o have a successful collaborative engagement with an offshore contract provider,
a company must properly evaluate the vendor, says Vijay Swaminathan, co-founder
and managing principal of Zinnov Consulting and Research, a firm that advises clients
on how to do business in India and other emerging nations. The company has North
American headquarters in Houston and Asian headquarters in Bangalore.
Beyond the obvious steps of identifying vendors with the right
skill sets and project histories, Swaminathan says companies should also evaluate
"soft" issues like culture and communication that so often impede understanding
and success.
"Identify who the team members are," he says. "Talk to them
and to the senior executives about who will constitute the team. Try to see what
the team members are like."
Once an offshore company is under contract, "be absolutely
explicit about every single detail [of your project]," says Lawrence Gelburd, a
lecturer in entrepreneurship and business at Wharton Business School. "You don’t
realize how many concepts and terms are implicit."
Two metrics—yours and the provider’s—hold the real secret
to success, according to Gelburd. "Ask the other party what would make this a successful
project for them," he says. "Hardly anyone asks that. It treats your outsourcer
like human beings, motivates them and helps you figure out how to achieve both agendas."
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