South Africa: An o shore technology services contender - The right balance of cost, quality and culture
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
South Africa: An offshore technology services contender The right balance of cost, quality and culture possibilities
Offshore software development partners are useful and necessary extensions to your onshore IT capability, but they can also introduce a number of obstacles such as differing time zones, cultural and language barriers, and remote communication obstructions. These challenges shouldn’t be underestimated in their ability to derail or impede delivery, but when addressed intentionally in the ways we describe, they can be overcome and you can leverage the full potential of an offshore IT delivery partner. Take a few lessons from our experience as inspiration to get more from your existing offshore engagements, and learn more about South Africa as a remarkable destination for IT offshoring.
1 WHY SOUTH AFRICA | WHY SOUTH AFRICA ACCOLADES | WHY SOUTH AFRICA 2
Why No compromise on quality
and capability
South Africa has a unique offshoring value
Cultural match
South Africa has a highly collaborative,
results-oriented workforce with a strong
Accolades
South Africa
proposition - high quality software cultural affinity with markets like Europe,
development at a competitive price point. Australia and the US.
We match onshore capabilities in South Africans are resourceful and
GSA Awards named South Africa the
problem-solving, engagement and quality, but at entrepreneurial, and the country’s IT
Global Offshoring Destination of the
a lower cost. professionals thrive on solving business
Year twice in the last five years.
problems.
Our capabilities are broader, and we can
With a strong affinity to western culture, the South manage complex, large deliveries, as well as The country has a native English-speaking
African software engineering workforce places a focus provide a higher level of quality delivery workforce with a strong education system. South Africa has jumped 7 positions in
on being intuitive, critical and collaborative. Cost is compared to traditional offshoring destinations in Countries with strong educational systems, the World Economic Forum’s Global
eastern Europe and South-East Asia. particularly in the sciences and at tertiary levels Competitiveness Index during the
important on any project, and although South Africa's tend to produce a consistent supply of IT 2018-19 period, indicative of its position as
A favourable exchange rate further creates price
software development costs are lower than most advantage. talent. South Africa has a strong university a highly preferred business destination.
education system with international alignment
developed markets, the cost saving does not result in a and accreditations.
poorer quality of service or output quality.
Business-friendly South Africa has a central time zone (GMT+2) South Africa has a world-leading
financial services sector, with
environment and therefore has some part of the workday
overlapping with all foreign countries. technology being a major focus and
South Africa has a growing talent pool with an enabler for banking, insurance and wealth
increasing number of people going through management. South African technology
software development training at grassroots and companies are at the forefront of this.
tertiary levels, at globally accredited
institutions.
These factors have already attracted
Modernised information and communications
major global brands like Accenture, IBM,
technology infrastructure and the growing
Amazon and Capital One, and won the
adoption of next-gen technology have resulted in
nation numerous industry awards.
South Africa’s commendable ascent on the
Ease-of-Doing-Business index.
The country also has a solid legal system that
respects privacy and intellectual property
rights, creating a safe and business-friendly
environment for international investors.
POSSIBILITIES | SOUTH AFRICA: AN OFFSHORE TECHNOLOGY SERVICES CONTENDER3 WHY SOUTH AFRICA | SOFTWARE ENGINEERING IN SOUTH AFRICA SOFTWARE ENGINEERING IN SOUTH AFRICA | WHY SOUTH AFRICA 4
Software engineering in South Africa
Each of the below international businesses chose South Africa as an offshoring destination.
Projects where Entelect has been involved as an IT services partner.
Amazon Web Services Anglo American De Beers eBay Classifieds Group
Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Anglo American is in the midst of a company-wide strategy De Beers Group required a bespoke, integrated sales eBay Classifieds Group (ECG) comprises a collection of
South African-born Chris Pinkham set up an Amazon office to better leverage data emanating from hundreds of planning system to support revenue growth, and increase brands that span the globe. One such brand is Gumtree in
in Cape Town in 2004 while he was the VP of engineering. systems operating at mines around the world. These flexibility for their business processes. South Africa. Through this presence in Cape Town, ECG
This local team steadily grew over the years, now projects have needed to follow a multi-disciplinary and have engaged and steadily grown a technology team since
This project was also used as part of initiative to consider 2017.
comprising several thousand employees. The local market highly agile approach to problem-solving, experimentation
technology partners outside of their incumbent global
for software talent has supported this meteoric growth, as and implementation, and could not possibly rely on a On the back of a successful transitioning of managed tech
providers to diversify their supplier risk and optimise cost.
well as the adoption of the AWS cloud platform and tooling traditional specify-build-test cycle. services from teams based in South-East-Asia, the South
Following a global RFP process to review dozens of
used in data centres all around the world. Anglo American has partnered with a South African candidates, De Beers ultimately selected a South African African tech team now handles agile software engineering,
HQ - Seattle, USA technology partner to provide the scale, skillsets, technology partner for the initiative. support and hosting for platforms on a variety of
technology experience and versatility to match their deep technology stacks running in Mexico, California, Canada,
"Cape Town has a tremendous university system that’s HQ - London, UK
internal subject-matter expertise. These teams continue to South Africa and Italy.
creating a lot of good engineers and computer science
graduates. It just ended up being a perfect place for us to grow as the Anglo American enterprise sees both results HQ - San Francisco, USA
build a major base, and today it’s one of the largest offices, for and potential in the engagement model along with the
Amazon, around the world." cost benefits of offshoring to South Africa. RGA
- Geoff Brown, Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Manager for AWS HQ - London, UK Reinsurance Group of America (RGA), through their South WooCommerce
African office, were running smaller-scale engineering
projects during 2014-2017. The success of these projects in In 2007, Mark Forrester, Magnus Jepson, and Adii Pienaar
Hollard Australia Munich Re
terms of delivery pace, quality and innovation generated teamed up online to start WooThemes, and went on to
create WooCommerce as a WordPress plugin for
interest from RGA offices internationally, and has
Hollard Australia required a partner for two projects - a new subsequently led to more substantial systems and solutions professional eCommerce storefronts. Woo quickly became
The South African Munich Re business required a
underwriting system and a new call centre administration being developed from South Africa for their businesses in the fastest-growing eCommerce platform on the internet.
modernised quoting and pricing engine to service African
platform. With their parent company based in South Africa, Africa, the UK and USA.
customers with different and unique IT needs in the Woo was acquired by Automaticc (the company behind
they knew they could get get better quality software at a
insurance sector. HQ - London, UK WordPress itself ) in 2015 and the Cape Town development
lower price, than with a local partner.
team continues to contribute as the platform gains market
Supported by their corporate IT team in Germany, product
HQ - Sydney, Australia share. WooThemes was born as a globally distributed
owners in South Africa are successfully working with a local
company with a presence in Cape Town, and this legacy
technology delivery team to analyse, design and build this
endures today, growing to more than 150 team members
solution to cater for region specific regulatory requirements
in 32 countries.
while following their international standards and
technology practices. HQ - San Francisco, USA
POSSIBILITIES | SOUTH AFRICA: AN OFFSHORE TECHNOLOGY SERVICES CONTENDER HQ - Munich, Germany5 WHY ENTELECT | WHY ENTELECT DELIVERY, CAPABILITY, CULTURE | WHY ENTELECT 6
Why Entelect
Entelect has an international track record delivering in
remote and distributed environments for customers across
North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australasia,
with zero compromise on collaboration and engineering
quality.
CULTURE
Delivery Capability Culture
Entelect teams thrive on solving complex business Entelect teams are multi-disciplinary and include a Entelect is a culture-first organisation and is
problems through technology, using the same broad range of capabilities required to deliver recognised as a magnet for outstanding technology
multi-disciplinary team-based model for both end-to-end technology services. talent. We look after our people so they will look after
offshore and onshore engagements. you.
These capabilities include management consulting, Our teams are personally invested in the outcomes.
Collaborative and agile software creation is the technology leadership, design, user experience We will challenge your thinking in order to gain a
default, and our ideas and critical thinking are engineering and architecture. Beyond proper understanding of your business, and engineer
applied to requirements at all times. implementation, capabilities further extend to solutions that deliver real returns, in collaboration
quality assurance, as well as infrastructure and with your own onshore teams.
CA We have an international presence with offices in support.
PAB
ILIT VERY South Africa, New Zealand and The Netherlands, and We get things done when we say we will, and have a
Y DELI Our teams are tailored to meet the context of
have the ability to service both offshore and onshore deep understanding of what it takes to deliver in
each engagement, giving our customers assurance offshore engagements.
engagements from these locations.
that Entelect can deliver the right-size offshoring
solution under one roof.
POSSIBILITIES | SOUTH AFRICA: AN OFFSHORE TECHNOLOGY SERVICES CONTENDER7 HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS FROM YOUR OFFSHORE PARTNER | HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS FROM YOUR OFFSHORE PARTNER HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS FROM YOUR OFFSHORE PARTNER | HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS FROM YOUR OFFSHORE PARTNER 8 How to get the best results from your offshore partner Working alongside remote teams requires a shift in mindset, process and flexibility. Here are three recommendations based on our experience of operating offshore delivery teams. Rethink culture Design workflow for asynchronicity Getting the right start POSSIBILITIES | SOUTH AFRICA: AN OFFSHORE TECHNOLOGY SERVICES CONTENDER
9 HOW TO GET THE BES RESULTS FROM YOUR OFFSHORE PARTNER | RETHINK CULTURE RETHINK CULTURE | HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS FROM YOUR OFFSHORE PARTNER 10
Rethink culture
It is difficult to maintain a sense of singular purpose and
team across remote boundaries, let alone across continents.
Team culture should therefore be adapted accordingly.
Encourage
Build a one-team Assign team many-to-many Be explicit in your
mindset ambassadors relationships ways of working
Fostering trust, inclusion, team-based accountability Make the one-team mindset somebody's core Let problem-solvers on both sides talk directly with those Standards, processes and tools need to be discussed and
and cultural affinity should be a core focus for leaders in responsibility, on both sides. who can help on the other side. Don’t let hierarchy or agreed upon clearly by everyone using them.
offshoring engagements that value high-performance. process prevent people from building natural,
Relationship building activities are the bedrock of If this mindset is shared by your onshore and offshore
synchronous and useful relationships that help them get
Leaders should model the mindset and behaviours of a trust, respect and a highly collaborative work teams, you generate buy-in, compliance, and eliminate
their work done.
unified team. This means demonstrating respect, fairness, environment. misunderstanding.
and treating all participants involved in a delivery as a Allow for communication to flow openly between team
This is a full-time job that requires two willing parties to A singular team, means a singular method of operation
singular team, with shared goals and priorities. members across shores and avoid strict communication
own the following responsibilities: unless otherwise prescribed.
protocols that filter everything through a single person.
Hold everyone to a common performance standard, and
• To own and manage the delivery and expectations At the start of a new offshoring engagement, expect to
ensure that accountability is held at a team-level for Make sure the teams understand what
on both sides. take a bit of pain to onboard a new delivery team into
the success or failure of goals and commitments. communication tools are available to them, and when
your ways of working.
• To act as ambassadors for their teams and people they are appropriate.
Eliminate favouritism, disrespectful behaviour,
to the other side, to ensure that cross-border trust, Spend time defining, sharing and campaigning for
cultural biases, and 'us and them' attitudes. Prioritise face-time between teams regularly. This
alignment and affinity is cared for throughout the your ways of working on an ongoing basis. This can be
requires sacrifices on both sides due to time-zone
Involve both sides of the border in planning, estimations, engagement. driven by the team-ambassadors on both sides.
differences and busy calendars, but it is necessary to
decision making and social interactions where possible.
maintain alignment and to prevent drifting expectations.
POSSIBILITIES | SOUTH AFRICA: AN OFFSHORE TECHNOLOGY SERVICES CONTENDER11 HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS FROM YOUR OFFSHORE PARTNER | DESIGN WORKFLOW FOR ASYNCHRONICITY DESIGN WORKFLOW FOR ASYNCHRONICITY | HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS FROM YOUR OFFSHORE PARTNER 12
Design workflow for asynchronicity
Operating software teams remotely and across conflicting time zones requires
us to adapt our delivery processes and commit time differently to getting it right
in an asynchronous setup.
Plan and deliver differently Meet and interact differently
You cannot make decisions as quickly or easily as when If possible, set daily stand-up and stand-down meetings
you have everyone co-located in the same time zone. That with the teams at the beginning and end of each work
does not mean that you cannot be agile and change day. The goal of the meeting should be handover or
direction, it means you just need more discipline to adhere alignment of work done and work to be done for that day.
to your sprint plan. This should also be used as an opportunity to discuss and
eliminate impediments.
Plan features so that dependencies are minimised
where possible. Alternatively, you can do this by creating If you can’t find an overlap to hold joint standups, you
modularised work packages that can be tackled may have to rely on a fully asynchronous communication
independently. approach like email, persistent chat or recorded
video/audio for operational activities.
Turnaround times on questions can be a major
obstacle, and so you need to manage technical questions Prepare to have late night or early morning demos.
and resolution as a matter of process. A useful way to do Real-time conversation is critical for your offshore team to
this is to use your issue tracking system to create tickets for get feedback and gauge sentiment.
questions and manage accountability as with any other
Maintain a standby duty roster, where someone from the
task.
off-duty team will be available to field calls, escalations or
Make decisions transparent and available. Teams on matters of urgency on both sides if needed.
both sides of an offshore engagement will benefit from
recording their conversations and making them available
to the other team to go through when they come online.
The story and context behind decision making is
important for offshore team members to grasp, and apply
correctly in their work.
POSSIBILITIES | SOUTH AFRICA: AN OFFSHORE TECHNOLOGY SERVICES CONTENDER13 HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS FROM YOUR OFFSHORE PARTNER | GET THE RIGHT START GET THE RIGHT START | HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS FROM YOUR OFFSHORE PARTNER 14
Get the right start
Leaders on both sides of a remote engagement
need to pay heightened attention in the initial
weeks to ensure things are working well, and adapt
away from things that aren't.
Actively solicit feedback in the Lead with candid conversation Crystallise context
early stages Share progress and issues, threats and wins openly in Useful tools for maintaining transparency and alignment
Ask for granular status reporting on projects. This will the team. This will create alignment on delivery and in offshoring engagements.
culture issues between teams, team ambassadors and
arm you with delivery performance data and help you to • A project canvas can be a valuable tool to keep the • A team charter is a document that describes core
understand any underlying process or collaboration issues, executive sponsors, especially in the early stages of each
team aligned and build a common understanding of principles for how teams interact and work with each
as well as to inform your remedial actions more precisely. engagement. Don't be afraid to hold difficult
the project that they are endeavouring to deliver other, and can be useful for driving collaboration and the
In addition to this, it will help to drive productive and conversations in an open-format. This approach will allow
together. The goal of a project canvas exercise is for the goals of the work that is underway. Team charters are
spontaneous conversations between team members you to reach an optimum state quickly.
execution team to clearly and collaboratively define public assets that can be displayed on walls, desks at
about process, culture and collaboration issues that are Create a safe space for honest and constructive the project goals, success criteria, milestones, home and in the office, or virtual backgrounds. They are
impeding delivery. conversation about what is working and what isn’t for stakeholders, constraints and risks. This, along with the most effective when created collaboratively with all team
Keep your finger on the pulse of sentiment with teams on both sides, by rewarding and encouraging those business canvas becomes a living public document members on both sides of the engagement.
tactical face-time. Set up check-in sessions with who do so publicly. available for any team member to revisit and consider
team-members on both sides of the engagement. This will in their daily decision making process.
allow you to understand how well your culture campaign • A business canvas is a tool for creating understanding
is working, and will inform any cultural remediation actions about how your business works and can help drive
that may be necessary. better decision making in project teams. The goal of
the business canvas is for the product owners or
executive sponsors to introduce the execution team to
the fundamentals of their business - revenue streams,
customer segments, value proposition, objectives,
partners and sales channels. This context creates an
affinity and common-understanding of the business
POSSIBILITIES | SOUTH AFRICA: AN OFFSHORE TECHNOLOGY SERVICES CONTENDER dynamics outside of the immediate project.START THE
CULTURE
CONVERSATION solutions@entelect.co.za
For 20 years, Entelect has been building and running diverse technology
teams for a global customer base.
We'd like to share our experiences operating offshore engagements that
deliver results over the long term, and maintain compelling cost savings. DE
LIV
ER
Shape your business for the future. Yentelect.co.za
You can also read
