Right And Wrong Reasons To Work With Tier Two Offshore Providers

As companies focus on deriving more business value from their IT services suppliers, they find that specialists often provide niche, deep domain capability and flexibility that is tough to find in top service providers. Identifying a true specialist in the crowded offshore market is difficult, and clients need to focus on factors like the vendors' intellectual property (IP), teams of domain experts, prebuilt set of business-relevant solutions, and benefits beyond labor arbitrage. In order to leverage these specialists in tandem with top offshore generalists — who offer high-volume services at lower rates — sourcing and vendor management (SVM) professionals should learn new ways to engage and encourage specialists. SVM executives also need to keep an eye on specialists' investment plans to ensure the continued development of solutions to solve tomorrow's problems. This will help clients select long-term partners and avoid surprise if today's specialist becomes a generalist over time.