date lines, distances etc. All of these factors, if not managed effectively, can quickly result in an inability to communicate the right things to the right people at the right time.
Therefore, to overcome the barriers of communication, it is necessary to identify effective modes of communication, establish a proper communication infrastructure and create mechanisms for communication. If you are planning to offshore your web application development task, then aim for these questions to avoid a communication gap with your partner:
- How should the communication take place- via e-mail, video conferencing or phone?
- Whether or not to use 800 answering services; direct dial extensions; invest in high-capacity, high quality digital data/communications lines
- The frequent updations through status reports to newsletters and Intranets etc.
• Division of Labor
You may offshore a particular job at one-half or one-third the cost at location A, but if by doing so you lose an important customer due decreased responsiveness then nothing has been gained and, potentially, the long-term effect of the loss can easily outweigh the short-term cost benefit.
In an offshore outsourced project, it is vitally important to answer the question: Where
and by whom will specific work be most efficiently and effectively accomplished? This is
a very fundamental question that is often overlooked and is more than just a concern
over the cost of labor hours. By examining the inherent strengths and weaknesses of teams from various locations will provide a more clearly defined, and less risky, approach to work allocation.
• Complexity of Infrastructure
Infrastructure is another aspect of offshore IT projects and outsourcing help desk services that can require additional consideration. The primary concern of many companies who wish to offload their IT projects is the framework of the project which includes the tools available to develop an application, the regulatory and legal environment, location factors, changes in government policies as well as the more common issues of facilities, hardware, etc.
Conclusively, the most unique causes of failed offshore-outsourced IT projects are related to unique cultural elements that are commonly ignored or misunderstood combined with the failure or inability of management to fully consider the broad range of influencing factors that are
peculiar to offshore outsourcing.
