WHITE PAPER: Offshore Software Development
Aspire Systems, Inc.
www.aspiresys.com Page 8 of 17
3. Once the initial requirements have been understood, the customer's design approach,
development and testing standards and norms for acceptance, if any, are studied. A
detailed project plan that includes the resources alloted for the project, duration,
milestones and deliverables to be achieved is then prepared.
4. While the Project Manager and the majority of his team return with the above information
and prepares a project prototype, architecture and detail design for the customer's
approval, one or more members of the team stays behind with the customer to coordinate
the onsite/offshore activities.
5. Once the customer has signed off on the requirements and prototype, the core
development team begins the work. Constant interactions between the project manager
and the onsite coordinator enable quick clarification of any doubts.
6. Upon completion of the project, the vendor team will carry out the implementation and
installation of the project at the customer's site.
In certain cases, some amount of preliminary design is completed onsite during the Project
Manager's visit. Subsequently, the development and testing take place.
In many cases, the various steps mentioned above overlap, compressing the total time. The project
as envisaged could include onsite installation and implementation support followed by offshore
maintenance. Onsite visits are required initially for bringing the project offsite and at the end for
delivering the software. The actual sequence of steps could vary depending on the specifications of
a given project.
5. COST ASPECTS
The cost advantage linked to offshore outsourcing increases with the percentage of development
effort outsourced and the percentage of work performed offshore. It is maximized when the entire
development is outsourced and all the work is performed offshore. Obviously, this may not be a
savvy business decision because over time the outsource organization controls the product and you
are reduced to being a marketing arm of an offshore organization. If you have good control over
the intellectual property rights and if you have a reliable partner in whom you have an ownership
stake, you can choose to do it this way. Else it would be better to have a certain amount of control
from your side with a talented CTO and a product team.
