CIO Insight interviewed Mary Lacity (I’m a member of her unofficial fan club) on the subject of finding success in offshoring. Professor Lacity gives her perspective on the forms that offshoring can take, what the potential problems are (and how hard outsourcing is — even in the best of circumstances) and even how most companies choose their service provider.
Here’s a tidbit from the article, which you really should read for yourself:
What should you be thinking about strategically when you decide where to go?
Everybody assumes that chief information officers are going to pick up one of the Gartner or IDC reports and look at the country comparisons. But most of the customers we talked to went to a destination where they had existing manufacturing capabilities. Because they had a launch pad, they did not pick their destinations based on looking at IT criteria but, instead, where they already were globally, and where they wanted to go globally. They want to colocate their IT with that. That's great, because they can send the people who are already living there to do things. They can visit suppliers, and have the suppliers come on their premises. It's great to already have the visas and everybody established on your launching pad.
You can find the story here:
