Badly-managed offshore software development costs firms millions
- Posted:
- 14:47 14 Jun 2004
- Topics:
- Software Development Processes | Software Development | Development Outsourcing | Software Companies
Poor governance of offshore software development is
costing businesses millions of pounds, according to a study by Meta
Group.
The survey of 150 European IT directors, commissioned by software
supplier Compuware, found that businesses were failing to invest in
the management and legal framework required to support offshore
development contacts.
Peter O'Neill, vice-president of consulting at Meta Group, said,
"Lots of companies are sending [project] specifications to offshore
outsourcers on the vague presumption they will save costs."
He said, in most cases, users did not possess enough information on
current application development costs to assess whether outsourcing
was cheaper.
O'Neill warned that offshore development work increased project
complexity and required additional quality assurance
procedures.
Nearly 80% of those surveyed failed to invest in a combination of
in-house project management, legal protection, benchmarking, and
ongoing testing to ensure that application development
specifications were adhered to.
Meta also found that 30% of respondents had not taken any specific
steps to ensure their businesses' intellectual property did not
fall into the hands of competitors during application development
projects.
O'Neill urged users to look at their internal software development
processes before outsourcing offshore. "Cost should not be a
motivator for outsourcing. Offshore development gives increased
flexibility and external resources and skills," he said.
Offshoring best practice
- Document, deploy, and test a security policy that will reduce
risk of infection or hostile intrusion to an affordable minimum
level of risk
- Acquire or develop a method for lifecycle management of an
outsourcing relationship
- Change the IT department's software development process from a "craft skill" to an industrial process.
Source: Meta Group