The Procesof Offshore Software Development: Preliminary Studies of UK Companies in Malaysia

There are many studies of information technology outsourcing but very few discuss in depth the process of offshore software development outsourcing. The aim of this research is to understand the important issues and strategies in managing activities and relationships among software development teams involved in offshore outsourcing. The study involves UK companies who are engaged in offshore outsourcing of software development to Malaysia either through joint ventures or fully owned subsidiaries. There are an increasing number of software firms choosing Malaysia as a venue for software development. The study contributes to the growing body of literature on offshore software development outsourcing by building a synthesized conceptual framework for global software outsourcing. This is derived from concepts found to be important in previous studies. The framework is illustrated using data from two ongoing case studies.