Offshore development

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new2jde

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Hello!

My company is in the midst of a JDE ERP8 purchase, and we know we'll need some modifications to the software before we can use it effectively. From our account rep, it looks like we'll need to mod Sales Order Entry, Invoicing, and Shipment Confirmation right away. The idea of spending $200+ per hour with a consultant is absolutely dead with my management.

I've head there are companies in India that can do this type of work, but I've got no idea where to look or what type of quality I could expect. Also, are folks like that affiliated with JDE itself? Do they work on their own machine, or mine? Have any of you developer-types been involved in a project where some of the work was offshore? What was your experience with it?

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

(Judging from the looks of this community, I think I'm in good hands with our J.D. Edwards selection!)
 
Considering how much you've just shelled out for the pkg,
is it wise to pinch pennies when modifying 3 of the most important processes?

P4210, Sales Order Entry is a BEAR. This list has covered that before.

How extensive are the mods? Will the users go wild once they know it CAN be changed?
I'm currently adding hundreds of lines of code to address the "now make it do" list.

As far as quality, there are good coders, and bad coders everywhere.

As far as logistics, as a developer, I like to be able to sit with the users.
This gives me the chance to read their eyes, as I describe what I THINK they are asking for.
Too often, I see the dull stare of a dairy cow. (No offense to any users.)

What about development questions and answers?
Try getting an answer from your users NOW.
Imagine trying to play phone/email tag w/someone in a diff time zone.
Answers happen a lot faster when that Big$/Hour person is camped at your cubicle.

Just some things to consider.....
 
I have to agree with Gene. I am a firm believer in that you get what you pay for. Also, when you work for a company outside the country language can be a huge barrier, communication can sometimes be difficult.

My guess is that you can find someone for about $160/hr plus expenses. I always recommend at least spending the first week or so onsite to meet the staff, determine reqirements, and create a design for the changes. During the coding phase you cna save some money by letting the developer work remotely and then have him spend the last week on-site to wrap things up. You need to feel good about the person and his skills before allowing him to work remotely though. People can take advantage of you when not on site and charge you for time they never spent.

When working off-site or on-site the developer will need to work on a deployed workstation that sits on-site. When working remotely he/she will need to connect to your network via VPN and take control of the desktop of the workstation VIA remote control software. VNC, NetMeeting, etc. I do this quite often and it works great!

If it's a short project (2-3 weeks) then I would have the consultant on-site the entire time. if 4 or more weeks then I would think about allowing some remote work.

I would recommend that you use someone affiliated with JDE. Working for a JDE business partner I am a little biased in this. One of the advantages of working with a good size consulting firm are the resources available to the individual consultant that will be helping you. I don't always know the answers. Instead of piddling around burning the clients money I can get the answers I need quickly by making a phone call to another consultant in the company that knows the answer. We all work together to help each other out which, in the end, helps the client out.
 
I also agree with Gene. Last year I was on a project trying to clean up a mess created by the indian off-shore consultants. The company tried to save a few bucks. But in the end it cost them more with lost time, and hiring really expensive consultants to correct all the issues. You do get what you pay for.
 
I was on the same project and I agree.

--
Senior Technical Consultant
17611 E. Tennessee Pl.
Aurora, CO 80017
Work 303-337-1906
Cell 303-885-1405
Fax 303-306-1800
 
new2jde,
make sure to check your private jdelist e-mail !
Dave
 
While I agree that quality does not come cheap, I strongly disagree with
Boris. I have been to enough sites which have been screwed big time by high
priced and self proclaimed 'gurus'. You can always find exceptions.

The essence is that do a due diligence before handing over the work to any
third party. Check all the credentials and call their previous clients. Do
not get biased with the location of the consultant or company. A lot of real
high quality stuff has been done via offshore development with substantial
savings in cost as compared to JDE consultants (mark my words - it is
cheaper , not cheap).

Shashank
XE 18.1/Oracle 8.1.5/JAS/Optio



XE 18.1/NT/Oracle 8.1.7
 
OK, this is not meant as a blatant promotion, but more as informational. I hope that this thread gets worked up into a frothing boil because it is something that I am really focused on.
We are a different business model for consulting, and we chose a different path for our outsourcing of development, CNC support, report writing, etc.
There are many good and some great overseas development houses, but from our experience, this type of outsourcing, while cost effective, is frought with issues.
Data synchronization, specification management, time differences, language barriers, etc. can really pile up the problems. Don't get me wrong, any remote development gets kudos from us because the money goes to results, not the Hilton and Delta.

Our methodology uses our iONLINE system using Webex to facilitate our member consultants to access the client machine remotely. Obviously there are a million and a half technologies to provide the remote control, but we decided on Webex for flexibility and ease of use.
The simple goal was this: Consultants in this country would love the opportunity to develop from home, and all of this development happens on your system, so the need for intense object management and synchronization is eliminated. This also allows the client to meet and handpick their developers, talk with any of them whenever they would like, and see the activity and progress directly. Of course this standard is surrounded by layers Service Level Standards - online project management, onsite meetings, conferences, document control, etc.etc.etc.

Your user and management population will be thankful not to constantly reiterate their needs and ship revised requirements halfway around the globe...

I guess the moral to my rant is that there is a plethora of great developers right here in this country that would kill for the opportunity to work remotely, and the bill rates reflect that.

Tony Brackett
Board Member
The I Consortium, Inc.
www.theiconsortium.com
603.487.5477
[email protected]
 

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i agree with what Scott and Gene have said.

Off-shore development from India can done quite successfully. The things which need to be concerned is the connectivity, time zone and communication. Best thing would be to go for JDE business partner's, you can be assured of the quality and service.
 
To add to Tony’s reply. Firstly there is more than one way of skinning a chicken. While accessing client machine remotely is an option, it’s not the only solution.

More and more Customers these days are looking for ways and means of sharing object changes and enhancements. This is where products such as Boomerang can help.

In terms of remote development, we know how slow, expensive and unreliable this can be.There is no need to access the client machine remotely at all. You can make all the changes (even develop a brand new module) on a standalone box and just e-mail it to the client. It’s simple as that.

On closing we must get this pre conceived notion off our head – India is NOT the only place where remote development can be done. Why not try Australia.

Marlon Von Hagt
Ozzyware Pty Ltd
Melbourne - Australia
[email protected]
www.ozzyware.com.au
 
Hear hear! Bully!

Yes Ozzy the Aussie! Product packaging et al. is great for major development, and we use remote control for ongoing development. Nothing better than "can you connect in this afternoon and tweek this report and that form?" Too many good things about this.
 
Were you refering to another product that does the same thing as ozzy's Boomerang product? Or were you just supporting ozzy's product? I have asked for a trial version, but is there anyone else who has this type of product? This could revolutionize the way we develop and deploy objects to customers.

This would help bring JDE development closer to the standard software development method: Build Once, deploy everywhere.

Great Stuff!
 
There was another company that was marketing the exact same type of thing
at last year's focus. The product allowed you to save/export projects and
then import them. I don't remember if it worked with the stand alone client
though. I will see if I can locate their information from last year, they
may be there again this year, worth a look.





Xe, Update2, SP16
SQL2k, Win2k
Metaframe 1.8a
 
Re: RE: Offshore development

That would be great! Anything you could find on it would be extremly helpful.

Thanks
 
Scott,

I was referring to the same thing Ozzy’s Boomerang product.

Marlon Von Hagt
 
Re: RE: Offshore development

I have doubts it was as good as Boomerang if nobody have heard about it in a year.

When it comes to the quality, you would want to select the "Best Of Breed" software tools to help you with the job. Power, features, ease of use, stability, support...
 
Check this article on www.ekinsystems.com. If interested you can contact for further information. Good luck with your JDE initiatives.


J.D Edwards Offsite Development

"Selective Outsourcing is a cost effective, hassle free way to obtain dedicated consulting services. eKin Systems, Inc. now offers Offsite software development using J.D. Edwards One World Standard functionality. This Process does not require any modifications to J. Edwards One World software or a need for 3rd Part Package. It is designed for Clients who need long term support to improve staffing, or for short-term project support to fill a temporary need without hiring new employees. Software development is a highly technical job. To develop software in-house requires time, skilled manpower, and expensive programs and equipment. Offsite development is a cost effective alternative to developing software in-house.
eKin Systems, Inc. has developed a robust methodology that allows us to get projects off the floor swiftly and then proceed on a predictable, low risk path for high quality results. This methodology employs our rich portfolio of reusable components and our distributed development model to offer cost and time benefits to our customers. We already have a Offsite Infrastructure set up for this purpose.

The distributed development model is based on our tried and tested methodology that follows these steps:

Initial Requirement Collection & sign Off
Estimates on Time / Effort
Offsite Team Formation
Offsite Development
Onsite Developed Code Distribution
Onsite Testing
Promotion to Subsequent Environments

The various benefits expected out of an offsite development center are summarized below.

Ready Infrastructure available
Leverage a disciplined quality Methodology
Access to a large pool of skilled professionals
Access to diversified skill sets
Lower cost to customer
Shortened development cycles
 
Another possibility

Hi
There is another possibility:
You could train yourselve or your employees in developing programs and reports. Of course you need a lot of time but you can do everything as you want.

We went live at January 2002. And because of the costs we only have made things we really needed.
After a year the keyusers had more and more time because most things are working well and so we expanded OneWorld with many new functions.

Perhaps you could work for about one year with the given programms in JDE and after your peoples became acquainted with JDE your could optimize and expand the different modules.

Regards
cyberscout
 
Here We are to Serve You

Hi
We are a leading top 5 company in India.We like to have a detailed discussion regarding this.
We have already executed many ERP Offshore projects.
Pl.give your contact details.We would like to get in touch with you.
Lookimg forward to your response.
Regards
 
Ths success of offshore development depends upon how well the project is managed by the outsourcing company. Even if the portion of work is outsources the project management activities should rest with the outsourcing org. However, various factors like connectivity, language difference etc.also plays an important role. You may find plethora of developers locally or nearby places but if you consider the cost benefit by outsourcing it to India its phenominal. If any one has doubts on and to understand how offshore development works please email me.

Regards
 
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