Software Outsourcing Industry Research Articles

The Research on the Role Status of China’s Software Service Outsourcing Based on the Partnership of Service Outsourcing Networks

China has been greatly engaging in global outsourcing services. Despite the increase in global outsourcing services industry, yet the service trade is in deficit and the export trades in service mainly concentrate on the travel, transportation and other business service, both of which indi-cate the comparatively low competitiveness of Chinese service in the world. The nature of partnerships involved between China’s service business undertakers and their overseas clients have not received adequate attention in the scholarly literature. The study analyzed three possible types of outsourcing networks partnership which include tactical, strategic and transformational partnership. Based on software development “waterfall model”, the network role status in undertaking outsourcing service of China are explained and the analysis results show that the tactical partnership plays a key role on the value chain of China’s software outsourcing in the global networks. It is concluded that China’s low value chain in software outsourcing networks is determined by the tactical partnership. Some suggestions on how to improve China’s software outsourcing industry include culti-vating the leading enterprises, building up an intermediary organization, enlarging the clustering effect in industrial park and taking advantage of the Belt and Road Initiative market and Japanese market.

Study of project type and team structure in the Indian software outsourcing industry

Study of project type and team structure in the Indian software outsourcing industry

Study of maintenance project manpower dynamics in Indian software outsourcing industry

Purpose The paper aims to study manpower dynamics at offshore and onsite location for maintenance project, which are transferred to offshore location in a phase-wise manner. The purpose of the paper is to find good values of onsite–offshore team strength, the number of hours of communication between onsite and offshore teams for smooth transfer of software maintenance project to offshore location. Design/methodology/approach This study uses system dynamics simulation approach to study manpower allocation at onsite and offshore locations to transfer the maintenance work to offshore location in a gradual manner. The authors consulted 13 experts from Indian software outsourcing industry during the model construction and validation. Findings The simulation results show that the complexity of maintenance project has an insignificant effect on offshore migration. The maintenance work transfer should start with initial onsite team strength higher than that of required for ticket solving and project. The initial offshore team strength should be based on training capacity available at the onsite location. The higher attrition rate at an offshore is detrimental for offshore migration. Research limitations/implications The implication of the study is in the development of a broad framework of software maintenance work transfer to offshore locations for Indian software outsourcing projects. As the study is based on expert opinion in the context of India, it cannot be generalized for outsourcing scenarios elsewhere. Practical implications The software project manager can use the findings to get more insight into maintenance project offshore migration and divide the software team between onsite and offshore location. Originality/value The study is novel as there is little attempt at finding the manpower composition at onsite and offshore locations for software maintenance project during the migration phase.

Identifying and implementing CSFs for transforming success rate in IT project management

The purpose of this research is to identify effectiveness drivers in Indian software outsourcing industry through stakeholder's participation and use them for achieving better project success. The effectiveness drivers were identified using two-phase approaches by the stakeholders. In the first phase brain storming was done to identify a list of effectiveness drivers. In the second phase the drivers were prioritised by the stakeholders, based on their perception of these drivers for better project success and the top five drivers were identified. Using MCDM approach, a scorecard was developed to monitor the health of ongoing projects so that a better project success rate is achieved. Communication, requirement management, process implementation, customer management and team skills were identified as the top five effectiveness drivers. This research puts a process in place for identifying and implementing CSFs through project stakeholders to supplement Nasir et al. (2011) observation of inconsistency in CSFs from different studies.

A study of software development project cost, schedule and quality by outsourcing to low cost destination

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to find good values of onsite-offshore team strength; number of hours of communication between business users and onsite team and between onsite and offshore team so as to reduce project cost and improve schedule in a global software development (GSD) environment for software development project. Design/methodology/approach – This study employs system dynamics simulation approach to study software project characteristics in both co-located and distributed development environments. The authors consulted 14 experts from Indian software outsourcing industry during our model construction and validation. Findings – The study results show that there is a drop in overall team productivity in outsourcing environment by considering the offshore options. But the project cost can be reduced by employing the offshore team for coding and testing work only with minimal training for imparting business knowledge. The research results show that there is a potential to save project cost by being flexible in project schedule. Research limitations/implications – The implication of the study is that the project management team should be careful not to keep high percentage of manpower at offshore location in distributed software environment. A large offshore team can increase project cost and schedule due to higher training overhead, lower productivity and higher error proneness. In GSD, the management effort should be to keep requirement analysis and design work at onsite location and involves the offshore team in coding and testing work. Practical implications – The software project manager can use the model results to divide the software team between onsite and offshore location during various phases of software development in distributed environment. Originality/value – The study is novel as there is little attempt at finding the team distribution between onsite and offshore location in GSD environment.

The effect of onsite-offshore work division on project cost, schedule, and quality for re-engineering projects in Indian outsourcing software industry

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to make an attempt to find good values of onsite–offshore team strength; number of hours of communication between business users and onsite team and between onsite and offshore team to reduce cost and improve schedule for re-engineering projects in global software development environment. Design/methodology/approach – The system dynamics technique is used for simulation model construction and policy run experimentation. The experts from Indian software outsourcing industry were consulted for model construction, validation and analysis of policy run results in both co-located and distributed software development environment. Findings – The study results show that there is a drop in the overall team productivity in outsourcing environment by considering the offshore options. But the project cost can be reduced by employing the offshore team for coding and testing work only with minimal training for imparting business knowledge. The research results show that there is a potential to save project cost by being flexible in project schedule. Research limitations/implications – The study found that there could be substantial cost saving for re-engineering projects with a loss of project schedule when an appropriate onsite–offshore combination is used. The quality and productivity drop, however, were rather small for such combinations. The cost savings are high when re-engineering work is sent to offshore location entirely after completion of requirement analysis work at onsite location and providing training to offshore team in business knowledge The research findings show that there is potential to make large cost savings by being flexible in project schedule for re-engineering projects. Practical implications – The software project manager can use the model results to divide the software team between onsite and offshore location during various phases of software development in distributed environment. Originality/value – The study is novel as there is little attempt at finding the team distribution between onsite and offshore location in global software development environment.

Research on Profit Distribution of Software Outsourcing Alliances Based on the Improved Shapley Value Model

Abstract With the development of software outsourcing industry, there is a growing trend to establish the software outsourcing alliances. Whether alliances’ profit distribution is reasonable affects directly and significantly alliances’ stability. This paper introduces the Shapley value method which is a common profit distribution method applicable to multiple people cooperation. Due to the weakness of the Shapley value method, AHP is used to analyze the influence factors and adjust the model. The anticipated outcome of the result is to provide a theoretical support for the profit distribution of the software outsourcing alliances in the future.

Market choices of a Chinese outsourcing vendor: The Case of ChilTech company

This case describes a Chinese software outsourcing vendor's struggle with its market choices, in response to the rippling effect of the global financial crisis. It also introduces Chinese software outsourcing vendors’ capability development, market conditions, and idiosyncrasies. ChiITech is representative of Chinese software vendors, in terms of its development history, environment conditions, experience of the financial crisis, and countermeasures. Students can learn about the evolution and current status of the China-Japan software outsourcing industry through this case, and more specifically how vendors make market choices in a highly volatile market.

The asymmetric benefits of relational flexibility

In this paper, the interacting effect of formal contracts and relational governance on vendor profitability and quality in the software outsourcing industry are examined. We focus on a critical man...

Efficient Construction Scheme of Software Service Outsourcing Industry

T he prosperous development of the software and information service outsourcing industry brings opportunities for inland city to optimize industrial structure and change economic growth pattern. This paper takes Chongqing, which is locate d in open frontier and is national service outsourcing demonstration city as an example. Based on stepwise regression and ridge regression from the national view to study the influent ial factors to undertake service outsourcing since 1986, this paper analyzes the advantages and restricted factors of the development of service outsourcing industry in Chongqing. I ndustrial foundation, technology import and innovation, financing channels, the information public service platform, talents construction, development environment aspects, software and information service outsourcing industry development path will be mainly discusse d .

The Asymmetric Benefits of Relational Flexibility: Evidence from Software Development Outsourcing

In this paper, the interacting effect of formal contracts and relational governance on vendor profitability and quality in the software outsourcing industry are examined. We focus on a critical manifestation of relational governance--the presence of relational flexibility in the exchange relationship--and argue that the enacted observation of relational flexibility is driven by perceptions of exchange hazards. In a departure from extant literature, however, we propose that the benefits accruing from it are asymmetric and depend on how the exchange risks are apportioned by the formal contract. Formally, we hypothesize that relational flexibility provides greater benefits to an exchange partner that faces the greater proportion of risk in a project, induced through the contract. In addition, we hypothesize that these benefits manifest on the performance dimensions that are of importance to the risk-exposed partner. We test our hypotheses on 105 software projects completed by a software outsourcing vendor for multiple clients. The results show that relational flexibility positively affects profitability in only fixed price contracts, where the vendor faces greater risk, while positively affecting quality only in time and materials contracts, where the client is at greater risk. We thus provide evidence for the asymmetric benefits from relational governance, thereby arguing for a more contingent and limited view of the value of relational governance, based on risk-exposure, rather than the more expansive view prevalent in the literature contending that relational governance provides benefits for all parties to an exchange. We conclude with a discussion of the research and managerial implications of our findings.

Strategic Research to Build the Competitive Advantage of Software and Service Outsourcing Manufacturing Industry in ChongQing

The prosperous development of the software and information service outsourcing industry brings opportunities for inland city to optimize manufacturing industrial structure and change economic growth pattern. This paper takes Chongqing, which locates in open frontier and is national service outsourcing demonstration city as an example. Based on international service outsourcing market development trend research, this paper analyzes that Chongqing develops service outsourcing manufacturing industry advantages and restricted factors. From industrial foundation, technology import and innovation, financing channels, the information public service platform, talents construction, development environment aspects, software and information service outsourcing industry development path was initially discusses.

An Integrative Conceptual Model of Vietnam as an Emerging Destination for Offshore Outsourcing of Software Development for Finnish Companies

Companies are constantly under pressure to develop software within tight budgets and more efficiently. Offshore outsourcing has been seen as one solution to the dilemma, and lucrative outsourcing businesses have evolved in many countries. Vietnam is now emerging within this global outsourcing sector. This study conducts an in-depth literature review and analyzes a number of important issues related to developing countries in general and Vietnam in particular, as an offshore outsourcing destination for Finnish companies for developing their software. From the analysis, an integrative conceptual model of software development through offshore outsourcing was developed. The study found challenges as well as potential in Vietnam’s software outsourcing industry. In addition, it provides valuable information for practitioners interested in outsourcing to Vietnam and for further research within the area.

Controlling offshore knowledge workers: Power and agency in India's software outsourcing industry

The paper describes the modes of organisational control employed in the Indian software services outsourcing industry, highlighting the combination of subjective and panoptical managerial techniques. Drawing on ethnographic work in several software services companies in Bangalore, India, it explores the structures of power that operate in these organisations as well as the agency and subjectivity of software workers.

Imagining India: Software and the ideology of liberalisation

India's successful software outsourcing industry has come to represent the achievements of the liberalisation programme, and accordingly its entrepreneurs have positioned themselves as economic and political leaders of the ‘new India’. This paper explores the cultural politics of liberalisation and globalisation in India by focusing on representations of the software industry that form part of the dominant discourse on liberalisation, and on the ‘imagination’ of India's future articulated by its leaders. The hegemony of India's new capitalist class is far from complete, however, given the social divisions and tensions that have been engendered by India's neoliberal development regime, exemplified by conflicts surrounding the role of the software industry in the aspiring ‘global city’ of Bangalore. The paper explores how, in the context of conflicting social imaginaries, the exclusion of large sections of the urban population from neoliberal development, and a range of resistance movements that have arisen in consequence, the software industry attempts to control representations of itself in order to shore up its ideological power. This analysis points to the elevation of private corporate capital to a new ideological role and (sharply contested) hegemonic position in the Indian polity and cultural economy.