What is the Best Onshore/Offshore Ratio for Consulting Firms?

Challenges and potential of the extended usage of offshore resources for consulting firms
Screenshot of Onshore/Offshore Ratio survey

At the time of a new engagement, managers take into consideration many activities like project planning, effort estimation, defining goals and metrics, cost, outcome, etc. One factor that is most important for any project to succeed is engaging the right onshore/offshore staffing ratio to execute the project. This factor is mostly not given adequate importance in many recent delivery models. For managers to meet project profit margins, they try to limit the cost spent on project resources and execution. With the limited resourcing budget, it is not feasible to have a default onshore/offshore ratio that fits all projects.

After gathering some experience in working offshore (2007-2008 in Bangalore, India) and onshore (in Germany and Switzerland) I started to wonder if there is a optimal onshore/offshore ratio. Quite soon I concluded that this question is not easy to answer. So I did a breakdown to certain aspects and instead of answering them by myself, I set up a survey and hope to get your support!

Start the survey: http://bit.ly/offshoreratio
[Update 15 Nov 2014]: After collecting data over four weeks (18 Oct – 14 Nov), the survey is closed. Results will follow soon.

Basically, I’d like to address three groups to answer this survey:

  • Employees of traditional consulting firms
  • Employees of Indian pure players (such as Infosys, TCS, HCL, Wipro, etc.)
  • Employees of clients of consulting firms

Of course, I’m going to share the results after evaluation. Thank you for participating and sharing the link with your colleagues! Also retweets are highly appreciated…

India still the Top Destination for Outsourcing

SAP Labs India Pvt. Ltd. in Bangalore
SAP Labs India Pvt. Ltd. in Bangalore

Asian countries, especially countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia, keep on being favored picks among organizations interested in contract out business processes offshore. India remains the top outsourcing destination, with its unrivaled advantages in scale and people skills, said the 2014 Global Services Location Index (GSLI) released by A.T. Kearney. China and Malaysia are second and third respectively.

The GSLI, which tracks offshoring patterns to lower-cost developing countries and the ascent of new locations, measures the underlying fundamentals of 51 nations focused on measurements in three general classifications, such as financial attractiveness, people skills and availability, and business environment.

Distributed since 2004 the GSLI, revealed that leading IT-services companies in India, to whom IT-related functions were outsourced, are extending their traditional offerings to incorporate research and development, product development and other niche services. The line between IT and business-procedure outsourcing there is obscuring, as players offer packages and specialized services to their customers and are developing skills in niche domains.

Furthermore, the GSLI identified a trend of multinationals reassessing their outsourcing strategies, after having aggressively outsourced back office operations in the mid-2000s; it has been noted that some companies are starting to reclaim some of these functions and undertaking them in-house again.

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