Over the decades, several organizations are in the process of continuously improving their IT services. With their growing business needs, they may sometimes need a business partner or IT consulting firm who is readily available with the set of skills required to fulfill those needs. A great fit for this is a global delivery approach, which provides the flexible option of having the resources onshore or offshore. This model has been successful in achieving all of these goals, and also offers the benefits of lowered risk and increased productivity.
Prime Delivery Model
The global delivery model can be defined as the process of executing IT projects using resources located at multiple sites across the globe. This may involve gathering/analyzing customer requirements at the client site while executing the project using technical teams located at a remote site, whether onshore or offshore. Tasks can be divided among various operational teams and controlled by distributed project management. This model can also be used to deliver a customized project based on the client’s requirements.
Offsite/Nearshore Delivery Model
In this model, a consultant works remotely, but resides in the same city or country as that of the client. There could be more than one onshore work site. It may also be possible that some consultants will work at the client site while others work from a remote location within the same territory. This model could be a combination of onsite and offsite (onshore).
Offshore Delivery Model
In this model, all the project tasks from the start until completion will be accomplished at one or more offshore sites using an outsourcing team. It may be recommended that project managers or delivery managers should be assigned at both the client as well as the offshore site to have better project control and manageability.
Hybrid Delivery Model (Onsite/Offsite + Offshore)
This model features the combination of onsite, offsite, and onshore models. The Hybrid model provides the cost-effectiveness of the offshore model as well as the face-to-face contact that is crucial to preventing communication gaps and ensuring your projects’ success. The ultimate solution is usually the integrated Onsite-Nearshore model, as it is usually as effective as the Onsite model, yet offers the cost-efficiency of offshore development.
The onsite team will have direct client interaction and may serve as solution architects, project managers, or even consultants, depending upon client requirements. Usually, they will gather client requirements and generate project specifications by working together with offsite team, while the offshore outsourcing team will communicate with the onshore team to get these project requirements and execute the project based on the information provided.
Benefits of Prime’s Global Delivery Model
Companies establish development centers and teams in multiple locations worldwide with an intention to have the following benefits:
- Minimize investment cost
- 24×7 resource availability
- Access to expertise and knowledge
- Intelligent workload distribution and integration
- Faster response to changing client requirements
- Mix and match onsite and offshore resources
- Extended workday—faster project completion
- Low risk
- Back-up facilities in global locations in case of emergency or natural disaster
- Highly scalable and flexible resourcing
- Increased transparency and visibility
- Overcome communication challenges
- Multicultural work environment
Challenges with GDM
However, companies who outsource projects as part of a nearshore or offshore GDM need to anticipate the challenges that come with deploying teams across the world:
- Lack of project control
- Communication gaps between onshore and offshore teams
- Misunderstood processes
- Higher coordination costs
- Mismatched workflows
- Cultural issues
- Mistakes in work transfer
- Political issues
Conclusion
The benefits for GDM can be significant, including cost savings, flexibility, and access to resources and skills. But there remain many challenges that can adversely affect those benefits, including cultural, communication, and process issues.
However, organizations can overcome the challenges with well-established information systems based on the following key factors:
- Coordination between global teams
- Clearly understood processes and workflows
- Proper inventory and information management
- No communication gaps
- Flexible and adaptable infrastructure
- Strong project control
Despite the challenges, this model focuses on the overall structure and strategy for delivering successful IT services from global locations. In fact, global delivery models have now become common and significant practice to provide an IT solution using geographically spread teams while ensuring high-quality project delivery with round-the-clock resource availability.