New book on offshoring available ! 

"Offshoring Information Technology -
    Sourcing and Outsourcing to a Global Workforce"
By Erran Carmel (American University, Washington) and Paul Tjia (GPI Consultancy, Rotterdam). Published by Cambridge University Press in 2005 and reprinted in 2006 and 2007 -  ISBN 0521843553.  

Mitch Betts writes in Computerworld: “Superb content ... Don’t fly to Bangalore without reading this book”. Robert M. Davison: "Overall, this is a highly valuable contribution to our knowledge about offshoring that I warmly recommend" (EJISDC 2006). Paul Gray: "This excellent book is well worth reading and keeping on your shelf" (Information Systems Management, spring 2006). Mehmet Hurer: "The book is very well written and complete, including real case studies to illustrate the key points"(British Computer Society). Kevin C. Desouza: "a well articulated, well-organized, and timely book on offshore IT Outsourcing" (IEEE Software, March/April 2007).

The interest for offshore IT sourcing is growing. A large number of western firms are conducting IT-activities in countries such as India, Russia or China. Since the number of books on this topic is limited, the book "Offshoring Information Technology - Sourcing and Outsourcing to a Global Workforce" has been published by Cambridge University Press. The handbook has been written by Professor Erran Carmel (American University, USA) and Paul Tjia (GPI Consultancy, The Netherlands). It contains more than 300 pages and is one of the most informative and detailed publications currently available on the subject. 

The decision to source software development to firms in low-cost countries (offshoring) is looked at frequently in simple economic terms: it is cheaper, and skilled labour is easier to find. In practice, however, offshoring is fraught with difficulties. As well as the considerable challenge of controlling projects at a distance, there are differences is culture, language, business models, politics, and many other issues to contend with.

Nevertheless, as many firms have discovered, the benefits of getting it right are too great to ignore. This book explains everything needed to know to put offshoring into practice, avoid pitfalls and develop effective working relationships. It covers a comprehensive range of important offshoring issues: from cost advantages to strategy, from service levels to cultural differences, from country comparisons to the marketing of offshore services. Many real-life examples have been collected, as well as countless stories and anecdotes. An offshore manager commented after reading the book: "Had it been available, it would have positively influenced productivity and performance in offshore IT work - and saved sleepless nights for many people!"

The book is written for CTOs, CIOs, consultants and other IT executives. In addition, the book is informative for providers of offshore services and for policy makers and analysts in or around governments. It is resource for students and teachers in business and technology programs. See for the covered terms the full index.

Table of Contents  

List of contributors and foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements 

Part I: The fundamentals
Chapter 1:  The offshore landscape
Offshoring Information Technology is an important milestone in the history of global economics: the six principle forces of offshoring. The historical context, and lessons for the future (progression & diffusion). The offshore stage model. An overview of strategic advantages, and the challenges of offshoring. What can be done offshore? The demand for offshore work in the main markets, and the offshore supply (including nearshore destinations). Other activities: IT enabled services. Concluding comments.

Chapter 2: Offshore economics and offshore risks
Cost savings: finding the lowest wages through labor arbitrage. A discussion of the transactions costs and the total savings from an offshore strategy. Extra offshore costs, such as search and contract, restructuring, knowledge transfer, travel, and overhead. What is the bottom line? Does offshoring lead to cost savings? Case study: Calculating the extra offshore costs at a giant American corporation. An overview of offshore risks. Assessing and managing these risks. Concluding lessons.

Chapter 3: Beginning the offshore journey
This chapter is devoted to the importance of preparation for the offshore journey: the three phases. Laying the foundation and assessing the offshore readiness. Setting up a launch team, hiring external expertise and creating a strategy and a plan. Selecting the right project to start. Identifying and locating the providers. Several criteria for country and provider selection. The RFI and RFP. Assessing & selecting the provider. Making the offshore visit. Making the recommendation and contract negotiations. Concluding lessons. 

Chapter 4: The offshore country menu
An explanation of the growing offshore landscape. Three tiers of software exporting countries: mature, emerging and infant stage nations. What country to choose? The many factors to consider in location decisions, and an overview of country risks. Incentives provided by governments. Case study: Sport Systems Inc. shops for an offshore provider. Country sketches: the Big Three destinations (India, China, and Russia). Plus a selection of eight other countries, from Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe.  

Part II: Managerial competency
Chapter 5: Offshore strategy
The corporate strategies that are unique to offshoring. The cost-reduction strategy and the Offshore Stage Model. How much to offshore? Leveraging offshore strategically: beyond cost savings. Strategic goals, such as speed and agility, innovation, technological diversification and new revenues. Strategic perils and missteps in offshoring. Strategic collaboration: the various offshore business models. Multiple providers versus provider partnership. Case study: GE in India. Concluding lessons.

Chapter 7: Managing the offshore transition
The important issue of transitioning IT work offshore. The four types of knowledge that needs to be transferred offshore. Case study: Knowledge transfer by "Eating your own dog food". Change management and organizational resistance. The ‘offshore champion’ as a change agent. Case Study: The ups and downs of building support for offshoring at a large US corporation. Governance in offshore outsourcing: the three prinicples in. The focus of a Service Level Agreement. Governance structures and key roles. Concluding lessons.

Chapter 8: Overcoming distance and time
Working across distance and time is a key difficulty in offshoring: we like to be close. Understanding the problems of distance: the five centrifugal forces. Formalize what is informal and create informalisms. Lessons from ‘unconvential’ distributed approaches. Managing time differences. Using collaborative technology. Case study: Intel's vision for new collaboration technologies. Selecting the right people for distributed collaboration. Distance considerations in organizational design. Concluding lessons.

Chapter 9: Dealing with cross-cultural issues
Many IT professionals are new to the topic of culture, and a deeper understanding is vital. What is culture: nine cultural orientations. Why culture matters in offshore projects. Examples of failure in cross-cultural communication, and examples of failure in language. Technology and cultural differences. Various steps to improve cross-cultural communication. Case study: Why the project was late: cultural miscommunication in an India-American collaboration. Case study: In a Russian sauna with the Dutch manager. Case study: Offshoring usability to India.

Part III: Other stakeholders
Chapter 10: Building software industries in developing nations
This chapter explains why software exports have become a cause for excitement in dozens of developing countries. The policy decisions when choosing a national IT strategy. Which focus to select: IT services, attracting foreign R&D, software products or IT enabled services? The categories within IT enabled services. Why developing nations should invest in building a software export industry. An overview of principal success factors, such as government vision, infrastructure, human capital, wages and international linkages. Concluding lessons.

Chapter 12: Offshore politics
Offshoring has become one of the most important social issues of the early 2000s. For the first time, jobs that were migrating offshore were not in factories, but those of white collar, highly-educated professionals. The immediate policy issue: the loss of jobs and a wage decline. The different reactions to the backlash. The longer-term policy issues, such as human capital, innovation and techno-nationalism. Concluding lessons.

References
End notes
Index (the full index is available)

About the authors 
Erran Carmel is an Associate Professor at American University in Washington. He is recognized as an expert in the management of global software development. He studies software teams, globally dispersed software teams, and offshore sourcing of IT work. His 1999 book Global Software Teams was the first on this topic. He has written over 70 articles, reports and manuscripts.

Paul Tjia is a senior consultant at GPI Consultancy and has a background in IT and Cultural Anthropology. He assists clients embarking on the offshore journey with research, country and partner selection, and due diligence. He conducts intercultural training and promotes offshoring by organizing seminars and study tours. He writes articles and reports and often speaks at offshore industry events.

Ordering the book 
We have this book in stock, and the fastest way to order it in The Netherlands or Belgium is by sending us an E-mail.

For other countries, the book can be ordered through bookshops or through websites such as Amazon or Cambridge University Press