Introduction
Businesses worldwide today are evolving either to adapt to the needs or defining the needs for the societies globally. This has driven more invention in this century and defining the ways people live and interact globally. Communication has changed the ways people interact and has brought in more interaction with the people across the globe. New products are being invented and services are being redefined.
The opportunity in the market place has attracted entrepreneurs to enter the market to offer innovative products, services and commodities. As more people enter the business, there is a crowding in the market place and the consumers have many options. This has forced the business to differentiate them from the rest. The needs of the customers are constantly changing; the profiles of the customer becoming very distinct. Apart from satisfying existing demand of the customers, businesses are identifying new needs of the customers to grow further. As several businesses jump into the race, there is growing need for the businesses to speed up product innovation, agile to the needs of the economy and environment and sensitivity to cost of the product or services offered. As the products are being developed for global customers, businesses are creating their brand awareness across the globe and hence truly becoming a global company. This needs understanding of the global needs as the needs may vary from country to country, culture to culture or ethnicity to ethnicity. The companies have moved to several geographies identifying opportunities and to serve the local needs. However those companies may manufacture and deliver through single or multiple locations based on the economies, costs, availability of talent and tax incentives.
Global education in management and technology is attracting students to developed countries from developing or underdeveloped countries for want of good education and employment opportunities. This movement of talent has changed the landscape of the globe, wherein the top talent from the developing or underdeveloped countries with greater drive and motivation for excellence is working hard and smarter in developed countries to reach higher. They in turn bring in relatives and more eager to do business with their native countries with better understanding of how things work at home and how to leverage the strengths back home.
Global Execution Model (GEM)
Global Execution Model (GEM) is a framework for distributed project management and execution through multi-location teams working on the project in a seamless way. GEM provides clearly defined process guidelines emphasizing information flow and communication during the execution of the project.
GEM is the most successful outsourcing model amongst all the other models. It’s a combination of onsite model and offshore model but unlike the onsite/offshore model wherein the offshore development center of service provider is located at only one place, in the global delivery model the service provider has its offshore development centers spread out across the entire globe. The service provider need not have their own offshore development centers across the globe but they can use the resources of their partners located around the globe, and thus follow a global delivery model. This provides the client with a large working team with varied qualities and expertise in different fields.
Tasks accomplished by the onsite team:
· Understanding the client’s requirements.
· Directly interacting with the client to get a better idea of their needs and changes in them, if any.
· Acting as a mediator between the client and the offshore development centers.
· Planning & Designing the initial steps of the project.
· Allocation of Tasks amongst the available resources.
· Testing the outcome of the project in tandem with the client’s team.
· Executing the project successfully at the client’s place.
· Provide the required support for maintenance.
Tasks accomplished at the offshore development center:
· Detailed design that will be continuation of what the onsite team designed.
· Deciding any specific technological requirements for the project.
· Development.
· Testing before handing over to onsite team.
· Continuous technical support.
Global execution model is preferred where the client requires that the job be done in a quick manner, which is made possible by the number of offshore teams working together towards the completion of the task. Also where the project is very big requiring sufficient skilled manpower to complete the task this is the only model, which provides solution in such cases. The level of risk involved is also minimum since even if any of the offshore development centers face any disaster the project work will not be stopped, as the work can be transferred immediately and continued by the remaining offshore development centers.
The advantages of Global Execution Model are:
- Lower Risks: In case of any disaster/emergency at one of the offshore centers, the work continues at or is transferred to other offshore development centers. So the risk involved is low.
- Round-the-clock productivity: 24*7 work cycle becomes possible because of the time-zone difference.
- Best Results: Accomplishment of high quality work is possible, as the client will get the benefit of skilled manpower spread out across the globe.
- Shorter lead-time: Shorter project completion time as the work is completed by a number of offshore development centers working together with the same target.
- Cost benefits: The cost saving benefits for the client resulting from offshore outsourcing is also appreciable.
- No new employee additions required: The service provider can provide the client with a large working team with varied skill set, which the client may not be able to employ for just the task at hand.
- No possibility of communication gap: Onsite team, which will be in direct contact with the client, is able to understand the client’s needs in a better way. So no chance of misunderstanding the client’s needs.
- Faster Response: Because of onsite team’s presence response to changes in client’s requirements is fast.
Having a perfect co-ordination between all the offshore development centers and that too in accordance with the client’s satisfaction is a big task. However this limitation can be overcome today by making the best possible use of the most modern means of communication.