An Onshore American ADM Model that Competes with Offshore’s Cost, Scalability, Flexibility, and Quality
February 2008
Outsourcing Journal
By Kathleen Goolsby, Senior Writer
In this article, Kathleen writes “I’ve been writing about outsourcing since 1998 and easily remember when it was remarkable to write about a company deciding to outsource its business process offshore. Over the past few years, that phenomenon has become mainstream and no longer really newsworthy, at least certainly in outsourcing initiatives of American businesses.
What’s remarkable now is a U.S. company that can compete with offshore service providers in cost, scalability and flexibility, quality, expertise, and time to market.
Enterprise software development outsourcing provider Ayoka, headquartered in Arlington, Texas, in the middle of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, has a unique model that makes its solutions scalable, cost-effective, etc., like offshore solutions. And it has the added benefit of a local presence throughout the United States.”
Lessons from the Outsourcing Journal:
- Despite many success stories of companies using an offshore model for their outsourcing initiatives, there are companies that do not achieve their objectives by offshoring; and many that find “hidden” costs of managing such a relationship that they did not anticipate or underestimated.
- Cultural fit is essential in an outsourcing relationship; yet it’s often very problematic and costly in the offshore model but is a benefit in the onshore model.
- In its universities, rural communities, and other locations, the United States has huge overlooked resources that can provide effective outsourcing solutions and services as well as a local onshore presence.
- Offshore application development and maintenance (ADM) works best with — and really requires — investment in technical management and relationship management.
- Select a software development service provider with a solid track record of dynamic conversations with its clients, pushing back and asking questions and offering alternatives to make sure the project is designed at the outset to ensure it gets the client where it wants to go.
- When customers and application development service providers together define the work correctly up front, the developers can make better decisions, which translates to lower costs because of doing the work correctly the first time.
