Common misconception about offshore computing

Why are you afraid of offshore computing? What are the beliefs that prevent you from engaging on offshore outsourcing of an IT? Let’s talk openly here about the main clichés that are bad press in offshore computing.

SSII/ESN employees offshore work in bad conditions

The idea is completely obsolete, we are no longer in the Stone Age! In serious IT companies, local employees operate in very good working conditions. French companies that open delivery centers abroad, know that in order to keep their employees, they must at the very least focus on excellent working conditions. In most countries of the world, the ICT sector (Information and Communication Technologies) embodies one of the first growth factors in the country’s economy. Countries are profoundly transformed by the digitization of many activity fields, not to mention the emergence of new models that continue to revolutionize the race for better productivity. As a result, service centers located in these foreign countries are immersed in very dynamic economies and have full access to the infrastructure and equipment needed to develop their employees in a pleasant working environment.

Above and beyond the material aspect, do you know the concept of offshore equitability?

The SSII/ESN that invest in the concept of IT offshore equitability meet the following values:

• Create opportunities in the IT sector,

• Offer fair and competitive wages,

• Guarantee good working conditions,

• Participate in the encouragement of best environmental practices,

• Invest in training, etc.

Therefore, it is the responsibility of the company bringing a project to a subcontractor, to carefully choose the offshore web agency to which it wishes to appeal. Bocasay, for example, is one of the companies that has integrated the tenets of IT offshore equitability into its organization. Bocasay’s delivery centers invest time and resources into meeting these values.

To go further in human resources management, among outsourced SSII/ESNs, there are advanced career plans with upgrading skills through finely divided training programs. To attract and retain the best skills, offshore subcontractors do not hesitate to implement numerous social benefits. To be sure which offshore provider you decide to take the plunge with, first visit them in their country. Visit the site to see the seriousness and reliability of its organization for yourself.

Offshore IT: the flawed contracts

To avoid contracts leading to litigation, to feel more reassured and keep things simple, it is better to go through a French company with its head office in France. As such, the IT service is carried out under the French legal framework. You benefit from this, from competitive offshore IT prices and the fact that it is all under a French law contract.

Just as you would in the case of a project subcontracted to a provider on French territory, it is important from the outset to engage in the right manner of subcontracting. If this has not been done from the start, it will be very difficult to change subcontracting style once underway. We must be careful about the outsourcing manner we choose so as to avoid this type of surprise.

Regardless of the type of IT provider selected, the contract must be balanced and studied with the utmost care. There are various types of contracts with different levels of service provider commitment that fall under 3 axes:

• Services,

• Performance,

• Responsabilities

Another important point is that one of the structural clauses of your contract distinguishes whether the subcontractor is committing to a means obligation or a results obligation.

Offshore SSII/ESN: lack of reliability and profitability

Unfounded prejudices still exist. Software publishers, SMEs/SMIs or major accounts that are turning to offshore outsourcing, do so for four main reasons:

• Increase agility,

• Gain access to skills that they do not have internally,

• Complete their teams because they lack resources,

• And one of the most decisive reasons: to gain access to competitive prices.

Outsourcing contracts make it possible to entrust an entire service or project to an offshore external service provider. In most cases, the duration of this type of contract extends several years. This is the advantage of using this type of service because it is a medium/long-term partnership between the client and the offshore IT Company. The commitments and services put in place by the offshore contractor are particularly elaborate. Moreover, it is of course expected that the provider will supply you with the most suitable solution to develop a software package according to the level of services. In this way, you avoid the constraints of managing and maintaining your IT software project and this investment is thus transferred to the management of other projects within your company.

In terms of the price, there is no mystery. Whether in France or abroad, having access to good skills is something you pay for. To avoid hidden costs or unpleasant surprises, go to providers who communicate with transparency about the exact extent of their expertise and the skills of their engineers. Unexpected costs are generated by the bad decisions of those who use offshore NSEs, motivated mainly by low prices and leaving to one side the quality aspects essential for any success. These companies are faced with providers who in the end do not have the advanced know-how.

Offshore IT services are destroying the job market in France

One of the main pitfalls of offshore IT is that it is destroying jobs in France. This preconceived idea seems to omit the fact that, according to Dares (Direction of the Animation of Research, Studies and Statistics), it is estimated that there will be nearly 150,000 IT programmers hired in France each year. The IT sector is one of the sectors that does the most recruiting in France! 50,000 jobs are available today and 191,000 will be created by 2022 in IT and telecommunications activities.

The ICT sector has a long way to go before it can be firmly stated that offshore IT is destroying French jobs. The trend is not likely to be reversed anytime soon in view of the ever growing digitization of the economy.

Cultural differences make communication impossible.

Before embarking on an outsourced IT project, define your choice criteria – level of expertise, jet lag or even the language?

If your criteria are in terms of time difference and language, go to Madagascar, for example. With only one hour of time difference in summer and two hours in winter, the vast island is ideal for this type of IT outsourcing. Moreover, the Malagasy speak French, they speak even better French than we French speak English.

The powerful tools we have access to today make it possible to manage a remote team on the other side of the globe; Instant Messaging services (Skype, Slack, Glip etc.), video conferencing, interactive dashboards (Trello) etc. Offshore web agencies also have very extensive know-how in the methods and processes involved in setting up within a software development project. These tools and methods are an integral part of the services offered and are integrated in the client’s projects, the latter would almost only need a good Internet connection to follow his project remotely with his offshore team.

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