| Traditionally India has been the outsourcing destination | | | | experts working with the developers and that helps to |
| for IT projects. These days there is a lot of discussion | | | | get a clear understanding of the requirements. India |
| about inshoring i.e. outsourcing done domestically. It is | | | | also has a good number of leads and managers who |
| also argued that nearshore locations like central | | | | have either studied or worked in the US or Europe and |
| Europe make great outsourcing locations for European | | | | have a pretty good understanding of the cultural |
| companies. Is that true? | | | | background there. |
| Language proficiency, cultural similarity and frequent | | | | - Onsite Visits: Most Indian vendors have Program |
| face-to-face visits are the advantages commonly | | | | Managers, Account Managers, and Business |
| cited for inshoring or nearshoring. Let's evaluate each | | | | Development Managers permanently located in the |
| of these aspects in terms of outsourcing to India. | | | | client region and sometimes even in the client office if |
| - Language Proficiency: India has a sizable English | | | | the project is large. Also project managers or tech |
| speaking population. You will find your India team pretty | | | | leads from the vendor visit their clients for gathering |
| conversant in English. At times, you are likely to find | | | | requirements from business users, understanding the |
| grammatical mistakes or expressions like "today night" | | | | complexities, kicking off new projects or for |
| instead of "tonight", nevertheless the message gets | | | | deployments. Although these visits are common in the |
| through. You will be able to communicate what you | | | | various phases of the project, technology these days |
| want and understand the replies easily. | | | | has enabled to cut down the need of frequent visits, |
| - Cultural Similarity: Indian IT and BPO companies work | | | | thus reducing the travel cost. Regular status calls, |
| in the global market and have been servicing clients in | | | | performance reviews and milestone reviews are |
| the US and Europe for more than a decade now. The | | | | effectively done over teleconference. Virtual Meeting |
| work culture is aligned to the US and Europe; and the | | | | tools and screen sharing technologies have made life |
| offshore teams have a good understanding of their | | | | simple and VOIP has cut down the communication |
| client's culture and expectations. Many companies | | | | costs enormously. |
| have SME's (subject matter experts) and functional | | | | |