Report: Send it offshore, ASAP

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So did we

I run the web security group for a large financial services company, and we recently had a very similar experience while dipping our toe in the waters of offshore development. We contracted with a brand-name outsourcing company (I won't say which one, but they advertise on TV all the time) to build a complex reporting system. The architecture and business specs were prepared onshore, and then delivered to an onshore project manager at the outsourcing firm. He in turn would relay the specs to the project manager in India, who would then pass them along to the offshore technical lead. And this was the first major problem. There was no direct communication between the business unit and the front-line developers, so misunderstandings and miscommunications were frequent. In a very short time, it became apparent that the offshore developers lacked even a rudimentary knowledge of best development practices (the app in question was written using a combination of J2EE, C++ and VB.Net). The first version we received back was riddled with bugs and obscene security vulnerabilities. An initial code review revealed the most horrific spaghetti code any of us had ever seen. Some of the code was just pointless. And some of it was plain unintelligible. After three more versions, we finally received an application that kind of worked according to spec (I emphasize the words "kind of"). The code was still poorly written and prone to all kinds of performance issues. After some careful consideration, we decided that even though the app worked, it would be almost impossible to support because of the poor coding, and we would eventually have to rewrite all of the core components. But then it became a political issue. Senior management, which had aggressively promoted an offshore strategy, was obviously reluctant to admit that the strategy had failed at the first time of asking. But they were finally convinced of the risks involved in releasing such a shoddy application to our corporate clients. So we ended up rewriting the entire app in-house. It took a third of the man hours that the offshore effort had taken, and we ended up with an application that was scalable, conformed to our enterprise architecture, and performed more than twice as well as the outsourced version. Also, the business customers don't have to jump through hoops (offshore project managers, technical leads and contractual restrictions) every time they want to modify the spec. All they have to do is come over and have a quiet chat with the development team, so there is far less scope for miscommunication. Anyway, that was our one and only experiment with offshoring. In financial terms, it cost us dearly, but it was an experience worth having if only to demonstrate the inherent risks of offshoring complex, high-exposure development work. I can understand the argument for offshoring lower-end work such as data entry, and even the occasional one-off VB development project (as long as it isn't mission critical). But there is definitely an ugly side to the offshore outsourcing model that the Accentures, IBMs and EDCs don't want you to see. The problem is that tech professionals understand the downside, but outsourcing companies don't pitch their wares to tech professionals. They are targeting senior executives who wouldn't know a web service from a golf club. Believe me, from what I have heard on the grapevine, my company's experience is by no means unique. But very few companies will actually own up to it, because to do so would be to admit failure.

Posted by: Cryptoman   Posted on: 06/15/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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