Outsourcing creates the endless work day

By RACHEL KONRAD
Associated Press

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The traffic jam ended hours ago, the parking lot is nearly empty and fluorescent lights are dimmed at PortalPlayer Inc., where the nightly brainstorming session is about to begin.

Instead of gathering the few remaining souls from their cubicles, three managers move into a conference room to dial India, where engineers 12 1/2 time zones ahead are just arriving in Hyderabad.

As colleagues on opposite sides of the globe discuss circuit board configurations and debugging strategies for a project code-named 'Doppelganger,' it's just the start of another endless day for the company. Within twelve hours, Indian workers will end their day with calls and e-mails to California, where managers in the Santa Clara headquarters will just be waking up."

Revival of Startups: The New Trend

By Anthony Mitchell
E-Commerce Times
05/17/05 5:00 AM PT

Reviving a Western software startup offshore involves transitions for everyone. In reviving a startup of his, but in Pakistan, Englishman Noel Thurlow asked for (and received) the rights to run his startup inside NetSol in an incubator environment, under a separate corporate culture from the larger firm.

Do you have a startup that never made it off the ground? What happened?

Did you not have all the technical components that you needed? Was your scope too broad? Were your sales and marketing strategies too weak?

Did a key individual become distracted by issues in his or her personal life? Did you simply lack the development resources to put together a working product -- or at least a vertical prototype? Or was it all of the above?"

Innovation Strategies for Muslim Businesses

By Anthony Mitchell,
Special to Dinar Standard
Posted, May 15th, 2005

There is widespread interest among Muslim entrepreneurs about the possibility of moving into Information Technology (IT) fields. The potential for IT to serve as a driver for growth is widely recognized within the top ranks of governments that are members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). However, when it comes to choosing IT strategies, uncertainty exists about the extent to which Muslim businesses' IT strategies should follow Western models.

Pakistan growth at 20-year high - BBC News

Gross domestic product in Pakistan is set to top 8% for the first time in 20 years, thanks to wide-reaching reforms to kickstart the economy.

According to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, increased investment and production will help the economy grow 8.3% in the year ending 30 June.

Large-scale manufacturing will grow by 15.4%, agriculture by 7.5% and the service sector by 7.9%, he said.

How To Outsource

By Anthony Mitchell
E-Commerce Times

Are you considering outsourcing a customer support or software development project? Here are some practical tips, oriented towards South Asian facilities but relevant to North American outsourcing providers.

It starts with planning, then moves to address payment and invoicing issues, and then lists outsourcing mistakes to avoid.

Outsourcing service providers might not be able to determine the scope of work that you, the client, need to have accomplished, unless they send someone to make an assessment. The client organization or its representative needs to come up with the following:

* A scope of work;
* Level of effort projections;
* Time frames; and
* Performance indicators that will be used to monitor the project.