This year's survey participants cite a wide range of projects underway and a broad set of challenges facing them in the coming
year. But there is one area that our respondents clearly aren't too concerned about, despite the persistent news buzz: offshore
outsourcing of application development projects.
A scant 5 percent say that they are currently using outsourcing heavily in their organizations and another 17 percent say
they are outsourcing "somewhat." But fully 59 percent of those surveyed say they have no plans to utilize outsourcing for
their development needs in the near future, looking as far out as the next 12 months.
Similarly, between 40 and 50 percent of respondents indicate not only that outsourcing plays a small role in their organizations,
but that in fact they are using no outsourced resources whatsoever in their application development, maintenance, or integration
efforts. Even fewer say they rely on outsourced QA and testing of enterprise applications, with 63 percent reporting that
they outsource none of these activities.
Although these results may seem counterintuitive, they are in keeping with other recent InfoWorld research. In our 2004 InfoWorld Compensation Survey, 49 percent of respondents indicated that their organizations are not currently outsourcing any IT activities. The majority
of the work is handled locally, with 85 percent of staffing needs met by full-time employees and another 11 to 12 percent
filled by U.S.-based contractors -- and no changes were planned for the next 12 months.
The fact that InfoWorld readers seem reluctant to test the waters of offshoring may be attributable to growing familiarity
with the challenges and process hurdles inherent in overseas outsourcing. Respondents who say they are employing outsourcing
at present cite time-zone differences and organizational difficulties as top concerns.
"Many of our developers are in India. The time difference between there and the U.S. presents special challenges," explains
on respondent. "We have on-site, outsourced, and off-site offshored development teams," says another. "Communications are
tricky."
These challenges are not insurmountable, but they detract from the perception of outsourcing as a low-cost, drop-in replacement
for in-house resources. Instead, organizations considering the offshore route must weigh the cost savings against the actual
value received from the outsourced organization.
"Cost has become the dominant factor in outsourcing decisions," one respondent says, but notes that not every provider is
the same. "Clients that focus solely on cost without adequate consideration for the value that will be received are likely
to pay more and not in ways that were anticipated."
E-mail
Printer Friendly
Reprints
(InfoWorld) - In the litigious world we live in, deploying a unified communications platform in your enterprise could...
