What can already go wrong in the selection process for near/offshoring?
They advertise mainly by putting utopian daily rates in the foreground. With the oversupply of apparent top experts at the lowest prices, the path to “Let’s try that!” with the cheapest provider is quickly the first choice. But is this the right way?
Our experience
From our experience, we know that this kind of approach usually results in negative experiences and people quickly turn away from the topic of near/offshoring. But how can this be done better? What are the pitfalls of near/offshoring? And how do you deal with the issue professionally?
In this article we want to answer these questions and share our experience. We should start at the beginning – the selection process of the location and the team. Already at the beginning a lot of things can go wrong…
- “We’ll just use the near/offshore provider XY, that worked for Max too …”
- “Our existing description of the requirements is already enough…”
- “They promised that… that’s enough!”
If the selection process of the location and the team is approached in this way, the near/offshoring project is doomed to failure right from the start. But how does it go right? Let’s take a closer look at the 3 main pitfalls:
“We’ll just use the near/offshore provider XY, that worked for Max too…”.
Making a hasty decision in favour of a development centre can lead in the wrong direction. Recommendations from acquaintances are often taken as a basis for decision-making. However, experiences cannot usually be transferred 1 to 1, as everyone has individual requirements for the location. These requirements (technologies, competences, etc.) must be balanced and should be the focus of the development centre.
In addition, decisions should not be made solely on the basis of price. In the oversupply and advertising of top candidates, attention should always be paid to the three important factors of productivity, quality and economic efficiency in software development, which are often not sufficiently present in the low-priced offers.
In order to be able to better evaluate these points, a visit as well as an on-site audit of the development centre should be carried out in any case. This is the only way to make a well-founded and long-term decision.
“Our existing description of the requirements is already sufficient…”
Taking the “home” requirements for a team and simply translating them seems like the appropriate way to go at first. Unfortunately, no! Job advertisements are usually formulated in such a way as to obtain a relatively large number of CVs. This pre-selection is already done by the near/offshoring partner. For this, care must be taken that profiles are described and matched in detail. This is the only way to make the pre-selection effective and efficient.
Near/offshoring providers like to prepare the CVs of their pre-selected candidates in a marketing-oriented way. A critical assessment of whether the candidate’s actual skills match the required skills is essential here.
Top experts in near/offshoring can usually choose from a variety of international projects. Which leads us to two other important misconceptions: a. massive time pressure in the decision and b. attractiveness of the project/client. Agreed SLAs in the selection process alleviate the time pressure and demand discipline. In order for the candidate to decide in favour of the client, it is important to present the team and especially the project in detail in the interview in an attractive way. Otherwise even the best talents will be gone.
“They promised that… that’s enough!”
Often clients who have had no experience with near/offshoring have high expectations. These are strengthened by the promises of the marketing campaigns, which unfortunately strongly distorts the reality. As a result, points such as scalability, market conditions and duration until start-up are misjudged and lead to a rude awakening.
Instead of blindly trusting promises, existing experience should be relied upon. The management of a near/offshoring cooperation is not a short-distance sprint. One should critically look back at already lived cooperations with the same partner and use the experience gained for the start of the cooperation.
In summary, it is indeed better to approach near/offshoring with a local, trustworthy partner who knows what works abroad and what does not. Here, it is important to directly and responsibly involve the corresponding long-standing and comprehensive experience – this is one of the most important success factors in near/offshoring.
ServiceFactum has already helped more than 27 clients to establish innovative, long-term partnerships and has built up more than 50 teams in the process. All of our development partners have been extensively audited by us and together we have successfully met the needs of our customers. That’s why ServiceFactum offers: Advanced Near-/Offshoring.