Today, almost every business has teams spread across the globe helping build and support it’s products. These could be direct or indirect sourcing products and services, to ensure that they are sourced from locations where it makes the most sense.

This basic principle is widely used in building technology teams of businesses. However, the right ratio of technology teams in-house (as employees in your firm), onsite (as consultants working in your firm) and offshore (as consultants working in a different location) varies based on industry, scale of operations, lifecycle of the project, project requirement details etc. A few thoughts in this blog would help you get an overview into the advantages of each team, to help optimally build your in-house, onsite and offshore technology teams.

In-house teams:

• Having a strong in-house team is a must as part of a long term IT strategyfor any organization. This team is the primary driver of the company IT strategy.
• In-house team can work across different departments of their firm to understand requirements and build development stories accordingly. They can also be the point of contact for discussions with the external teams/vendors.
• In-house teams help in keeping the core technology strength within the firmand are primarily responsible foryour product management.
• In-house technology teams are more responsive to your needs. And for IT hardware infrastructure management, physical presence is a must.

Onsite teams:

• An onsite team gives you the ability to work closely with an external software development company, who would deploy resources in your office, or at offices located near your firm. Onsite teamsmake sense for a company that doesn’t have the resources/skill sets to do the development or the know-how to even start.
• An onsite technology teamis the best option when you need specialized / niche skills for comparatively shorter durations of work and when the consultants require to interface with multiple departments for meetings and brainstorming sessions within the firm. Alsothis helps them to contribute to the overall IT strategy and recommend solutions along with discussions with C level executives at the firm.
• Onsite / onshore teams are required primarily at the initial stages of projects for requirement discussions, IT solutions recommendations, and software requirement specifications (SRS) development. And onsite support teams are required near the end of the project during the deployment, support and knowledge transfer phase.

Offshore teams:

• Offshore outsourcing isbest when you need a team to implement the company IT strategy once the broad direction is in place. It’s a good option if your firm is planning to do larger scale development and multiple resources across skill sets are required for the same.
• This is useful to find top talented people across technology skill domains while limiting employer liability and costs. Ensure there are regular (daily) standup video conferencing meetings between the in-house team and the offshore technology teamsto build cohesion in the teams and ensure maximum productivity. Also, ensure development and maintenance processes are setup using appropriate software development tools to help with development across multiple locations.
• The most effective offshore software development teams today would closely resemble onsite and in-house teams in several ways:
• Expertise in recommending and implementing appropriate industry technology solutions and driving IT strategy (rather than simply implementing it)
• Having a good understanding of your industry, and local target audience.
• Having strong project management expertise, besides technical expertise
• Ability to workin your time zone, and provide round the clock support.
• Availability forvideo conferencemeetings in HD at any time
• Availability for phone discussions at any time on their direct extensions
• Access to the same (or similar) hardware, network and overall IT and company infrastructure that is available to your in-house teams.
• Being a good culture fit within your company culture and in-house/ onsite teams