Thrust you in offshore in the best conditions

Your projects in Offshore with Aeon Consulting

With over 6 years experience in India in this area, Aeon Consulting is in position to assist you. This knowledge of India today brings us a cultural understanding of communication difficulties you may encounter. Although it is very difficult to generalize, some things are found in Asia and we will be therefore more comfortable on this continent. However, our knowledge in the management of distributed projects is perfectly adaptable to the rest of the world.

Whether you’re at the dawn of start this type of activity or have a first experience, we can provide you with our feedback of experience, our best practices…

The main objective of our coaching is to ensure the offshore perceived today as “that cannot be ignored” experience provides you with complete satisfaction both in terms of quality and cost reduction.

We can intervene in two ways :

You have chosen your offshore solution (subsidiary, company retained by referencing or classic selection): we integrate your project team in order to ensure the link with the offshore company on quality, costs, delays and communication aspects.
You do not have offshore solution: we offer offshore partner with your business skills with the necessary quality certifications and finally that will share its size and efficiency offer you the best quality/price ratio

The selection of the offshore partner is the fruit of a real work on communication means, the methodology and skills but also on the size. Indeed, ensuring that you are a customer with an important project, it is crucial to ensure the match between the size of your project and the size of projects that usually manages the offshore partner.

Aeon Consulting consultants involved in these projects have double skills : information technology and communication/understanding of cultural differences.

Onshore Aeon Consulting

Any offshore project requires a strong and experienced onshore team that will manage the customer expectation, manage the project, and validate the functional understanding of the offshore team, track productivity and time scale. In order to successfully interact with the offshore team (ie be respected), this team must have very significant experience in IT and have already been through most of the onshore/offshore issues. It is also required to have a small transversal support team offshore to facilitate communication and support.

Aeon Consulting: lessons learnt

Quality

ISO 9001:2000 is a very strong framework to deliver IT applications based on formalized documentation and deliverables. The culture of quality at ISO 9001 companies in India is very widespread. The education of all employees on ISO is one of the most important priorities of Indian management. Although ISO is not a guarantee that IT applications will be delivered on time, on budget and without defects, it guarantees a very good traceability throughout the lifecycle.

Education and skills

Indian engineers are graduated with skills and education background similar to the best European or American engineering schools. They are also hungry to learn more and to have challenging tasks to do.

Transparency

This is a weak point for Indian IT Centers. They are very transparent with their own Indian management but consider any disclosure of projects issues to customers/onshore team as a failure. The culture of the “Yes” is also a real issue as “yes” only mean that the point raised has been acknowledged, not validated as “feasible”.

Management

IT companies have strong management skills as most of them have people who have been in charge of large projects for the past 10 to 15 years. Older managers tend to get more respect as the early promoters of IT companies in India are well know.

Scalability

Definitely it is one of the strength of India as you can recruit any skills, in any volume as long as a notification of 4 to 6 weeks is given. It is much more difficult to achieve the same for onshore needs (”volume of visas” is becoming an issue in all countries).

Onshore/offshore split

Maximizing the percentage of work located offshore enables to maximize savings but also risks. Our experience is that the optimal balance is to keep 30% of the work onshore and 70% offshore for the first projects. Once the customer is used to the Onshore/Offshore processes, they can supplement the onshore tasks and help reduce the split to 20%/80% at best. This split doesn’t mean two different teams. The front office/back office model is died or should die. We need ONE team splitted on different locations.

Translation/Foreign languages

English is the administrative language of India and the working language of all universities and companies. Almost no other language skills are available except in very, very small numbers. Do not expect to have French speaking teams because they have been recruited in Pondichery. It does not exist. Translation has to be part of the process with dedicated translation cells and specific glossary for every project.

Attrition

The true levels of attrition in India range from 15% to 100%. Most Indian companies implement programs to focus of management retention (Project Managers and higher). Maintenance activities come with higher attrition than development activities. Engineers not utilized on projects for more than 8 weeks tend to resign to have opportunities to demonstrate their skills more effectively.

Fixed-time or fixed-price

Indian companies focus on keeping delivery on budget as they have a very strong focus on profitability. The usual behavior is to throw more resources at the end of the project if delays are identified. As they use waterfall development process, they identified such delays late into the project, leading to significant miss with regards to delivery dates.

Projects size for offshore

Projects below 500 m/days are too small to be off shored.

Technologies easy to offshore

Our experience is that open technologies projects (C, C++, Java, .NET) are easier to offshore than ERP projects.

Knowledge Transfer process

Most of the knowledge transfer is done via Indian team moving on shore onsite to capture knowledge for a limited period of time (3 months). Some player offer to have people from the customer team to travel to India (reverse Knowledge transfer). This process provides several benefits: solve potential Visa problem, avoid potential social and cultural issue with large team of Indian working onsite, decrease Travel and living cost (cost of living in India is lower than in Europe), greatly ease the integration with the remote development team in India.

In the case of a small development team, it will tend to focus the first solution, keeping the second for large developments.

	Offers > Aerospace > IT Offshore	Search:
	Thrust you in offshore in the best conditions Your projects in Offshore with Aeon Consulting With over 6 years experience in India in this area, Aeon Consulting is in position to assist you. This knowledge of India today brings us a cultural understanding of communication difficulties you may encounter. Although it is very difficult to generalize, some things are found in Asia and we will be therefore more comfortable on this continent. However, our knowledge in the management of distributed projects is perfectly adaptable to the rest of the world. Whether you’re at the dawn of start this type of activity or have a first experience, we can provide you with our feedback of experience, our best practices… The main objective of our coaching is to ensure the offshore perceived today as “that cannot be ignored” experience provides you with complete satisfaction both in terms of quality and cost reduction. We can intervene in two ways : You have chosen your offshore solution (subsidiary, company retained by referencing or classic selection): we integrate your project team in order to ensure the link with the offshore company on quality, costs, delays and communication aspects. You do not have offshore solution: we offer offshore partner with your business skills with the necessary quality certifications and finally that will share its size and efficiency offer you the best quality/price ratio The selection of the offshore partner is the fruit of a real work on communication means, the methodology and skills but also on the size. Indeed, ensuring that you are a customer with an important project, it is crucial to ensure the match between the size of your project and the size of projects that usually manages the offshore partner. Aeon Consulting consultants involved in these projects have double skills : information technology and communication/understanding of cultural differences. Onshore Aeon Consulting Any offshore project requires a strong and experienced onshore team that will manage the customer expectation, manage the project, and validate the functional understanding of the offshore team, track productivity and time scale. In order to successfully interact with the offshore team (ie be respected), this team must have very significant experience in IT and have already been through most of the onshore/offshore issues. It is also required to have a small transversal support team offshore to facilitate communication and support. Aeon Consulting: lessons learnt Quality ISO 9001:2000 is a very strong framework to deliver IT applications based on formalized documentation and deliverables. The culture of quality at ISO 9001 companies in India is very widespread. The education of all employees on ISO is one of the most important priorities of Indian management. Although ISO is not a guarantee that IT applications will be delivered on time, on budget and without defects, it guarantees a very good traceability throughout the lifecycle. Education and skills Indian engineers are graduated with skills and education background similar to the best European or American engineering schools. They are also hungry to learn more and to have challenging tasks to do. Transparency This is a weak point for Indian IT Centers. They are very transparent with their own Indian management but consider any disclosure of projects issues to customers/onshore team as a failure. The culture of the “Yes” is also a real issue as “yes” only mean that the point raised has been acknowledged, not validated as “feasible”. Management IT companies have strong management skills as most of them have people who have been in charge of large projects for the past 10 to 15 years. Older managers tend to get more respect as the early promoters of IT companies in India are well know. Scalability Definitely it is one of the strength of India as you can recruit any skills, in any volume as long as a notification of 4 to 6 weeks is given. It is much more difficult to achieve the same for onshore needs (”volume of visas” is becoming an issue in all countries). Onshore/offshore split Maximizing the percentage of work located offshore enables to maximize savings but also risks. Our experience is that the optimal balance is to keep 30% of the work onshore and 70% offshore for the first projects. Once the customer is used to the Onshore/Offshore processes, they can supplement the onshore tasks and help reduce the split to 20%/80% at best. This split doesn’t mean two different teams. The front office/back office model is died or should die. We need ONE team splitted on different locations. Translation/Foreign languages English is the administrative language of India and the working language of all universities and companies. Almost no other language skills are available except in very, very small numbers. Do not expect to have French speaking teams because they have been recruited in Pondichery. It does not exist. Translation has to be part of the process with dedicated translation cells and specific glossary for every project. Attrition The true levels of attrition in India range from 15% to 100%. Most Indian companies implement programs to focus of management retention (Project Managers and higher). Maintenance activities come with higher attrition than development activities. Engineers not utilized on projects for more than 8 weeks tend to resign to have opportunities to demonstrate their skills more effectively. Fixed-time or fixed-price Indian companies focus on keeping delivery on budget as they have a very strong focus on profitability. The usual behavior is to throw more resources at the end of the project if delays are identified. As they use waterfall development process, they identified such delays late into the project, leading to significant miss with regards to delivery dates. Projects size for offshore Projects below 500 m/days are too small to be off shored. Technologies easy to offshore Our experience is that open technologies projects (C, C++, Java, .NET) are easier to offshore than ERP projects. Knowledge Transfer process Most of the knowledge transfer is done via Indian team moving on shore onsite to capture knowledge for a limited period of time (3 months). Some player offer to have people from the customer team to travel to India (reverse Knowledge transfer). This process provides several benefits: solve potential Visa problem, avoid potential social and cultural issue with large team of Indian working onsite, decrease Travel and living cost (cost of living in India is lower than in Europe), greatly ease the integration with the remote development team in India. In the case of a small development team, it will tend to focus the first solution, keeping the second for large developments.	News > Aeon Consulting ajoute la corde "iPad" à son arc > L'iPhone OS 4 intègre notre formation au développement d'applications iPhone > Aeon Consulting recrute > Aeon Consulting au séminaire du CCT Cnes sur les Grilles Informatiques et le Cloud Computing > Noelios Technologies becomes Aeon Consulting partner More news Contact We are located close to the city center of Toulouse: Parc Technologique du Canal 10, avenue de l'Europe 31520 Ramonville St Agne FRANCE Tel : +33 (0)5 34 32 03 70 Fax : +33 (0)5 34 32 03 71 Contact us Jobs Aeon Consulting is recruiting! Do you want to work with expert and passionate team members? Contact us