Offshore Sourcing of Software Development Projects: Towards a Maturity Model Proposal for Offshore Insourcing

Information Technology (IT) offshore outsourcing is a non-reversible trend due to its cost implications, and as a result, target of much inquiry in different areas of knowledge. We propose to focus research efforts on a smaller niche within that larger set of questions: those organizations involved with offshore insourcing, where companies create their own software development centers for internal demand purposes (wholly-owned subsidiary). Although offshore insourcing bypasses some of the tough contracting difficulties found in organizations that are involved with traditional offshore outsourcing, a whole different set of issues is created. However, some of the “new” issues that surface a particular organization may have already been dealt with by more experienced organizations. We propose the creation of a maturity model that will not only identify best practices along difference maturity stages but also help to benchmark against similar organizations. The preliminary research suggests that there is a consistent sequence of phases that this type of IT offshore sourcing