RATIONALE BEHIND OPTING TO OFFSHORE OUTSOURCING
Technically, Indian Software products can be compared to the
best in the world but poor marketing is the dampener. Whatever
product is selling today, whether it is in the storage space or
security or any other, chances are that India has got a similar
product with more features at lesser costs. Scores of firms are
working with NASSCOM to make software product development
further popular with the Indian software companies. For
instance, iFlex has joined hands with NASSCOM in creating
awareness through NASSCOM's product forum about the potential of
product development in India. Other players perhaps need to
enlist this kind of local endorsement. The further test is to
encourage national and worldwide customers of the
trustworthiness of products with the 'Made in India' tag, as
customers overseas are enticed to use products offered by big
MNCs. We need to communicate to the world that Indian products
stand for quality, excellence. Wipro was one of the first few
companies in the world to get a PCMM level 5 certification. How
many people know about GE's research arm in India, Intel's IP
creation in India or even AP's state transports' radical use of
telematics? Problem is that we are not telling the product story
of Indian IT. There were other cheaper sources available for IT
but India won because of the superior education levels, the
numbers and their single-minded focus on quality, and innovative
spirit of the Indian people. Indian IT companies have strong
domain knowledge, global exposure and also brand equity
worldwide in the software services sector. Also, Indian software
and services companies have strong value proposition - low
development cost, high skilled manpower and competitive billing.
Indian companies are now capitalising on the strong domain
knowledge and global exposure in developing software products
and NASSCOM has already noted a 30% to 40% increase in the
number of companies that are involved in the product space in
the last couple of years. This is evident from the fact that the
Indian IT industry's export revenues from product and technology
services has grown from Rs 5100 crores in 2001-02 to Rs 6600
crores in 02-03 registering a growth of 29.4%. This now needs to
be communicated. For selecting an OSP for a Software Outsourcing
project, you may ask for code samples and have them reviewed by
specialists. After making your choice, chat about coding
standards with the purveyor, determine the apt necessities, and
include them in the copy of the agreement. Building mock-ups of
the system and/or UI prototypes at the specification phase is
one of the most important features of efficient software
development. Any OSP is supposed to have a routine procedure of
using a bug tracking system to manage bug reports. If they do,
you should have access to the bug reports related to your
project. If they don't, you might consider creatingyour own one
and providing the vendor with access to the appropriate bug
reports.
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