Offshore Development

general discussion
1

Hello:

Do you have experience in setting up an offshore development center for BI / Analytics development and support? I’d like to know the process you followed, the risks involved, and how a typical project can be executed successfully using this model.

Your input will be highly appreciated.

Thank you
Bala K

balak26 (BOB member since 2002-10-14)

2

Well a day has gone by and you have no replies. So here are some questions instead. Could you post a bit more detail about this - what you ask for is a very wide brief indeed? Perhaps if you ask some questions more related to the Business Objects architecture in relation to your requirements that might get the ball rolling.

Nick Daniels :uk: (BOB member since 2002-08-15)

3

Thanks Nick for your suggestion. Here are some specific questions w.r.t. an offshore model for Business Objects development:

  • Does it make sense to have the Universe developer located on-site (at the client location in the US) for a couple of months when the project kicks-off and then move the person offshore (say, India, China, Phillipines, etc.)?

  • What are the roles that must be played on-site vis-a-vis offshore? The roles I’m looking at are: Project Manager, Business Analyst, Technical Architect, Reports Developer, Universe Developer, DBA, SDK Developer, Security Analyst, Data Modeler.

  • How would you effect smooth communication between the Business Analysts on-site and the report developers offshore?

  • What could potentially go wrong in such a model?

I’m looking for responses from someone who’s been through this.

Thanks

balak26 (BOB member since 2002-10-14)

4

The most important hurdle esp if you outsource to Asia is bandwidth. It might sound trivial but we had big issues with this in India. It seems the ‘last mile problem’ is much worse there.

Anyways, we ended up giving the guys a dump of our data every weekend to their local servers so all the reports were created using that. :roll_eyes:

We still had only one Security Domain so the login there must have been iin slow motion… I believe you can set up multiple security domains that remain in sync but we did not go there. :crazy_face:

Outsourcing, esp. Offshore, can also be a big problem for small companies as this requires extremely detailed specs and testing mechanisms in place. And the shop may also need some personnel 24/7.

Other than some quirky issues Asia worked great for us as our work was on nearly 24 hrs due to the time difference. Most of the work we farmed out was report developement and it really helped us meet our deadlines.

Hope this answers some of your questions. Thanks Nick for bringing this discussion up again, I had missed it in the first pass… :oops:

avaksi :us: (BOB member since 2002-08-22)

5

Offshore Development can be a great sucess if executed properly. I know many companies which are experts in Offshore and onsite Model. This model brings cost effectiveness and time management. I think you should try this out. As far as the connectivity issue is concerned. You can give the sample data dump of your database once only. For report development offshore dont require connectivity to your repository. They can have their own repository and can build reports based using that repository. I really feel this model is really effective. You require some persons at onsite and some persons at offshore. This will ensure that what ever is developed is according to the specifications.

You can mail me if you need to know more.

JaiGupta (BOB member since 2002-09-12)