The Offshore Software Development (OSD) Resource Center website is one of the world's most authoritative sources of information on software development outsourcing. The Center's online resources include a directory and database of the top offshore outsourcing companies, journal articles, white papers and educational materials, search tools, and more. The OSD Resource Center is owned, managed, and maintained by Incoda Corporation, a custom software development and IT consulting firm headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

In this Section, we:

• Describe the lack of credible information on offshore software development companies as one of the most significant issues in offshoring software development
• Define the vision behind the OSD Resource Center
• Describe the value of the OSD Resource Center to both customers and suppliers, and
• List the primary user communities.

Background

The desire to reduce IT costs continues to drive the demand for IT offshore outsourcing. However, IT executives in major countries and geographic regions such as the U.S., Europe, and Japan are frustrated about the lack of comprehensive and credible information on offshore suppliers. While there are thousands of IT companies worldwide, potential customers in the US and Europe see only the top few with the “deep pockets” to spend on marketing and advertising. The vast majority of offshore software development companies don’t have the resources to adequately market themselves overseas. Up until now, there has been no single source of information with enough detail about these companies for corporate buyers of IT services to make informed decisions about whom to invite for RFI/RFQ/RFP.

From a supplier perspective, small and mid-tier offshore software development companies—those companies whose revenues are below $200 million per annum and who are large and mature enough to handle sizable projects, have strong internal processes, and lower infrastructure costs—lack the visibility to virtually all of the IT opportunities that arise in the major countries. These companies are forced to rely primarily on their executives’ network of contacts in the target geographies to identify and secure business.

This lack of detailed credible information on offshore software development companies has limited the growth of the global software industry.

Vision of the Offshore Software Development (OSD) Resource Center

Incoda’s vision for the OSD Resource Center is to provide a single, comprehensive, and independent information resource on offshore software development companies. The OSD Resource Center helps companies interested in offshore software development to find the best offshore suppliers for their specific software development projects. Historically, it has not been an easy task to find the right offshore company because:

• There are thousands of offshore software companies to choose from and, before the OSD Directory, there was no single comprehensive list of offshore suppliers.
  
  
• The vast majority of the world's offshore software development companies are very poorly represented, or not represented at all, by local sales forces in the US, Europe, and Japan. The cost for these companies to support just one local salesperson is often far more than the profit generated from several of their assignments.
  
  
• It's impossible to evaluate a company from its website. Just like the saying "You can’t judge a book by its cover," we have found that the quality of a company's website is unrelated to the company's ability to deliver quality software. Several top OSD companies have disappointing websites and many award-winning websites belong to disappointing companies.
  
  
• Before we launched the OSD Resource Center, there was no credible source of data on software development metrics and other important company evaluation criteria for offshore software development companies so that customers could make "apples-to-apples" comparisons. Differences between excellent suppliers and poor ones were not easy to see.
  
  
• It is extremely difficult to evaluate qualitative factors, especially when the companies are overseas and have different cultures and customs. A high-performing software development project team is highly dependent on having the optimal mix of technical skills and experience in the areas needed as well as capable project management. Qualitative factors such as organizational fit, level and type of communications, and operating style are difficult to assess.
  
  
• It's quite costly and time-consuming to conduct on-site evaluations. Visiting just four potential offshore suppliers—let’s say two in India, one in the Ukraine, and one in Argentina—would cost $10,000 or more and consume at least 10 days of travel time, meetings, and site tours.

The OSD Resource Center (and Incoda's supporting data collection, analysis, and validation methodologies and approaches) solves these issues and provides a one-stop online resource for offshore outsourcing customers.

Business Value for Both Customers and Suppliers

Up until now, companies wishing to outsource their software development have not had a way to find and compare custom application development suppliers. The custom software industry is made up of a few large companies and thousands of small and medium-sized companies that cover a multitude of industry domains, business processes and functional domains, and technology specialties (e.g., operating systems, languages). Many of the best companies located in offshore locations lack the financial resources to effectively market themselves in the major first-world countries. Incoda Corporation’s OSD Resource Center website offers buyers of software development services a single, online location, available 24/7, that contains all of the data, tools, and resources necessary to find the optimal offshore vendors for their specific project.

In fact, we believe that the OSD Resource Center is so unique that it will change the way software services are sold. The Exhibit below shows how sales of software development services will shift from a large supplier/large customer "push-oriented" model to a market driven "pull-oriented" model, where a customer of any size will have visibility to virtually every company in the entire worldwide software development services market. This "pull-oriented" model is much more efficient and will provide opportunities for market expansion to all sizes of software development companies.

User Communities

We believe that the information available in the OSD Resource Center will be valuable to several user communities, including:

• Business and IT Management That Need to Design, Develop and Deploy New Software. The primary audience for the website is senior business executives and experienced IT professionals who want to learn more about software development offshore outsourcing and who need to identify a short-list of software development companies for application development projects. The Resource Center offers many articles and white papers that describe the rationale and business drivers behind the offshore outsourcing trend and articulate the impact of offshoring to a company's business strategy, IT strategy, and financial strategy. The OSD Supplier Directory provides complete contact information to leading software development companies from around the globe. The "Find the Optimal Supplier" search capability allows users to identify the software development companies that meet their own company-specific and project-specific evaluation criteria.
  
  
• Local Software Development Companies Who Are Looking for an Offshore Partner. This group includes onshore (domestic) small and medium-sized software development firms, integrated solution vendors, systems integrators, and IT consulting firms who don’t have offshore delivery capability. Today, we are seeing an increase in the number of RFPs that require offshore resources be a component of an overall solution. To be able to respond to these opportunities, this group of software development companies, IT consultants, and systems integration firms need to quickly identify a small number of potential offshore partners, evaluate their capabilities, negotiate the terms of a subcontractor agreement, and prepare and submit a project proposal that will satisfy the stated requirements.
  
  
• Software Development Professionals Who Want Access to the Best IT Resources. The website's Learning Center and large number of reviewed IT articles, white papers, websites, and other educational materials make it a top online destination for all levels of software development professionals--from recent graduates to experienced software veterans. Topics include software development methodology, best practices in project management and quality management, and software development metrics and benchmarks.
  
  
• Individuals Seeking Employment in the Software Development Industry. People looking for jobs in software development can use the OSD Supplier Directory to find the names, websites, and contact information of potential employers. The Directory allows job seekers to view the data at a country level and links in the Directory allow users to quickly access company websites for further research.
  
  
• Anyone Interested in Learning More About Offshore Outsourcing. The OSD Learning Center and collection of educational resources provide a wealth of information to anyone interested in learning more about the globalization of IT services. Users can find information on offshore outsourcing market size and growth rates, business drivers, trends, case studies, CMM / CMMI and ISO quality certifications, profiles of leading offshore locations, and much more.

*          *          *

Thank you for taking the time to read about the OSD Resource Center. Please see the FAQs for additional information.

Do you have comments, questions, or feedback? Please share them with us. Here's how to contact us.