Our experience shows that outsourcing software development to low cost countries (LCC) implies several risks.

First of all IT developers in LCCs may provide extraordinary technical skills, but often do not understand business requirements well enough. This means that they need very detailed business specifications to realise their client’s needs. If the time-consuming process of writing detailed specifications is incomplete because the client underestimates their importance or the outsourcing company doesn’t understand them accordingly, enormous adjustment costs while and after main development stages are almost guaranteed. These costs are not only related to additional development costs but to the lower project acceptance by end-users, as well as to delays preventing the company of moving ahead.

The second main risk when outsourcing software development is related to the fact that a client may loose control over the application - for instance when after project completion the company intends to improve the software. In this case the client has two options: go back to the outsourcing company or else engage other internal or external developers. In case of highly complex applications the second option can lead to significant costs caused by the need of learning the applications’ IT architecture and related details. It is therefore very important to create a detailed documentation of the applications' architecture and related details.

APMC supports clients in every phase when outsourcing software development to low cost countries. Due to previous projects we offer a sound outsourcing experience and networks in Bulgaria and India.

Our approach is to first of all we establish a clear understanding of the underlying long term IT strategy. Based on this knowledge we then elaborate a detailed project vision making sure business specifications meet the needs of our clients. We organise workshops bringing together all relevant parties and establish a complete project controlling system in order to timely deliver key milestones during development, pilots and go-live of the new application. We also make sure every part is well documented sp a potential handover to a 3rd party developer costs less.