Outsourcing is fast growing trend in almost every industry. It provides companies with critical competitive advantage. Making the right mix of globalization, internet/web technologies and standardized business processes leads to successful offshore outsourcing engagements. Our experience, in executing offshore outsourcing engagements worldwide, has helped us to come up with a checklist for our potential clients.

 If you are looking into offshore outsourcing for the first time, or you are already deeply involved in this, this checklist will be sure to help you.

 Scope (5Ws of '5Ws+H') Definition

(1) Do you know WHAT to be oursourced ?

(2) Do you know WHY that should be outsourced ?

(3) Do you know WHEN you should outsource ?

(4) Do you know WHERE to outsource to ? (ie. the geographical location and the service provider)

(5) Do you know WHO in your organization that will be responsible for the outsourced engagement

Success Factors

(1) Do you have Key Performance Indicators or Balanced Score Board to monitor the progress of the engagement ?

(2) Have you performed reference checks on the outsourcing vendor ?

(3) Do you and the vendor have buy-in on the Key Performance Indicator or Balanced Score Card items ?

Execution (H part of '5Ws+H')

(1) Do you have a system for managing requirements definition and track the changes ?

(2) Do you have a centralized tracking system of the schedule -baseline and actuals ?

(3) Do you have standards to be followed by the vendor ? If so, has that been comminicated ?

(4) Do you have a system that is current and maintained in realtime to manage risks, issues and facilitate change management ?

(5) Do you have agreement on periodic check-in on progress or lack of thereof ?