Offshore Agile Comes Of Age

Getting software products and services to market quickly, with the highest levels of quality, is a major business requirement in the age of the customer. Over the past few years, Forrester has seen more IT clients interested in accessing the "distributed Agile" capabilities of their IT services partners. They're doing this as way to improve their relationship with the business by better addressing requirements through frequent feedback and cutting product development costs, while also maintaining high standards for flexibility, nimbleness, and time-to-market. Accessing and managing Agile services, however, presents new challenges for sourcing leadership. We spoke to 18 India-centric offshore IT suppliers in order to assess the Agile-readiness of these providers, the changing pricing models in offshore relationships, and the investments required from both the vendors' and the clients' side for making distributed Agile development successful. This report shows that while many offshore providers are claiming to be making the move to Agile, smart buyers still need to ask tough questions — of vendors and of themselves — before signing up.