Success Factors for Offshore Information System Development

This paper investigates key factors affecting the success of small to medium organizations providing offshore software development, usually to companies in the United States. Five success factor groups (people factors, technical infrastructure, client interface, business infrastructure, and regulatory interface) with a total of 31 critical success factors were identified through a literature review. The critical success factors were assessed for importance by surveying individuals in organizations that outsource system development or that provide system development services. The survey found that the critical success factors of workers’ skills, client knowledge, trust in the client-outsourcer relationship, telecommunications, and intellectual property protection are the most critical to the success of offshore software development outsourcers. Somewhat surprising was that cost was not the most critical success factor. The paper concludes with a discussion on the implications of these findings to outsourcers and outsourcing clients.