Global Software Development: Commitment, Trust and Cultural Sensitivity in Strategic Partnerships

Abstract

Much research has studied off-shore outsourcing from a Western client perspective. This article tries to shed light on what an Indian vendor perceives as important to manage large and complex strategic partnerships in IT outsourcing, and in particular how mutually profitable, long-term relationships with European clients are created and maintained, both at company and project levels. We investigate this issue through qualitative interviews with various vendor representatives in offshore and on-site teams in a top tier multinational company of Indian origin. In the analysis of interview accounts of close collaboration processes in two large and complex projects, where off-shoring of software development is moved to a strategic level, we found that the vendor was able to establish a strategic partnership through long-term engagement with the field of banking and insurance as well as through conscious relationship management with the clients. Three major themes describe important aspects of the strategic partnerships: 1) senior management commitment and employee identification with the projects, 2) mutual trust and transparency, and 3) cross-cultural understanding and sensitivity. The article draws attention to the important collaborative work done by people who are able to span boundaries in the complex organizational set-up of global IT development projects.

Offshoring of Services: A Review of the Literature and Organizing Framework

“…That said, the regular adoption of multiple levels of analysis underscores the importance of studying OS using a multilevel approach, which is particularly relevant when it comes to IB research (Buckley and Lessard 2005). Regarding the governance mode of OS implementations, we find that outsourcing is the predominant mode investigated, mostly via empirical works (Kedia and Mukherjee 2009;Mason and Leek 2008;Narayanan et al 2009;Parkhe 2007;Soderberg et al 2013). Captive OS has been the exclusive subject of 10 studies (e.g., Bunyaratavej et al 2007;Demirbag et al 2012;Sidhu and Volberda 2011).…”

“…Still in its infancy a few years ago, this industry has become one of the most dynamic and quickly evolving industries, attracting growing interest in both practitioner and academic spheres (Kenney et al 2009;Luo et al 2012). The country that attracts the most attention is India (Demirbag et al 2012;Gao et al 2010;Soderberg et al 2013) as it remains one of the top offshore choices Luo et al 2012), holding an iconic status for IT and IT-enabled services (Dossani and Kenney 2007;Pereira and Anderson 2012). Although known initially for providing basic IT services mostly associated with software development, Indian providers have leveraged recent technological developments to rapidly become a major competitive source for a wide gamut of services (Zaheer et al 2009).…”

A Practical Approach for Evaluating and Prioritizing Situational Factors in Global Software Project Development

“…There is no doubt that their framework is an initial move towards advanced development in this direction, but it discussed the facts generally. Since the aspects of the GSD are missing in this framework, there are many SFs that may be particularly geographically site dependent and need to be identified, and assessing their influence on the accomplishment of a software project is imperative [25], [26].…”

The Use of Kanban to Alleviate Collaboration and Communication Challenges of Global Software Development

“…Mergers and acquisitions are also influencing the shift towards GSD, resulting in the production of innovative products, new markets, and access to a more diverse pool of software developers (Sudhakar, Farooq, & Patnaik, 2011). Recently, the outsourcing of software development experienced exceptional growth especially within European companies outsourcing to Indian IT companies (Søderberg, Krishna, & Bjørn, 2013). Søderberg et al (2013) supported the reasons for such growth are not only the labour cost reduction and high quality of software produced by Indian IT companies, but also includes the long-term partnerships and the knowledge that these offshore companies have to offer.…”

“…Recently, the outsourcing of software development experienced exceptional growth especially within European companies outsourcing to Indian IT companies (Søderberg, Krishna, & Bjørn, 2013). Søderberg et al (2013) supported the reasons for such growth are not only the labour cost reduction and high quality of software produced by Indian IT companies, but also includes the long-term partnerships and the knowledge that these offshore companies have to offer. However, teams working in GSD face numerous collaboration and communication challenges (Bannerman, Hossain, & Jeffery, 2012;Bjarnason, Wnuk, & Regnell, 2011;Herbsleb, 2007).…”