Consulting and IT Services from GrayCell focus on defining, optimizing and aligning our client's business strategy with IT initiatives. We believe that business and technology work hand-in-hand. A proper understanding of this synthesis motivates every engagement, enabling us to deliver technology solutions that give you a decisive competitive advantage.

Outsourcing Challenges

Though outsourcing can provide companies with the ability to maximize resources, minimize expenses and handle short-term projects without taking on long-term commitments and liabilities, many companies view outsourcing in a negative light. We must recognize that negative perceptions of outsourcing are generally the result of failed outsourcing attempts. Outsourcing failure can be the result of one or more of the following factors:

• Expectations Mismatch - Ambiguous objectives and poor communications can lead to a gap between what the client expects of the company providing the outsourcing and what is in fact provided.

• Low Productivity/ Poor Quality- The standards for quality and productivity can vary greatly from company to company. That, and the transfer of control by the company that is outsourcing to the company that is providing the outsourcing solutions, can result in misunderstandings about productivity and quality standards.

• Inappropriate Staffing - Staffing levels may be too high or too low to address a particular problem and disproportionate to the value of a project, i.e. a $20 solution to a $5 problem. The organizational structure may also be inappropriate to handle the task at hand, i.e. the right number of people, but with the wrong skill sets or vice versa.

• Misunderstanding Communication/Management Overhead - Often in outsourcing scenarios, the responsibilities for task completion and the chain of command are ambiguous, resulting in miscommunications, poor information flow, and a lack of accountability.

• Missing Team Synergy - In many outsourcing situations, the in-house component of the team and the out-sourced component are not working in conjunction with each other, or worse, are actively competing with each other. This can lead to a duplication of efforts and a lack of focus that hurts the end result.
  

The prevalence of these outsourcing pitfalls clearly indicates the need for carefully designed situation-appropriate Engagement Models.

At GrayCell, we treat every project and every client problem as our own project and our own problem. We work vigorously to resolve problems and issues, striving to complete projects ahead of schedule and under budget whenever possible.
What makes this possible is our proactive planning, as brought to fruition in our Engagement Model Approach. When crafting an Engagement Model, we consider the following factors:

• Organizational Culture
  
• Nature of Work
  - Implementation, Development, Maintenance, Production Support
  
• Tactical / Strategic Requirements
  - Market Pressures / Obligations
  - Status of Various Projects
  - Resource Availability
  - Available Management Bandwidth
  
• Process Maturity

Engagement Model Dimensions

GrayCell partners with you to structure our Engagement around the five dimensions that will drive the costs for, and benefits of, your project. The exact choices made on the five dimensions are dependent on your unique situational factors.

1. Management Involvement

• Choose which level of control makes the best sense:
  -Black Box - you outsource both the work and the management of the work to us
  -White Box - we provide the workers, you provide the supervisions
  -Gray Box - a combination approach that clearly defines supervisory roles

• Structure of Communications Management: we work with you to define where various meetings will take place, the frequency of these meetings, the agendas, participants and the minutes template. We also define the escalation paths, clearly defining the people involved and their contact numbers.
  

2. Onsite / Offsite / Offshore Mix

• Chose from completely onsite, completely offshore or a mix at multiple-shores.

3. Engagement Duration

• Chose from
  -Long Duration Capacity Model - suited for production support, application maintenance,
   and for strategic cost efficiency reasons
  -Fixed/Shorter Duration Project Model - suited for implementations and upgrades, or  projects with well defined functional objectives
• Offshore Infrastructure Investment costs will depend on the duration
  -For example, determine the need for replicating development / test environments

4. Resource Skills

• Technology: ERP/CRM, Oracle, Java/J2EE, .NET
  
• Experience: Programmer, Senior Consultant, Architect

5. Team Size

• Number and skill levels of individuals needed