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dc.contributor.authorŠmite, Darja
dc.contributor.authorMoe, Nils Brede
dc.contributor.authorKrekling, Thomas
dc.contributor.authorStray, Viktoria
dc.date.accessioned2022-05-05T08:30:45Z
dc.date.available2022-05-05T08:30:45Z
dc.date.created2020-01-17T00:41:17Z
dc.date.issued2019
dc.identifier.citation2019 ACM/IEEE 14th International Conference on Global Software Engineering (ICGSE).en_US
dc.identifier.isbn9781538692127
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/11250/2994306
dc.description.abstractOffshore outsourcing of software development has been both famous for the promises of great cost reductions, and infamous for the hidden costs associated with the challenges of organizing software work over distance. Experience shows that many of these costs do not receive the deserved attention and are often excluded when making offshoring decisions. As a result, there is often a significant deviation between the expected and the realized costs of offshoring. In this paper, we investigate the awareness of the extra costs when making an offshoring decision, and the significance of the actual cost deviations. We conducted a single case study of a company that carried out an offshore outsourcing pilot project. We collected qualitative data from interviews, observations and a retrospective, and quantitative data on the costs and effort associated with the project. We conclude that the company was aware of the hidden cost factors, but largely underestimated their significance. The costs that surfaced in the studied project accounted for a total deviation of 181% and several individual cost categories with more than 400% overrun. The two main cost drivers in our study were the distance and poor process fit, which escalated the investments needed to make the collaboration work. Our results suggest that pilots are useful to understand the key problem areas in an offshoring collaboration, but too limited to shed light on all potential problems (e.g. turnover) due to the short timeframe. We also conclude that results of pilot projects shall not be the only data source when calculating the true costs of offshoring, since the start-up phase of an offshoring relationship carries large investments. Finally, we provide recommendations for companies in a similar situation on how to run and learn from offshore outsourcing pilot projects.en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)en_US
dc.relation.ispartof2019 ACM/IEEE 14th International Conference on Global Software Engineering (ICGSE)
dc.subjectOffshoringen_US
dc.subjectOffshore outsourcingen_US
dc.subjectGlobal software engineeringen_US
dc.subjectHidden costsen_US
dc.subjectExtra costsen_US
dc.subjectCost-savingsen_US
dc.titleOffshore outsourcing costs: known or still hidden?en_US
dc.title.alternativeOffshore outsourcing costs: known or still hidden?en_US
dc.typeChapteren_US
dc.typePeer revieweden_US
dc.description.versionacceptedVersionen_US
dc.rights.holder© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.en_US
dc.source.pagenumber40-47en_US
dc.identifier.doi10.1109/ICGSE.2019.00022
dc.identifier.cristin1775358
dc.relation.projectNorges forskningsråd: 267704en_US
cristin.ispublishedtrue
cristin.fulltextpostprint
cristin.qualitycode1


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