Offshoring - culture lessons are crucial

It's essential for businesses to understand the cultures and different ways of working of any potential offshore destination before moving their IT services there.

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That's according to IT chiefs speaking at silicon.com's CIO Forum as part of the panel debating the question Outsourcing: your shortcut to global talent?. Rob Fraser, ex-CIO of Boots, said cultural difference is something you have to understand to "get the most" out of offshoring.

Fraser added that offshoring shouldn't be treated any differently than in-house tech. "You wouldn't treat an insourced IT department in a cavalier way," he said.

Mark Hodges, executive director of corporate development at offshoring and outsourcing consultancy Equaterra, said: "I do think there are a lot of executives on the buy-side who have not visited these [offshore] centres."

Richard Herbert, CIO of global markets and European IT at ABN Amro, said the failure of outsourcing contracts should not be blamed on overseas service suppliers. "Outsourcing or offshoring cannot be an excuse for abdicating responsibility," he said.

And he added: "You do need to go to India if you're going to use Indian providers."