Offshoring Secrets: How Can India Center Gain More Respect?

By Utkarsh Rai, Guest Author, Author of “Offshoring Secrets”.

Almost everyone in an offshore center in India are aware of the tag of “cheap labor” and the “cost advantage”. These are the two sides of the same coin. Where the first one hurts feelings and sentiments, the second one offers a feeling of job security.

I will cover the first side of coin about how to gain respect in the organization and avoid being tagged as “cheap labor”. In my conversations with the teams in offshore centers, I always remind them that their center had not been opened out of any “love or affection” for them, but was needed because of business/economic reasons.

Here are few ways by which offshore centers can gain respect:

1. Take initiative in owning critical components, and at the same time avoid being the weakest link in execution.
2. Not only suggest multiple solutions to a problem and but also recommend a solution for timely closure of issues.
3. Help the other teams at other countries in developing and integrating components.
4. Champion spreading of best practices across various teams which can help the company as a whole.
5. Be best in class in your area of ownership.

So what are the signs, that your offshore center is gaining respect?

If you hear any of the following in hallway or conference room discussions at the parent company:

* “No, No let us not decide ourselves, let us pull in the India engineers and discuss.”
* “I am not sure about the full impact, I need to call my India team and get the right answer.”
* “Team in India can support any customer issue as they have the required skills.”
* “India team has suggested some good tools and methodology, which has reduced the overall cycle time. We should roll this here too.”

And so on…

This segment is a part in the series : Offshoring Secrets