For Dynamics AX Development, Ill Winds May Blow Offshore

by Jeff Onesto, Director of Business Development, ASi Inc.
published February 13, 2008

Thomas L. Friedman wrote about the transition toward globalization in the best-selling book "The World is Flat - A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century". This widely accepted metaphor of visualizing worldwide commerce and competition with equal opportunity to local competition has started to receive criticism. It is easy to challenge the ‘level playing field' view by asking:

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About Jeff Onesto
Jeff Onesto is the Director of Business Development at Advanced Systems Integration. He is responsible for software sales and the development and management of strategic alliances. Jeff brings over 15 years of enterprise software sales and delivery experience with companies such as Price Waterhouse, Oracle and JD Edwards. Jeff holds a B.S. Business Administration- Accountancy from California State University, Northridge.

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Off shore development

On February 22nd, 2008 KrishnaPrakash said:
Hi jef, i read the article on off shore development for Ax , Being an Off shore developer i feel that , Offshore development depends on the clear requirment document from the client. if the doument is clear and the understanding of the offshore developer is authorized then there will be no problem.

Off shore development

On March 4th, 2008 Jeff Onesto said:
Good point Krishna and thank you so much for your comment. As you know Tier-1 Off Shore Suppliers such as EDS, Wipro, IBM and Accenture have had much success with Off Shore Development. I attribute much of this to resources dedicated to evaluating and monitoring these relationships combined with sophisticated and expensive infrastructure and programs. Of course this is all made possible by the shear fact that most large Global Enterprise customers require custom development. My article above focuses on mid-market customers where the amount of custom development is much less and therefore the required resources, infrastructure and programs necessary to guarantee quality, best practices and on time delivery can be often missing.

Off shore development

On March 7th, 2008 rishijyoti said:
Jeff- I deliver Ax related services to the ISVs as well as end customers in the mid market space both in USA and Europe. In my experience both category of my customers have benefitted from the cost and quality capabilities of the offshore partner. The key success factor is the ability to identify the 'right' partner. Ideally we sugegst a pilot engagemnet and then go full steam. There are quite a few Tier 2 offshore suppliers who have had success with offshore development by targetting different segments of the market.

Off Shore Development

On March 9th, 2008 Jeff Onesto said:
Rishijyoti - Thank you so much for your comment. Congrats on the success of your ODC. I would like to stress one overlooked point in my article, the fact that most (SMB) Small, Medium Businesses lack the internal experience to evaluate and manage these complex relationships. It seems very logical that you could provide these services to ISVs as the volume would be significant with AX version upgrades and the need for new functionality, however I would be very curious as to the nature of these large customizations you are doing for mid-market end users here in the USA?

Ax development off shoring

On July 10th, 2008 fastforward said:
Hi Jeff: Iam not able to fully agree with you for the reason that off shore development means cheap cost and poor quality is not a valid assumption to make. We are a fairly samll Ax partner (Right Fields) and have been involved in many successful off shore development for our clients (primarily, Ax partners in Europe and Middle East Asia). You are right in that the need for close monitoring is necessary but then, a close relationship backed with a structured approach to work in terms of frequent design review, code wal through and testing riogorously have enabled us deliver succesful results. I sincerely hope that th "American" thinking of anything Asian is cheap and poor quality" should not crowd a business judgement of an American Ax business to successfully off shore with the right partners - like us!!!-Raghu
minivan