"Companies lacking internal process model maturity will undermine potential cost savings."
    ( "Top 10 Risks of Offshore Outsourcing", Meta Group, February 2004)

Offshoring: Today's Hottest Corporate Efficiency Trend

• Improve your company's efficiency and competitiveness
• Achieve significant cost savings
• Dramatically increase your global presence

These are just some of the key reasons why you or your company may be embracing the move to offshore outsourcing for some components of your enterprise. Your company's competitive edge will greatly depend on the skill with which you leverage and execute on the right offshoring strategies.

Offshoring or outsourcing overseas is not easy. Any project or initiative has risk, but when you make the decision that your initiative team will now be distributed around the globe, you dramatically increase the risk to successful initiative delivery.

Some of the most common pitfalls for companies embracing offshoring initiatives include:

1. Failure to build shared understanding between dispersed teams
2. Inconsistent and inadequate knowledge transfer
3. Trying to adapt ad hoc processes to global collaborative efforts
4. Creating barriers between onshore and offshore efforts
5. Scope "creep" and the negative schedule surprises that come with it

However, when balanced against the significant cost savings and other efficiencies your company will get from an offshoring strategy, these risks are certainly worth managing. The good news is that offshoring CAN work very well, with the right tools and development management process.

Successfully accomplishing offshore initiatives requires incredibly close collaboration and cooperation among your team. You'll also need the latest in issue discovery and resolution tools to ensure that domain experts, wherever they reside around the globe, are heard loud and clear when you need them. And that is where Obian's Emagineering becomes essential in ensuring the success of your initiative.

While many companies offer software to help in collaboration for small workgroups, Emagineering enables global, enterprise level collaboration and issue resolution for large Enterprise Initiatives using a unique combination of best business practices and leading technologies. Role-based collaboration, Decision-making workflow, a single Document Management repository and object-level security and access control are just some of the technologies included in Emagineering's patent-applied-for design.

Come back soon to read the "White Paper" that is presently under development by Obian's specialists in managing offshore development.