Synergy Offshoring Disasters / Problems from Experience

Synergy has had first hand disasters with hiring offshoring companies to assist in development efforts.  If you are thinking about sending work overseas to save money think again.  We have paid TRIPLE what we were to save on paper.  Many companies are now coming forward having suffered the disappointment of offshore initiatives.

Offshore Disasters - Web Development

Synergy's initiatives in the area of Web development were centered around customer facing applications.  Every attempt to have a web interface in .Net completed to specs ended up in disappointment.  Here's a huge hint.  When you ask a questions to the offshore developers and you get back in a repetitive fashion 'Yes, Yes, Yes...' this is the first indication that something is wrong.  Every attempt to get straight answers became frustrating attempts to get work done.  The lack of command for the English language and issues of stonewalling started to give us issues with every single deadline!  In fact to get reasonable results we spent so much time on defining elaborate specs that we could have written the code ourselves.  Never again!

Offshore Disasters - Windows Development

Synergy's initiatives in the area of Windows development with offshoring have been centered around VB.Net and C# development both with base client executable development, SOA, and DLL components.  Every single project offshored has proven to a nightmare.  Even with the deliverable dates hit by the offshore companies they introduced many problems with terrible code, terrible coding practices, and the introduction of 3rd party components which proved even in the first year to need a rewrite when the 3rd party company went under!

Hidden Costs of Offshoring

Many companies have found that the real savings achieved from offshore outsourcing are found to be greatly exaggerated, especially once the actual expenses and all the hidden costs are factored in. Hidden costs include travel and communication, project management and monitoring, as well as the cost of delays, errors, and other deviations.   Business Week "The Hidden Costs of IT Outsourcing"  

There are also other very real problems that can arise when you send your software overseas, some of which are:

1. Communications problems due to your developers being 10+ time zones away.
2. Language barriers. It can be hard enough talking to developers when you speak the same language, but when you don't it can be down right impossible. Most of us have experienced this when we have had to call a support number and then could not understand the person at the other end of the line.
3. Cultural issues such as customer service expectations being too high.
4. High employee turnover.
5. Lack of security & intellectual property laws. In India, for example, there is no theft of trade secret law and other countries are even worse.

InfoWorld "FBI agent recounts outsourcing horror story"

The FBI suggests asking yourself the following questions before outsourcing to other nations:

1. Can my company risk loss of this data?
2. What are my liabilities if I do lose it?
3. What are your notification requirements if you lose customer data?
4. Will the company you are outsourcing to go the distance if you need its help to chase down a criminal?
5. How much could a prolonged legal battle in a foreign country cost?

We'll NEVER offshore another thing!  We're tired of disappointments and having to rewrite code.