This is one of the successful techniques in IT outsourcing and has several benefits. If you can afford the costs this is the fastest way to help develop some good SME skills on your offshore teams, building the camaraderie, sharing expectations, transitioning projects, handing off support, explaining design and development strategy, test methodology just to name a few.

It gets a bit expensive if you are sending few resources from US or Europe for example. For those visiting India, the IT outsourcing hub, Temporary accommodations are not readily available or convenient so you will ending putting your staff in 3 or 5 start hotels which can be much expensive then rooms back home racking up costs. Add to these costs Visa, and healthcare insurance and other incidental costs. Some of the enterprising staff have charged the cost of visiting Taj Mahal also into their office budgets – so keep an eye.

There are lots of clients that do this on a regular basis, often encouraging movement of people on both sides. It depends on how we use this technique. Take for example a large projects with a huge offshore component really merits a visit to transition requirements or design, and set upfront expectations, align teams and establish communications and reporting protocols.

The ability to develop those personal connections is another important benefit. The feedback that you get being physically there is not something you can read in an email or gauge from a series of phone calls or video calls. Inspite of all the collaboration tools, the ability to video conference etc. there is nothing that beats that personal touch and getting the feedback and assessing what you have at offshore – after all that is an extension of your work space isn’t it?