Return to Archive Runtime - The Software Outsourcing Newsletter for Executives and Investors from Accelerance and Steve Mezak In this issue: Information about global outsourcing destinations is available on websites and other publications. The book Software without Borders and its website deliver the concise information you need to select the best global location of your outsourced software development. Where in the World Should You Outsource? Location is one of the primary factors in the outsourcing decision process. You might have definite preferences and prejudices about your outsourcing destination. Sometimes your destination is firmly decided at the beginning of your outsourcing process. Will you only consider vendors in India, or in some other country with which you have cultural affinity. If you are from Russia, then outsourcing to Russia is an easy choice to make. Your destination preference could be to exclude specific locations. You will avoid a country because of a specific issue. “Anyplace but India” could be your mantra because of the time difference or because of a bad experience. Or you might say, “Anyplace but China,” if you are extremely concerned about intellectual property protection or English language skills. If you are open minded and objective, then location can be just one of the factors you use to source and screen your outsourcing vendors. One client last year narrowed down their choices to Eastern Europe, Latin America and India. At least they left out a few countries! You too might want to examine several countries to discover the most favorable destination for your outsourcing. This can be done through a great deal of time-consuming research on the web. Now there is new, more convenient resource. I review many outsourcing destinations in my new book Software without Borders. Chapter 2, “Where to Outsource”, discusses outsourcing in 30 different countries. It turned out to be the longest chapter in the book. My goal in Chapter 2 is to give you an overview of each country. I summarized the conclusions in two sections for each country – “Who Should Go?” and “Who Should Hesitate?” Using Software without Borders. is an easy way for you to get a good sense of multiple outsourcing destinations (along with many, many other outsourcing issues and opportunities). Or you can travel. A CIO from a small company in Iowa decided to travel overseas to do his research. "The Ukraine was the most difficult," he says. "I had to learn a lot about the culture, and the language was a big barrier. In the hotel, I wasn't sure if I was going into the business office or the ladies room. " You can read more about his “adventures” in this CIO Insight article, Small Businesses Struggle to Offshore by Dan Briody. Chapter 2 of Software without Borders draws on several reports and studies available online. This information is constantly changing and the book website http://www.SoftwareWithoutBordersBook.com will be updated regularly with fresh up-to-date content. For example, the July 15th issue of CIO magazine arrived the other day and it contains an updated global outsourcing guide. The guide is also available on-line at CIO Magazine 2006 Global Outsourcing Guide by Stephanie Overby. The guide assigns an overall ranking of each outsourcing destination with a multi-star scale defined as follows: Leading - 5 stars   Challenging - 4 stars (challenging the leader, hopefully not you!) Emerging - 3 stars   Nascent - 2 stars   Declining - 1 star   Here’s how the countries stacked up: 5 stars India 4 stars China, Russia, Malaysia, Philippines, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, South Africa, Mexico 3 stars Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Egypt, Brazil, Costa Rica 2 stars Vietnam, Thailand, Ghana, Argentina 1 star Singapore, Ireland, Canada, Israel This ranking is based on several factors described in the report. Also ranked were average programmer salary, geopolitical risk and English proficiency for each country. The rankings were based on several other reports and information sources. One of the most popular reports is Building the Optimal Global Footprint from A. T. Kearney, available online. There are many reports like this on the web. Some are free and others can cost thousands of dollars. Many discuss outsourcing in general, including business processes such as call centers, accounting and legal services. If your goal is outsourced software development, then you will discover the objective outsourcing information you need in Software without Borders. The book has extensive references to other resources on the web. Software without Borders is available now on Amazon. See http://www.SoftwareWithoutBordersBook.com for a link to the Amazon.com website. *** The Runtime Bottom Line: An objective evaluation of global locations is often the first step to selecting your outsourcing destination. You can do the research yourself or take advantage of the information found in Software without Borders. Software without Borders provides a unique look at 30 countries to help you judge their suitability for your outsourced software development. Until next time, Steve Mezak Accelerance, Inc. Risk-Free Outsourcing http://www.Accelerance.com 213 Garcia Avenue Half Moon Bay, CA 94019 1-650-712-8990 Contact me by email (c) 2006 Accelerance, Inc. All rights reserved. You are free to use material from the "Runtime" eZine in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear. The attribution should read: "By Steve Mezak, CEO of Accelerance, Inc. Please visit the Accelerance web site at http://www.Accelerance.com for more information and resources on outsourcing and creating great software."